[python] Difference in boto3 between resource, client, and session?

I'll try and explain it as simple as possible. So there is no guarantee of the accuracy of the actual terms.

Session is where to initiate the connectivity to AWS services. E.g. following is default session that uses the default credential profile(e.g. ~/.aws/credentials, or assume your EC2 using IAM instance profile )

sqs = boto3.client('sqs')
s3 = boto3.resource('s3')

Because default session is limit to the profile or instance profile used, sometimes you need to use the custom session to override the default session configuration (e.g. region_name, endpoint_url, etc. ) e.g.

# custom resource session must use boto3.Session to do the override
my_west_session = boto3.Session(region_name = 'us-west-2')
my_east_session = boto3.Session(region_name = 'us-east-1')
backup_s3 = my_west_session.resource('s3')
video_s3 = my_east_session.resource('s3')

# you have two choices of create custom client session. 
backup_s3c = my_west_session.client('s3')
video_s3c = boto3.client("s3", region_name = 'us-east-1')

Resource : This is the high-level service class recommended to be used. This allows you to tied particular AWS resources and passes it along, so you just use this abstraction than worry which target services are pointed to. As you notice from the session part, if you have a custom session, you just pass this abstract object than worrying about all custom regions,etc to pass along. Following is a complicated example E.g.

import boto3 
my_west_session = boto3.Session(region_name = 'us-west-2')
my_east_session = boto3.Session(region_name = 'us-east-1')
backup_s3 = my_west_session.resource("s3")
video_s3 = my_east_session.resource("s3")
backup_bucket = backup_s3.Bucket('backupbucket') 
video_bucket = video_s3.Bucket('videobucket')

# just pass the instantiated bucket object
def list_bucket_contents(bucket):
   for object in bucket.objects.all():
      print(object.key)

list_bucket_contents(backup_bucket)
list_bucket_contents(video_bucket)

Client is a low level class object. For each client call, you need to explicitly specify the targeting resources, the designated service target name must be pass long. You will lose the abstraction ability.

For example, if you only deal with the default session, this looks similar to boto3.resource.

import boto3 
s3 = boto3.client('s3')

def list_bucket_contents(bucket_name):
   for object in s3.list_objects_v2(Bucket=bucket_name) :
      print(object.key)

list_bucket_contents('Mybucket') 

However, if you want to list objects from a bucket in different regions, you need to specify the explicit bucket parameter required for the client.

import boto3 
backup_s3 = my_west_session.client('s3',region_name = 'us-west-2')
video_s3 = my_east_session.client('s3',region_name = 'us-east-1')

# you must pass boto3.Session.client and the bucket name 
def list_bucket_contents(s3session, bucket_name):
   response = s3session.list_objects_v2(Bucket=bucket_name)
   if 'Contents' in response:
     for obj in response['Contents']:
        print(obj['key'])

list_bucket_contents(backup_s3, 'backupbucket')
list_bucket_contents(video_s3 , 'videobucket')