{"slug": "aws", "name": "AWS", "category": "infra", "category_name": "Infrastructure and DevOps", "description": "Amazon's cloud computing platform offering compute, storage, databases and many managed services.", "recommenders": 9, "commenters": 34, "warners": 17, "score": -5.423, "rising": -2.95, "first": "2025-11-04", "latest": "2026-10-31", "why": "HN commenters credit AWS with strong reliability and isolated regions, and use it for very cheap hosting of tiny projects and real cloud environments for integration tests.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 9, "neutral": 7, "compare": 1, "warn": 17}, "spark": [2, 1, 0, 2, 2, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["Reliability", "Cheap tiny projects"], "caveat": "Unpredictable bills", "short_quote": "I've been running on AWS for the past eight years.  It costs more, but it's been extraordinarily reliable.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://aws.amazon.com", "pricing": "freemium", "aliases": ["AWS"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters credit AWS with strong reliability and isolated regions,", "cites": [{"id": 751537440, "item_id": 46971090, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46971090", "by": "anonymousiam", "date": "2026-02-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been running on AWS for the past eight years.  It costs more, but it's been extraordinarily reliable.", "excerpt": "For about 15 years beginning in 2003 I had some VPSs with CrystalTech/NewTek. I noticed right away that they had blocked all port 23 traffic in/out of their edge. I asked them about it and they said it was a security measure. Apparently they used telnet for managing their routers. It turned out that they did not have very good security anyway. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/domain-theft-strands-thousands-of-web-", "context": "", "use_case": "VPS hosting", "switched_from": "A2 Hosting", "story": "The Day the Telnet Died"}, {"id": 739664049, "item_id": 46229003, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46229003", "by": "sofixa", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "even an entire AWS region being down has no impact on anything else", "excerpt": "> I love how people think Azure is somehow worse than AWS when the latter isn't even a single portal, it's many, each of which shows just one product in one region Yep, which means that even an entire AWS region being down has no impact on anything else. Unlike Azure where a single DC in Texas being out meant no auth for anyone, anywhere in the world. And aren't Azure and O365 infamous for having a convoluted web or ", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration"}]}, {"text": " and use it for very cheap hosting of tiny projects and real cloud environments for integration tests.", "cites": [{"id": 733169008, "item_id": 45823063, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45823063", "by": "Proofread0592", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it costs less money to host on AWS", "excerpt": "Engineering is all tradeoffs. For this guy who spent thousands per month on AWS, using AWS makes no sense. For a guy like me whose AWS bill was 38 cents last month, AWS makes a lot of sense. Currently I have a small KaiOS app with about 1000 unique visitors per month hosted on AWS. I used to self-host on an old laptop, but it costs less money to host on AWS (1 kwh cost me 19.89 cents and my laptop uses about 4.5kwh p", "context": "small-scale hobby project with about 1000 monthly visitors", "use_case": "hosting small KaiOS app", "switched_from": "self-hosting on an old laptop", "story": "I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of dollars"}, {"id": 761539649, "item_id": 47596228, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47596228", "by": "robshippr", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we just switched to short-lived real AWS environments for integration tests", "excerpt": "The real issue with LocalStack was always drift. Tests pass locally, then something breaks in staging because the S3 response format is slightly different or DynamoDB throttling doesn't match. After getting burned enough times we just switched to short-lived real AWS environments for integration tests. More expensive, but way fewer surprises in prod.", "context": "", "use_case": "integration test environments", "switched_from": "LocalStack", "story": "MiniStack (replacement for LocalStack)"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is unpredictable bills that are hard to estimate or cap,", "cites": [{"id": 799622032, "item_id": 49976377, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49976377", "by": "stuaxo", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "stay away from cloud services especially AWS because it's hard to reason about where it will come from", "excerpt": "Yeah I want the hard budget limit, I absolutely don't want a suprise mega bill and as such stay away from cloud services especially AWS because it's hard to reason about where it will come from.", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "We're going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything"}, {"id": 783280113, "item_id": 48955007, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48955007", "by": "ngsevers", "date": "2026-07-17", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I still had no idea what anything would cost. At some point it just became clear to me that they intentionally designed it this way", "excerpt": "After 10 years of building on AWS infra I still had no idea what anything would cost. At some point it just became clear to me that they intentionally designed it this way and that complexity is the feature. I switched to digital ocean last year and really haven't had to think about infrastructure again.", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud infrastructure", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS: Inaccurate Estimated Billing Data - $1.7 BILLION"}, {"id": 735706144, "item_id": 45981634, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45981634", "by": "joshtbradley", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love AWS for many things, but I really wish they made the cost calculations transparent for beginners.", "excerpt": "I did this when I was ~22 messing with infra for the first time. A $300 bill in two days when I had $2000 in the bank really stung. I love AWS for many things, but I really wish they made the cost calculations transparent for beginners.", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud infrastructure", "switched_from": "", "story": "A $1k AWS mistake"}, {"id": 757945168, "item_id": 47371573, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47371573", "by": "nitwit005", "date": "2026-03-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "No student should ever enter personal payment information into AWS.", "excerpt": "> I used to feel this. Old you was right. No student should ever enter personal payment information into AWS. You cannot afford the mistake. They have chosen not to make a safe way to use it without financial risks.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "You deleted everything and AWS is still charging you?"}, {"id": 790187568, "item_id": 49386723, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49386723", "by": "GuestFAUniverse", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Just because AWS is a failure in this regard, doesn't mean there aren't alternatives with fixed prices", "excerpt": "I love the fact that devs are still complaining that invoices are able to grow from $300 to $1000+ How can anyone use a platform where this is even an issue? Just because AWS is a failure in this regard, doesn't mean there aren't alternatives with fixed prices or others with easily settable limits.", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud billing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Codex on AWS bedrock bug causing 10x charges"}]}, {"text": " followed by a confusing console and high prices compared with simpler hosts.", "cites": [{"id": 799205184, "item_id": 49950324, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49950324", "by": "gentlerain", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "It's really in top 5 messy UI i have ever seen.", "excerpt": "I have been using AWS more recently but something I can't believe is how the whole UI/UX revolution of the last 10 or so years escaped them. Starting from the login point, who asks to login to root or IAM user account in 2026? Or having to change regions from a dropdown to see resources you own in those regions? It's really in top 5 messy UI i have ever seen.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We're going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything"}, {"id": 733153779, "item_id": 45822111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822111", "by": "jwr", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "warn", "quote": "setting anything up in AWS or Azure is horribly complicated and the UIs are terrible", "excerpt": "This is all correct. I've been running my own servers for many years now, keeping things simple and saving a lot of money and time (setting anything up in AWS or Azure is horribly complicated and the UIs are terrible). One thing to remember is that you do need to treat your servers as \"cloud servers\" in the sense that you should be able to re-generate your entire setup from your configuration at any time, given a bun", "context": "runs own servers for many years, runs a business", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of dollars"}, {"id": 753510816, "item_id": 47094426, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47094426", "by": "jurschreuder", "date": "2026-02-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it costs 20 cars on AWS", "excerpt": "We also switched to Europe it's now 5x cheaper and the servers are 4x more powerful. I recommend switching to European cloud if only to not have to think twice about getting 3x redundant servers with 32gb ram. Trivial for anything you'd buy yourself but it costs 20 cars on AWS.", "context": "startup that switched to European infrastructure", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure"}, {"id": 737502369, "item_id": 46093898, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46093898", "by": "aristofun", "date": "2025-11-29", "stance": "warn", "quote": "overpriced or overengineered. Often both (looking at you, aws, gcs, azure).", "excerpt": "Hetzner Because others are overpriced or overengineered. Often both (looking at you, aws, gcs, azure).", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Which cloud provider do you like best and why?"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Reliability", "summary": "Commenters call it extraordinarily reliable, note that one region going down doesn't affect the others, and trust it as the market leader.", "quotes": [{"id": 751537440, "item_id": 46971090, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46971090", "by": "anonymousiam", "date": "2026-02-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been running on AWS for the past eight years.  It costs more, but it's been extraordinarily reliable.", "excerpt": "For about 15 years beginning in 2003 I had some VPSs with CrystalTech/NewTek. I noticed right away that they had blocked all port 23 traffic in/out of their edge. I asked them about it and they said it was a security measure. Apparently they used telnet for managing their routers. It turned out that they did not have very good security anyway. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/domain-theft-strands-thousands-of-web-", "context": "", "use_case": "VPS hosting", "switched_from": "A2 Hosting", "story": "The Day the Telnet Died"}, {"id": 739664049, "item_id": 46229003, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46229003", "by": "sofixa", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "even an entire AWS region being down has no impact on anything else", "excerpt": "> I love how people think Azure is somehow worse than AWS when the latter isn't even a single portal, it's many, each of which shows just one product in one region Yep, which means that even an entire AWS region being down has no impact on anything else. Unlike Azure where a single DC in Texas being out meant no auth for anyone, anywhere in the world. And aren't Azure and O365 infamous for having a convoluted web or ", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration"}, {"id": 783188512, "item_id": 48949282, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48949282", "by": "tete", "date": "2026-07-17", "stance": "warn", "quote": "We use their services cause we can trust that they know what they are doing.", "excerpt": "It's okay. They are market leaders. And we use their services cause we can trust that they know what they are doing.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS: Inaccurate Estimated Billing Data - $1.7 BILLION"}]}, {"label": "Cheap tiny projects", "summary": "Very small projects can cost cents a month, and there is a free tier with credits.", "quotes": [{"id": 733169008, "item_id": 45823063, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45823063", "by": "Proofread0592", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it costs less money to host on AWS", "excerpt": "Engineering is all tradeoffs. For this guy who spent thousands per month on AWS, using AWS makes no sense. For a guy like me whose AWS bill was 38 cents last month, AWS makes a lot of sense. Currently I have a small KaiOS app with about 1000 unique visitors per month hosted on AWS. I used to self-host on an old laptop, but it costs less money to host on AWS (1 kwh cost me 19.89 cents and my laptop uses about 4.5kwh p", "context": "small-scale hobby project with about 1000 monthly visitors", "use_case": "hosting small KaiOS app", "switched_from": "self-hosting on an old laptop", "story": "I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of dollars"}, {"id": 759792577, "item_id": 47487036, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47487036", "by": "raw_anon_1111", "date": "2026-03-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "If you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, AWS can bite you in the ass.", "excerpt": "You don\u2019t need Claude. I use codex-cli daily with my $20 a month ChatGPT subscription and never approached any limits. AWS has a real Fred tier now as of 6/2025 where you get a $100 credit in addition to the other free stuff - Lambda up to a certain limit every month, free EC2 hours etc. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/free-tier.html But be careful. If you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, AW", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How to get free/cheap Claude and AWS credits"}]}, {"label": "Replaces hosting layers", "summary": "Teams move from hosting platforms like Netlify and Heroku straight onto AWS.", "quotes": [{"id": 774966673, "item_id": 48435417, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48435417", "by": "lampe3", "date": "2026-06-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Services like netlify who are a layer on top of AWS are no longer needed.", "excerpt": "just last week we moved away from netlify to our own solution on AWS. Services like netlify who are a layer on top of AWS are no longer needed.", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "Netlify", "story": "Netlify CTO Dana Lawson: Writing code is no longer the job"}, {"id": 750777329, "item_id": 46923583, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46923583", "by": "muzani", "date": "2026-02-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Decided this is the time to make the switch over to AWS.", "excerpt": "I've had a zombie project running on this for many years now. I used to charge people about $25 for 'lifetime', but there's only about ~10 regular users on it, so I try to keep it alive. Decided this is the time to make the switch over to AWS. They've been rather painful with cancellation. They required all dynos be downgraded to \"Eco\". Fine. But this downgrade also incurred another $5 charge which they now required ", "context": "runs a small zombie project", "use_case": "hosting a side project", "switched_from": "Heroku", "story": "An Update on Heroku"}]}, {"label": "Real test environments", "summary": "Short-lived real AWS environments catch problems that local emulators like LocalStack miss.", "quotes": [{"id": 761539649, "item_id": 47596228, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47596228", "by": "robshippr", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we just switched to short-lived real AWS environments for integration tests", "excerpt": "The real issue with LocalStack was always drift. Tests pass locally, then something breaks in staging because the S3 response format is slightly different or DynamoDB throttling doesn't match. After getting burned enough times we just switched to short-lived real AWS environments for integration tests. More expensive, but way fewer surprises in prod.", "context": "", "use_case": "integration test environments", "switched_from": "LocalStack", "story": "MiniStack (replacement for LocalStack)"}]}, {"label": "Better than GCP", "summary": "One commenter prefers it to GCP and calls RDS stable and easy to manage.", "quotes": [{"id": 753321409, "item_id": 47082588, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47082588", "by": "0xbadcafebee", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "AWS is much better.", "excerpt": "Using GCP gives me the same feeling as vibe-coded source code. Technically works but deeply unsettling. Unless GCP is somehow saving you boatloads of cash, AWS is much better. RDS is a very quick way to expand your bill, followed by EC2, followed by S3. RDS for production is great, but you should avoid the bizarre HN trope of \"Postgres for everything\" with RDS. It makes your database unnecessarily larger which expand", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Almost Every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret after 4 years"}]}, {"label": "Learning by doing", "summary": "Hobby projects on AWS taught one commenter networking, VPCs, IAM and CloudWatch.", "quotes": [{"id": 776027824, "item_id": 48501739, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48501739", "by": "dannyw", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I learned a lot of stuff about networking, how AWS works (VPCs, IAM, CloudWatch, etc)", "excerpt": "I couldn't disagree more. I was playing around with AWS when I was probably 14 years old, with a credit card from my parents with consent, and a strict budget and the understanding that if I mess up and overspend, I'm getting disciplined. I learned a lot of stuff about networking, how AWS works (VPCs, IAM, CloudWatch, etc) from trial and error, and hobby projects like personal websites (free tier), hosting a Minecraf", "context": "", "use_case": "learning cloud, hobby projects", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI Agent Bankrupted Their Operator While Trying to Scan DN42"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Unpredictable bills", "summary": "Costs are hard to predict and hard to cap, and beginners can run up surprise bills.", "quotes": [{"id": 783280113, "item_id": 48955007, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48955007", "by": "ngsevers", "date": "2026-07-17", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I still had no idea what anything would cost. At some point it just became clear to me that they intentionally designed it this way", "excerpt": "After 10 years of building on AWS infra I still had no idea what anything would cost. At some point it just became clear to me that they intentionally designed it this way and that complexity is the feature. I switched to digital ocean last year and really haven't had to think about infrastructure again.", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud infrastructure", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS: Inaccurate Estimated Billing Data - $1.7 BILLION"}, {"id": 799622032, "item_id": 49976377, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49976377", "by": "stuaxo", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "stay away from cloud services especially AWS because it's hard to reason about where it will come from", "excerpt": "Yeah I want the hard budget limit, I absolutely don't want a suprise mega bill and as such stay away from cloud services especially AWS because it's hard to reason about where it will come from.", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "We're going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything"}, {"id": 735706144, "item_id": 45981634, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45981634", "by": "joshtbradley", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love AWS for many things, but I really wish they made the cost calculations transparent for beginners.", "excerpt": "I did this when I was ~22 messing with infra for the first time. A $300 bill in two days when I had $2000 in the bank really stung. I love AWS for many things, but I really wish they made the cost calculations transparent for beginners.", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud infrastructure", "switched_from": "", "story": "A $1k AWS mistake"}]}, {"label": "Confusing UI", "summary": "The console, documentation and IAM setup are described as messy and complicated.", "quotes": [{"id": 799205184, "item_id": 49950324, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49950324", "by": "gentlerain", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "It's really in top 5 messy UI i have ever seen.", "excerpt": "I have been using AWS more recently but something I can't believe is how the whole UI/UX revolution of the last 10 or so years escaped them. Starting from the login point, who asks to login to root or IAM user account in 2026? Or having to change regions from a dropdown to see resources you own in those regions? It's really in top 5 messy UI i have ever seen.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We're going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything"}, {"id": 733153779, "item_id": 45822111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822111", "by": "jwr", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "warn", "quote": "setting anything up in AWS or Azure is horribly complicated and the UIs are terrible", "excerpt": "This is all correct. I've been running my own servers for many years now, keeping things simple and saving a lot of money and time (setting anything up in AWS or Azure is horribly complicated and the UIs are terrible). One thing to remember is that you do need to treat your servers as \"cloud servers\" in the sense that you should be able to re-generate your entire setup from your configuration at any time, given a bun", "context": "runs own servers for many years, runs a business", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of dollars"}, {"id": 805026785, "item_id": 50314174, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50314174", "by": "jillesvangurp", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I've always referred to AWS documentation as a maze of misdirection.", "excerpt": "Skills that you need come and go. I owned a commodore 64 once and knew how to use it. All gone. I fired up an emulator a few years ago and then had a big \"now what moment\" where I realized I had no clue what to do with it. I had a vague memory of inserting tapes and issuing commands to load stuff from it. Function keys were important. And there was a manual I once had that explained it all. But no muscle memory. Noth", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud infrastructure", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI isn't replacing SREs, it's deskilling them"}]}, {"label": "High prices", "summary": "Several commenters call it overpriced compared with Hetzner or European clouds, and object to charges like the public IPv4 fee.", "quotes": [{"id": 753510816, "item_id": 47094426, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47094426", "by": "jurschreuder", "date": "2026-02-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it costs 20 cars on AWS", "excerpt": "We also switched to Europe it's now 5x cheaper and the servers are 4x more powerful. I recommend switching to European cloud if only to not have to think twice about getting 3x redundant servers with 32gb ram. Trivial for anything you'd buy yourself but it costs 20 cars on AWS.", "context": "startup that switched to European infrastructure", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure"}, {"id": 737502369, "item_id": 46093898, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46093898", "by": "aristofun", "date": "2025-11-29", "stance": "warn", "quote": "overpriced or overengineered. Often both (looking at you, aws, gcs, azure).", "excerpt": "Hetzner Because others are overpriced or overengineered. Often both (looking at you, aws, gcs, azure).", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Which cloud provider do you like best and why?"}, {"id": 747119297, "item_id": 46694956, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46694956", "by": "newsoftheday", "date": "2026-01-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Their move disgusted me and I moved from AWS to OCI.", "excerpt": "When AWS rolled out plans to start charging for IPv4 addresses: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-aws-public-ipv4-address-charge-public-ip-insights/ \"As you may know, IPv4 addresses are an increasingly scarce resource and the cost to acquire a single public IPv4 address has risen more than 300% over the past 5 years. This change reflects our own costs and is also intended to encourage you to be a bit more frugal w", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "IP Addresses Through 2025"}]}, {"label": "Recent outages", "summary": "One commenter worries about three outages in as many months.", "quotes": [{"id": 756852656, "item_id": 47303291, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47303291", "by": "panny", "date": "2026-03-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I worry about AWS, having a great track record pre-AI-layoffs, now having outages three times in as many months.", "excerpt": "Why would AI generate source code? Why not generate binaries directly if no one will read it? These days, I worry less about my code containing slop, and more about dependencies I use becoming slopped. I worry about AWS, having a great track record pre-AI-layoffs, now having outages three times in as many months. I can eschew the slop in my own projects, but as this article points out, we all use code and frameworks ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Last Generation to Read Source Code"}]}, {"label": "Account suspension", "summary": "One user's account was suspended, and they left AWS.", "quotes": [{"id": 769353808, "item_id": 48084613, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48084613", "by": "high_byte", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I just accepted this fate and moved away from aws", "excerpt": "similar thing happened to me. I'm not a heavy aws user but wanted to setup some s3 buckets few days ago but my account was suspended for the same reason but unlike OP I just accepted this fate and moved away from aws :)", "context": "not a heavy AWS user", "use_case": "S3 buckets", "switched_from": "", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}]}, {"label": "Regulated compliance", "summary": "For regulated applications, one commenter rates AWS behind Microsoft.", "quotes": [{"id": 785204257, "item_id": 49075266, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49075266", "by": "frognumber", "date": "2026-07-27", "stance": "compare", "quote": "AWS is not bad, but not as good as Microsoft.", "excerpt": "At least for regulated applications I worked on, no one cared. The provider needs to comply with specific rules, have specific certifications, and sign specific agreements. You check the boxes, and you're good to go. Microsoft does that better than anyone. OpenAI and Anthropic don't do that at all. Google does that rarely and poorly. AWS is not bad, but not as good as Microsoft. Azure was always my go-to for regulate", "context": "works on regulated applications", "use_case": "regulated cloud applications", "switched_from": "", "story": "Kimi-K3 Releases on HuggingFace 6/27"}]}], "who": [{"by": "annzabelle", "context": "moved to New Zealand from the US", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49176935", "date": "2026-08-04"}, {"by": "k_kelly", "context": "lives in Europe", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47273566", "date": "2026-03-06"}, {"by": "muzani", "context": "runs a small zombie project", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46923583", "date": "2026-02-07"}, {"by": "Proofread0592", "context": "small-scale hobby project with about 1000 monthly visitors", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45823063", "date": "2025-11-05"}], "tags": ["for integration testing", "for tiny hobby projects", "for client/business workloads", "for large companies"], "use_cases": ["cloud hosting", "cloud infrastructure", "cloud billing", "cloud administration", "deployment target", "regulated cloud applications"], "compared": [{"slug": "azure", "name": "Azure", "co": 9, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "hetzner-cloud", "name": "Hetzner Cloud", "co": 6, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "digitalocean", "name": "DigitalOcean", "co": 6, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "cloudflare", "name": "Cloudflare", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "heroku", "name": "Heroku", "co": 4, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "google-cloud", "name": "Google Cloud", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "cloudflare-workers", "name": "Cloudflare Workers", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45816041", "title": "I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of dollars", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49949235", "title": "We're going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48945241", "title": "AWS: Inaccurate Estimated Billing Data - $1.7 BILLION", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48073201", "title": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45977744", "title": "A $1k AWS mistake", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50305693", "title": "AI isn't replacing SREs, it's deskilling them", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"warn": 4, "recommend": 2}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"warn": 1}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 2, "warn": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 2, "warn": 2, "neutral": 2}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"warn": 2}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 2, "compare": 1}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 2, "warn": 2}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"warn": 3}}, "quotes": [{"id": 805026785, "item_id": 50314174, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50314174", "by": "jillesvangurp", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I've always referred to AWS documentation as a maze of misdirection.", "excerpt": "Skills that you need come and go. I owned a commodore 64 once and knew how to use it. All gone. I fired up an emulator a few years ago and then had a big \"now what moment\" where I realized I had no clue what to do with it. I had a vague memory of inserting tapes and issuing commands to load stuff from it. Function keys were important. And there was a manual I once had that explained it all. But no muscle memory. Noth", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud infrastructure", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI isn't replacing SREs, it's deskilling them"}, {"id": 799622032, "item_id": 49976377, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49976377", "by": "stuaxo", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "stay away from cloud services especially AWS because it's hard to reason about where it will come from", "excerpt": "Yeah I want the hard budget limit, I absolutely don't want a suprise mega bill and as such stay away from cloud services especially AWS because it's hard to reason about where it will come from.", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "We're going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything"}, {"id": 799205184, "item_id": 49950324, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49950324", "by": "gentlerain", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "It's really in top 5 messy UI i have ever seen.", "excerpt": "I have been using AWS more recently but something I can't believe is how the whole UI/UX revolution of the last 10 or so years escaped them. Starting from the login point, who asks to login to root or IAM user account in 2026? Or having to change regions from a dropdown to see resources you own in those regions? It's really in top 5 messy UI i have ever seen.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We're going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything"}, {"id": 790187568, "item_id": 49386723, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49386723", "by": "GuestFAUniverse", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Just because AWS is a failure in this regard, doesn't mean there aren't alternatives with fixed prices", "excerpt": "I love the fact that devs are still complaining that invoices are able to grow from $300 to $1000+ How can anyone use a platform where this is even an issue? Just because AWS is a failure in this regard, doesn't mean there aren't alternatives with fixed prices or others with easily settable limits.", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud billing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Codex on AWS bedrock bug causing 10x charges"}, {"id": 787441633, "item_id": 49215102, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49215102", "by": "terhechte", "date": "2026-08-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "For any horrible web administration UI:", "excerpt": "For any horrible web administration UI: - Apple Appstore Connect (gazillions of forms of metadata to release an app) - AWS - DigitalOcean - Google Play Store Whenever I dread logging in because I know the simple sounding task requires me to click through countless menus I use an agent browser. With confirmations of course. However, while the agent clicks through these (oftentimes dog slow) UIs I can do other things. ", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud administration", "switched_from": "", "story": "Kitesurf: Agent-first browser that runs in V8 isolates"}, {"id": 786877185, "item_id": 49179824, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49179824", "by": "bencehezso", "date": "2026-08-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use both AWS and Azure myself", "excerpt": "I started working on this about 3 years ago as a proof-of-concept. It's still in early stages - I'm building it without external funding, on and off in my spare time. The idea is to somehow measure vendor lock-in with cloud service providers. I'm not against cloud \u2014 I use both AWS and Azure myself \u2014 but relying entirely on US hyperscalers feels like a risk worth being able to quantify. Happy for any feedback!", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Cloudexit \u2013 assess your cloud exit readiness"}, {"id": 786830961, "item_id": 49176935, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49176935", "by": "annzabelle", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've always deployed to AWS via Jenkins", "excerpt": "I moved to New Zealand from the US recently, and the tech industry here is mostly on .NET and Azure. My coworkers keep looking at me like I'm a moron because I've always deployed to AWS via Jenkins and don't know their weird homebrew system to deploy things to our on prem windows servers.", "context": "moved to New Zealand from the US", "use_case": "deployment target", "switched_from": "", "story": "Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc"}, {"id": 785204257, "item_id": 49075266, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49075266", "by": "frognumber", "date": "2026-07-27", "stance": "compare", "quote": "AWS is not bad, but not as good as Microsoft.", "excerpt": "At least for regulated applications I worked on, no one cared. The provider needs to comply with specific rules, have specific certifications, and sign specific agreements. You check the boxes, and you're good to go. Microsoft does that better than anyone. OpenAI and Anthropic don't do that at all. Google does that rarely and poorly. AWS is not bad, but not as good as Microsoft. Azure was always my go-to for regulate", "context": "works on regulated applications", "use_case": "regulated cloud applications", "switched_from": "", "story": "Kimi-K3 Releases on HuggingFace 6/27"}, {"id": 783280113, "item_id": 48955007, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48955007", "by": "ngsevers", "date": "2026-07-17", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I still had no idea what anything would cost. At some point it just became clear to me that they intentionally designed it this way", "excerpt": "After 10 years of building on AWS infra I still had no idea what anything would cost. At some point it just became clear to me that they intentionally designed it this way and that complexity is the feature. I switched to digital ocean last year and really haven't had to think about infrastructure again.", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud infrastructure", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS: Inaccurate Estimated Billing Data - $1.7 BILLION"}, {"id": 783188512, "item_id": 48949282, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48949282", "by": "tete", "date": "2026-07-17", "stance": "warn", "quote": "We use their services cause we can trust that they know what they are doing.", "excerpt": "It's okay. They are market leaders. And we use their services cause we can trust that they know what they are doing.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS: Inaccurate Estimated Billing Data - $1.7 BILLION"}, {"id": 783068002, "item_id": 48941750, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48941750", "by": "Cyrus2050", "date": "2026-07-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "AWS for backend", "excerpt": "I spent 2 decades in corporate America building software for different clients, and in the last 8 years was working as a principal engineer at a unicorn company. But last year, I decided to do something different with my life. It all started when I saw my boss was trying to build a personal website so he could sell his books directly, vs through Amazon, that cost %30+ more. When he asked me to help him, he had alread", "context": "", "use_case": "backend hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI that builds and runs your business, 24/7"}, {"id": 776027824, "item_id": 48501739, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48501739", "by": "dannyw", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I learned a lot of stuff about networking, how AWS works (VPCs, IAM, CloudWatch, etc)", "excerpt": "I couldn't disagree more. I was playing around with AWS when I was probably 14 years old, with a credit card from my parents with consent, and a strict budget and the understanding that if I mess up and overspend, I'm getting disciplined. I learned a lot of stuff about networking, how AWS works (VPCs, IAM, CloudWatch, etc) from trial and error, and hobby projects like personal websites (free tier), hosting a Minecraf", "context": "", "use_case": "learning cloud, hobby projects", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI Agent Bankrupted Their Operator While Trying to Scan DN42"}, {"id": 774966673, "item_id": 48435417, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48435417", "by": "lampe3", "date": "2026-06-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Services like netlify who are a layer on top of AWS are no longer needed.", "excerpt": "just last week we moved away from netlify to our own solution on AWS. Services like netlify who are a layer on top of AWS are no longer needed.", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting", "switched_from": "Netlify", "story": "Netlify CTO Dana Lawson: Writing code is no longer the job"}, {"id": 769448225, "item_id": 48090514, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48090514", "by": "aetherspawn", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Completely agree about AWS", "excerpt": "The one thing that\u2019s good about Microsoft is the support. You can get someone on the phone in less than an hour and they can actually fix the thing. That\u2019s why it\u2019s so far been hard to go past Outlook Plan 1 for (big scale) email hosting. Completely agree about AWS, and we use Cloudflare now, but the jury is kind of out on whether CF is largely going the same way.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "AWS", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}, {"id": 769353808, "item_id": 48084613, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48084613", "by": "high_byte", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I just accepted this fate and moved away from aws", "excerpt": "similar thing happened to me. I'm not a heavy aws user but wanted to setup some s3 buckets few days ago but my account was suspended for the same reason but unlike OP I just accepted this fate and moved away from aws :)", "context": "not a heavy AWS user", "use_case": "S3 buckets", "switched_from": "", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}, {"id": 765167809, "item_id": 47822988, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47822988", "by": "sho", "date": "2026-04-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "if it's someone else's business, I use AWS.", "excerpt": "I use and love Hetzner as well. But you have to go into it eyes open. Concrete example - a month ago I was notified that network infra my systems ran over was going down for maintenance. Public link: https://status.hetzner.com/incident/ff8335b8-6fda-4370-8431-ae50022573fe So, for me that was a production DB, fairly low usage but still. In the end I judged that it was going to take so much time to work around the outa", "context": "", "use_case": "client business hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Migrating from DigitalOcean to Hetzner: From $1,432 to $233 With Zero Downtime"}, {"id": 761539649, "item_id": 47596228, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47596228", "by": "robshippr", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we just switched to short-lived real AWS environments for integration tests", "excerpt": "The real issue with LocalStack was always drift. Tests pass locally, then something breaks in staging because the S3 response format is slightly different or DynamoDB throttling doesn't match. After getting burned enough times we just switched to short-lived real AWS environments for integration tests. More expensive, but way fewer surprises in prod.", "context": "", "use_case": "integration test environments", "switched_from": "LocalStack", "story": "MiniStack (replacement for LocalStack)"}, {"id": 759810497, "item_id": 47488156, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47488156", "by": "s_dev", "date": "2026-03-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "In work we still use AWS", "excerpt": "https://european-alternatives.eu/ I recommend Scaleway for cloud hosting. I recently migrated from Digital Ocean who I really loved, to Scaleway and have I have to say impressed with both dashboard interface and pricing so far. In work we still use AWS but everything is hosted in eu-west (Ireland) in AWS EU Sovereign cloud but not sure how truly compliant this is in a CloudAct vs GDPR showdown. I've yet to migrate fr", "context": "", "use_case": "work hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Migrating to the EU"}, {"id": 759792577, "item_id": 47487036, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47487036", "by": "raw_anon_1111", "date": "2026-03-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "If you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, AWS can bite you in the ass.", "excerpt": "You don\u2019t need Claude. I use codex-cli daily with my $20 a month ChatGPT subscription and never approached any limits. AWS has a real Fred tier now as of 6/2025 where you get a $100 credit in addition to the other free stuff - Lambda up to a certain limit every month, free EC2 hours etc. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/free-tier.html But be careful. If you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, AW", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How to get free/cheap Claude and AWS credits"}, {"id": 757945168, "item_id": 47371573, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47371573", "by": "nitwit005", "date": "2026-03-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "No student should ever enter personal payment information into AWS.", "excerpt": "> I used to feel this. Old you was right. No student should ever enter personal payment information into AWS. You cannot afford the mistake. They have chosen not to make a safe way to use it without financial risks.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "You deleted everything and AWS is still charging you?"}, {"id": 756852656, "item_id": 47303291, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47303291", "by": "panny", "date": "2026-03-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I worry about AWS, having a great track record pre-AI-layoffs, now having outages three times in as many months.", "excerpt": "Why would AI generate source code? Why not generate binaries directly if no one will read it? These days, I worry less about my code containing slop, and more about dependencies I use becoming slopped. I worry about AWS, having a great track record pre-AI-layoffs, now having outages three times in as many months. I can eschew the slop in my own projects, but as this article points out, we all use code and frameworks ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Last Generation to Read Source Code"}, {"id": 756377057, "item_id": 47273566, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47273566", "by": "k_kelly", "date": "2026-03-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Prime, I love AWS", "excerpt": "People shaking their fist at this on hacker news is weird. Yes there is growing wealth inequality in the world. Because we invented a way to turn capital in to more capital without humans. Bezos is just the first of many. He also has on average made other people richer than he has pocketed, he doesn't own more than 50% of Amazon, his investors (shareholders, pension funds, the US government) have all done incredibly ", "context": "lives in Europe", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "How Much Money Jeff Bezos Made Since You Started Reading This Page"}, {"id": 753510816, "item_id": 47094426, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47094426", "by": "jurschreuder", "date": "2026-02-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it costs 20 cars on AWS", "excerpt": "We also switched to Europe it's now 5x cheaper and the servers are 4x more powerful. I recommend switching to European cloud if only to not have to think twice about getting 3x redundant servers with 32gb ram. Trivial for anything you'd buy yourself but it costs 20 cars on AWS.", "context": "startup that switched to European infrastructure", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure"}, {"id": 753321409, "item_id": 47082588, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47082588", "by": "0xbadcafebee", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "AWS is much better.", "excerpt": "Using GCP gives me the same feeling as vibe-coded source code. Technically works but deeply unsettling. Unless GCP is somehow saving you boatloads of cash, AWS is much better. RDS is a very quick way to expand your bill, followed by EC2, followed by S3. RDS for production is great, but you should avoid the bizarre HN trope of \"Postgres for everything\" with RDS. It makes your database unnecessarily larger which expand", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Almost Every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret after 4 years"}, {"id": 751537440, "item_id": 46971090, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46971090", "by": "anonymousiam", "date": "2026-02-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been running on AWS for the past eight years.  It costs more, but it's been extraordinarily reliable.", "excerpt": "For about 15 years beginning in 2003 I had some VPSs with CrystalTech/NewTek. I noticed right away that they had blocked all port 23 traffic in/out of their edge. I asked them about it and they said it was a security measure. Apparently they used telnet for managing their routers. It turned out that they did not have very good security anyway. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/domain-theft-strands-thousands-of-web-", "context": "", "use_case": "VPS hosting", "switched_from": "A2 Hosting", "story": "The Day the Telnet Died"}, {"id": 750777329, "item_id": 46923583, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46923583", "by": "muzani", "date": "2026-02-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Decided this is the time to make the switch over to AWS.", "excerpt": "I've had a zombie project running on this for many years now. I used to charge people about $25 for 'lifetime', but there's only about ~10 regular users on it, so I try to keep it alive. Decided this is the time to make the switch over to AWS. They've been rather painful with cancellation. They required all dynos be downgraded to \"Eco\". Fine. But this downgrade also incurred another $5 charge which they now required ", "context": "runs a small zombie project", "use_case": "hosting a side project", "switched_from": "Heroku", "story": "An Update on Heroku"}, {"id": 747119297, "item_id": 46694956, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46694956", "by": "newsoftheday", "date": "2026-01-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Their move disgusted me and I moved from AWS to OCI.", "excerpt": "When AWS rolled out plans to start charging for IPv4 addresses: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-aws-public-ipv4-address-charge-public-ip-insights/ \"As you may know, IPv4 addresses are an increasingly scarce resource and the cost to acquire a single public IPv4 address has risen more than 300% over the past 5 years. This change reflects our own costs and is also intended to encourage you to be a bit more frugal w", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "IP Addresses Through 2025"}, {"id": 739664049, "item_id": 46229003, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46229003", "by": "sofixa", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "even an entire AWS region being down has no impact on anything else", "excerpt": "> I love how people think Azure is somehow worse than AWS when the latter isn't even a single portal, it's many, each of which shows just one product in one region Yep, which means that even an entire AWS region being down has no impact on anything else. Unlike Azure where a single DC in Texas being out meant no auth for anyone, anywhere in the world. And aren't Azure and O365 infamous for having a convoluted web or ", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration"}, {"id": 737502369, "item_id": 46093898, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46093898", "by": "aristofun", "date": "2025-11-29", "stance": "warn", "quote": "overpriced or overengineered. Often both (looking at you, aws, gcs, azure).", "excerpt": "Hetzner Because others are overpriced or overengineered. Often both (looking at you, aws, gcs, azure).", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Which cloud provider do you like best and why?"}, {"id": 736222176, "item_id": 46013886, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46013886", "by": "sprybear", "date": "2025-11-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I've heard far too many similar stories to feel comfortable recommending it.", "excerpt": "I'm not telling anyone to stay away from AWS, but I've heard far too many similar stories to feel comfortable recommending it.", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "A $1k AWS mistake"}, {"id": 735706144, "item_id": 45981634, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45981634", "by": "joshtbradley", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love AWS for many things, but I really wish they made the cost calculations transparent for beginners.", "excerpt": "I did this when I was ~22 messing with infra for the first time. A $300 bill in two days when I had $2000 in the bank really stung. I love AWS for many things, but I really wish they made the cost calculations transparent for beginners.", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud infrastructure", "switched_from": "", "story": "A $1k AWS mistake"}, {"id": 733169008, "item_id": 45823063, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45823063", "by": "Proofread0592", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it costs less money to host on AWS", "excerpt": "Engineering is all tradeoffs. For this guy who spent thousands per month on AWS, using AWS makes no sense. For a guy like me whose AWS bill was 38 cents last month, AWS makes a lot of sense. Currently I have a small KaiOS app with about 1000 unique visitors per month hosted on AWS. I used to self-host on an old laptop, but it costs less money to host on AWS (1 kwh cost me 19.89 cents and my laptop uses about 4.5kwh p", "context": "small-scale hobby project with about 1000 monthly visitors", "use_case": "hosting small KaiOS app", "switched_from": "self-hosting on an old laptop", "story": "I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of dollars"}, {"id": 733153779, "item_id": 45822111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822111", "by": "jwr", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "warn", "quote": "setting anything up in AWS or Azure is horribly complicated and the UIs are terrible", "excerpt": "This is all correct. I've been running my own servers for many years now, keeping things simple and saving a lot of money and time (setting anything up in AWS or Azure is horribly complicated and the UIs are terrible). One thing to remember is that you do need to treat your servers as \"cloud servers\" in the sense that you should be able to re-generate your entire setup from your configuration at any time, given a bun", "context": "runs own servers for many years, runs a business", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of dollars"}, {"id": 733128385, "item_id": 45820524, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45820524", "by": "skwee357", "date": "2025-11-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I never understood the appeal of AWS like cloud for non corporate.", "excerpt": "I never understood the appeal of AWS like cloud for non corporate. Sure, when you run a BigCo, you have all the money and people to throw at big cloud providers, obtaining pointless certificates, and configuring obscure IAM roles. But why small businesses like them, I can\u2019t I understand. I host all my stuff on Hetzner. It\u2019s easy, it\u2019s affordable and I \u201cmove fast\u201d. I don\u2019t need certificates to be able to manage the se", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of dollars"}]}