boto3.resource is a high-level services class wrap around boto3.client.

It is meant to attach connected resources under where you can later use other resources without specifying the original resource-id.

import boto3
s3 = boto3.resource("s3")
bucket = s3.Bucket('mybucket')

# now bucket is "attached" the S3 bucket name "mybucket"
print(bucket)
# s3.Bucket(name='mybucket')

print(dir(bucket))
#show you all class method action you may perform

OTH, boto3.client are low level, you don't have an "entry-class object", thus you must explicitly specify the exact resources it connects to for every action you perform.

It depends on individual needs. However, boto3.resource doesn't wrap all the boto3.client functionality, so sometime you need to call boto3.client , or use boto3.resource.meta.client to get the job done.

I found a solution to this when trying to mock a different method for the S3 client

import botocore
from mock import patch
import boto3

orig = botocore.client.BaseClient._make_api_call

def mock_make_api_call(self, operation_name, kwarg):
    if operation_name == 'DescribeTags':
        # Your Operation here!
        print(kwarg)
    return orig(self, operation_name, kwarg)

with patch('botocore.client.BaseClient._make_api_call', new=mock_make_api_call):
    client = boto3.client('ec2')
    # Calling describe tags will perform your mocked operation e.g. print args
    e = client.describe_tags()

Hope it helps :)