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Should I Use Amazon Web Services (AWS)?

aws.amazon.com·Analyzed 1 hour ago·Based on 10 sources

Amazon Web Services offers reliable, scalable, and inexpensive cloud computing services. Free to join, pay only for what you use.

Depends

Depends

Buy if you run serious infrastructure at scale and have engineers to manage cost, config, and security.

Enterprise-grade cloud with unmatched scale — overkill and bill-shock risk for small teams without dedicated DevOps.

Confidence: High

1.3/5

Trustpilot rating

Rated 'Bad' by customers

14,388

Glassdoor reviews

Employee reviews (not product)

Yes

Free tier

Free to join, pay per use

2006

Launched

Amazon's cloud arm

Value for money4

Pay-per-use; per-second EC2 billing

Ease of use2

Guess: 200+ services overwhelm newcomers

Feature depth5

Deepest cloud service catalog available

Support quality2

Trustpilot 'Bad' at 1.3/5

Security posture3

Strong program; customer misconfigs cause breaches

Pros

  • Pay-as-you-go with no upfront commitment
  • Per-second billing on EC2 cuts waste
  • Runs much of the internet; proven at massive scale
  • Used by 400,000+ companies10
  • Broad compliance and security programs

Cons

  • Rated 'Bad' — 1.3/5 on Trustpilot¹
  • Pricing spans five models; hard to predict
  • Security depends on your configuration, not AWS's
  • Multiple high-profile customer data breaches on record
  • Hacked accounts powered major crypto-mining in 2025

Gotchas

  • highManaged services create lock-in; migrating off later is slow and expensive
  • highOne misconfigured S3 bucket can leak everything — you own the config, not AWS
  • mediumUsage-based billing breeds surprise charges; Reddit threads are full of billing confusion
  • medium'Inexpensive' marketing hides five pricing models; cost estimating takes real work

Best for

  • Enterprise engineering orgs
  • Apps with spiky global traffic
  • Teams with dedicated DevOps/FinOps
  • Compliance-heavy regulated workloads

Not for

  • Small sites and simple apps — massive overkill
  • Non-technical founders with no DevOps staff
  • Anyone needing predictable monthly bills
  • Teams that won't own security configuration

Companies that use it

  • Netflix
  • Apple
  • Blue Origin
  • Reddit
  • European Commission

Pricing

Free Tier

$0

  • Free to join
  • Pay only for what you use

Pay-as-you-go

Varies by service

  • Per-second EC2 billing
  • No upfront commitments

Support plans

Extra cost

  • Premium support sold separately
  • Tiered plans available

Security

Mature security organization with CVEs and customer-side breaches on record; shared responsibility means misconfigurations are on you.

  • CVE-2025-23206: AWS CDK information disclosure flawPublicly disclosed information disclosure vulnerability in AWS CDK.
  • Major S3 bucket exposure incidentsMisconfigured S3 buckets have repeatedly exposed data in high-profile breaches.
  • European Commission AWS account breach (2026)Threat researchers documented a breach of an EC AWS account.

What users say

Review volume is enormous, but customer sentiment on Trustpilot is poor (1.3/5, 'Bad') while marketplace ratings run higher.

Alternatives

Compare Amazon Web Services (AWS) with each alternative.

Microsoft Azure

Comparable hyperscaler; better fit for Microsoft-centric shops.

Full analysis

Based on 60+ public sources; review evidence mixes employee and customer feedback.

Sources

  1. review
  2. review
  3. review
  4. review
  5. official
  6. AWS Securityaws.amazon.com
    official
  7. security
  8. security
  9. news
  10. news

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