The first option is your image is a more stripped down/bare bones Linux image while the second includes commonly used packages/tools that are used when creating hosted services (such as AWS command line tools and Ruby).
I have an Amazon Linux 2 AMI (HVM), SSD Volume Type and you can see that extra packages like java and ruby are not installed.

Enhanced developer productivity
Amazon Linux 2 is offered as a virtual machine and container image for on-premises development and testing. Developers can speed up their application development by building, testing, and integrating on the same Linux distribution that is used in their production environment.
Optimized performance
Amazon Linux 2 includes support for the latest Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance capabilities and is tuned for enhanced performance. It includes packages that help ease integration with other AWS services.
Large partner network
Amazon Linux 2 has a rapidly growing community of AWS Partners that includes independent software vendors (ISVs). You can install and run many popular partner applications.
The first option is your image is a more stripped down/bare bones Linux image while the second includes commonly used packages/tools that are used when creating hosted services (such as AWS command line tools and Ruby).
I have an Amazon Linux 2 AMI (HVM), SSD Volume Type and you can see that extra packages like java and ruby are not installed.

The primary differences between Amazon Linux 2 and Amazon Linux AMI are:
- Amazon Linux 2 offers long-term support until June 30, 2023.
- Amazon Linux 2 is available as virtual machine images for on-premises development and testing.
- Amazon Linux 2 provides the systemd service and systems manager as opposed to System V init system in Amazon Linux AMI.
- Amazon Linux 2 comes with an updated Linux kernel, C library, compiler, and tools.
- Amazon Linux 2 provides the ability to install additional software packages through the extras mechanism.
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You can use /etc/os-release file to get the info about Amazon Linux Version, the machine is running.
In case of Amazon 1
[ec2-user@ip-x-x-x- ~]$ cat /etc/os-release NAME="Amazon Linux AMI" VERSION="2018.03" ID="amzn" ID_LIKE="rhel fedora" VERSION_ID="2018.03" PRETTY_NAME="Amazon Linux AMI 2018.03" ANSI_COLOR="0;33" CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:amazon:linux:2018.03:ga" HOME_URL="http://aws.amazon.com/amazon-linux-ami/"In case of Amazon 2
[ec2-user@x-x-x-x ~]$ cat /etc/system-release Amazon Linux release 2.0 (2017.12) LTS Release Candidate [ec2-user@fresh-amazon-host ~]$ cat /etc/os-release NAME="Amazon Linux" VERSION="2.0 (2017.12)" ID="amzn" ID_LIKE="centos rhel fedora" VERSION_ID="2.0" PRETTY_NAME="Amazon Linux 2.0 (2017.12) LTS Release Candidate" ANSI_COLOR="0;33" CPE_NAME="cpe:2.3:o:amazon:amazon_linux:2.0" HOME_URL="https://amazonlinux.com/"
As you can clearly see the two different versions, mentioned as Amazon Linux and Amazon Linux 2.0
$ cat /etc/system-release
or
$ cat /etc/issue
or
$ uname -a
and head for https://aws.amazon.com/amazon-linux-ami/
I understand that Amazon Linux AMI comes with a bundle of apps that might be useful for integration with AWS.
Apart from that, is there any reason to choose Amazon Linux over Ubuntu or Debian?
Is Amazon Linux more secure, or faster, lighter, more performant at networking , etc than Ubuntu LTS?