[_wmd]

This is a short term illusion, with instance reservations and the wider variety of storage options available, AWS can work out cheaper even for small accounts.

Source: spent a several days in December cost modelling a few services for a client, was surprised by the result

[sidlls]

I have been under the impression that structuring a system to use AWS with portability in mind ends up costing as much or more than optimizing the structure for AWS such that one is effectively locked-in at scale. That's a trade-off that has to be factored in to a decision.

I mean granted I've only done rough guesstimates for some toy applications for myself and some friends and family, so I could be totally off base here.

[disiplus]

you can run this yourself with ngnix but if you have everything inside DO then the ability to easily add new droplets is great. create droplets on demand from snapshots, add them to load balance and you are ready.