[vidarh]

That's usually the case for almost everything on AWS/Google. If you're using them for specific features, or for very bursty work (e.g. if you use the instances less than about 6-8 hours a day), they can be cost effective, but the moment you use instances full time and don't leverage/depend on a ton of extra services, you're paying way above the odds.

[brianwawok]

Kubernetes helps this a bit with bin packing. Much easier to keep 3 32 core servers loaded than 32 4 core servers.

[vidarh]

But that's the case whether you're using AWS or self-hosted, so it doesn't really alter that calculation much