AWS
Amazon's cloud computing platform offering compute, storage, databases and many managed services.
HN commenters credit AWS with strong reliability and isolated regions,12 and use it for very cheap hosting of tiny projects and real cloud environments for integration tests.34 The most common complaint is unpredictable bills that are hard to estimate or cap,56789 followed by a confusing console and high prices compared with simpler hosts.10111213
Why people recommend it
Reliability · 3
Commenters call it extraordinarily reliable, note that one region going down doesn't affect the others, and trust it as the market leader.
“I've been running on AWS for the past eight years. It costs more, but it's been extraordinarily reliable.”
“even an entire AWS region being down has no impact on anything else”
Show 1 more
“We use their services cause we can trust that they know what they are doing.”
Cheap tiny projects · 2
Very small projects can cost cents a month, and there is a free tier with credits.
“it costs less money to host on AWS”
“If you don’t know what you’re doing, AWS can bite you in the ass.”
Replaces hosting layers · 2
Teams move from hosting platforms like Netlify and Heroku straight onto AWS.
“Services like netlify who are a layer on top of AWS are no longer needed.”
“Decided this is the time to make the switch over to AWS.”
Real test environments · 1
Short-lived real AWS environments catch problems that local emulators like LocalStack miss.
“we just switched to short-lived real AWS environments for integration tests”
Better than GCP · 1
One commenter prefers it to GCP and calls RDS stable and easy to manage.
“AWS is much better.”
Learning by doing · 1
Hobby projects on AWS taught one commenter networking, VPCs, IAM and CloudWatch.
“I learned a lot of stuff about networking, how AWS works (VPCs, IAM, CloudWatch, etc)”
Caveats and dissent
Unpredictable bills · 3
Costs are hard to predict and hard to cap, and beginners can run up surprise bills.
“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”
“stay away from cloud services especially AWS because it's hard to reason about where it will come from”
Show 1 more
“I love AWS for many things, but I really wish they made the cost calculations transparent for beginners.”
Confusing UI · 3
The console, documentation and IAM setup are described as messy and complicated.
“It's really in top 5 messy UI i have ever seen.”
“setting anything up in AWS or Azure is horribly complicated and the UIs are terrible”
Show 1 more
“I've always referred to AWS documentation as a maze of misdirection.”
High prices · 3
Several commenters call it overpriced compared with Hetzner or European clouds, and object to charges like the public IPv4 fee.
“it costs 20 cars on AWS”
“overpriced or overengineered. Often both (looking at you, aws, gcs, azure).”
Show 1 more
“Their move disgusted me and I moved from AWS to OCI.”
Recent outages · 1
One commenter worries about three outages in as many months.
“I worry about AWS, having a great track record pre-AI-layoffs, now having outages three times in as many months.”
Account suspension · 1
One user's account was suspended, and they left AWS.
“I just accepted this fate and moved away from aws”
Regulated compliance · 1
For regulated applications, one commenter rates AWS behind Microsoft.
“AWS is not bad, but not as good as Microsoft.”
Often compared with
1 moved from AWS to Azure
1 moved from AWS to Hetzner Cloud
1 moved from AWS to DigitalOcean
1 moved from AWS to Cloudflare
1 moved from Heroku to AWSGoogle Cloud4 comments mention both
1 moved from AWS to Cloudflare Workers
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of dollars 3 mentions
- We're going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything 2 mentions
- AWS: Inaccurate Estimated Billing Data - $1.7 BILLION 2 mentions
- I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left 2 mentions
- A $1k AWS mistake 2 mentions
- AI isn't replacing SREs, it's deskilling them 1 mention
Data: aws.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 34
“I've always referred to AWS documentation as a maze of misdirection.”
“stay away from cloud services especially AWS because it's hard to reason about where it will come from”
“It's really in top 5 messy UI i have ever seen.”
“Just because AWS is a failure in this regard, doesn't mean there aren't alternatives with fixed prices”
“For any horrible web administration UI:”
“I use both AWS and Azure myself”
“I've always deployed to AWS via Jenkins”
“AWS is not bad, but not as good as Microsoft.”
“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”
“We use their services cause we can trust that they know what they are doing.”
“AWS for backend”
“I learned a lot of stuff about networking, how AWS works (VPCs, IAM, CloudWatch, etc)”
“Services like netlify who are a layer on top of AWS are no longer needed.”
“Completely agree about AWS”
“I just accepted this fate and moved away from aws”
“if it's someone else's business, I use AWS.”
“we just switched to short-lived real AWS environments for integration tests”
“In work we still use AWS”
“If you don’t know what you’re doing, AWS can bite you in the ass.”
“No student should ever enter personal payment information into AWS.”
“I worry about AWS, having a great track record pre-AI-layoffs, now having outages three times in as many months.”
“I love Prime, I love AWS”
“it costs 20 cars on AWS”
“AWS is much better.”
“I've been running on AWS for the past eight years. It costs more, but it's been extraordinarily reliable.”
“Decided this is the time to make the switch over to AWS.”
“Their move disgusted me and I moved from AWS to OCI.”
“even an entire AWS region being down has no impact on anything else”
“overpriced or overengineered. Often both (looking at you, aws, gcs, azure).”
“I've heard far too many similar stories to feel comfortable recommending it.”
“I love AWS for many things, but I really wish they made the cost calculations transparent for beginners.”
“it costs less money to host on AWS”
“setting anything up in AWS or Azure is horribly complicated and the UIs are terrible”
“I never understood the appeal of AWS like cloud for non corporate.”