Why I Ditched AWS (Sort Of)

My journey to Netlify and why I made the switch

I have been using AWS for years for all sorts of applications. A few EC2 instances here and there. Maybe one or two databases. Most frequently, I used it for hosting websites and DNS registrations/routing. My typical workflow would be to take an S3 bucket, drop a website in there, register the DNS to point to the bucket, and were done. It worked great for what I needed to do, but over the last few months, I pondered if AWS was really the right solution for me 🤔. I just always thought that AWS offered too much, but how can this be a problem?

As a web developer, AWS just felt like overkill. Like I was hammering a nail with a sledgehammer. I have been at multiple companies, all using AWS, so it was all I knew. I felt comfortable in the management console. AWS was what I always turned to.

Why the Switch?

One day I was trying to configure an S3 bucket for a site with a special configuration. As usual, I turned to Google for the answer. Article after article made this configuration sound overly complicated. I needed to add this, then change this, etc. etc. If you have ever used AWS, you are well aware of the state of their documentation. It is a never-ending rabbit hole. What should be a simple setting, is never that simple. All of this…