Amazon Website Hosting: Complete AWS Review (Updated 2017)
It’s easy to think of Amazon as some Jack of all trades because well, you can go to them for just about anything nowadays. Whether it’s the electronics, books, all kinds of household items, tools and equipment for various use, name it, they have it. Some years back (2006), they added web hosting to their repertoire.
Web hosting has been around long before Amazon was part of it, but they nonetheless take pride in being among the first companies to venture into the cloud hosting space. And what’s even greater to note is that they have emerged as a domineering cloud hosting provider of our times. Proof of all these is in the fact their clientele includes giant corporations such as Netflix, Slack, The Motley Tool, Unilever, Airbnb and dozens of other large corporations.
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Unlike many of the current web hosts, their products and services are spread out and include four major categories namely: Compute, Storage, Database, Migration, and Networking & Content Delivery. On top of all these, they offer application programming interfaces as well as third-party programs. There’s a lot more to gain from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and our Amazon hosting review has you covered on that.
Ratings
- Features 4.6/5.0
- Reliability 4.0/5.0
- Ease of Use 3.5/5.0
- Pricing 3.7/5.0
- Customer Support 4.4/5.0
Amazon Web Services Review
If there’s a space where Amazon Web Services have excelled spectacularly then it’s in the multiple features they offer to customers. No web host can easily compare to them. Within the four main categories lies a dozen of other features each designed to suit specific purposes. And on top of all that, you will also get to experience multiple programming interfaces and dozens of developer and management tools all designed to make your web hosting experience better.
Use of services such as full redundancy, server cloning and many other add to making their reliability optimal even though this is not guaranteed at all times. Occasionally, you might experience fluctuations in performance due to the fact that their servers handle a lot of workloads and that puts a strain on them.
Amazon is known to have one of the most complicated IaaS solutions and this brings its own challenges with it. For the most the part, you are going to need a consultant to help you figure out things, not to mention most of their services come with their own pricing excluding what you pay for hosting which is still relatively high.
Customer support is excellent. They're at your service 24/7. Everything that’s done to their other services including e-commerce in relation to customer service is pretty much the same thing done for their hosting section.
Pros
Excellent Customer Support
If you’ve already used other Amazon services, then you know all too well that great customer service is one of their major highlights. Same also duplicates itself in hosting. They are available 24/7 and boast one of the most expert-filled customer services. So whichever hosting challenge you may have, you can count on them to deliver it to your satisfaction.
Flexible Pricing Options
You will hardly come across a web host that offers you hourly, monthly and yearly payment options except Amazon of course. Much as they don’t offer shared, VPS or dedicated hosting, their cloud pricing options have been structured to suit your specific needs. To break it down, here’s the base price you are going to pay based on that pricing model:
- $0.080/hour
- $57.60/month
- $691.2/year
There’s also the AWS Free Tier which is a free service designed to let you have a hands-on experience with their cloud services before finally buying it.
Flexibility
Sometimes it’s hard to tell how your website traffic will turn out. You could share something out on social media and all of a sudden the sharing leads to traffic spikes on your website. At other times, you might experience normal traffic. If this sounds like your kind of business, what you need is an elastic cloud hosting infrastructure that can adjust to fit the needs of your website. That’s what amazon.com web hosting is all about.
Cons
So Many Services & Options
Let’s face it, Amazon boasts one of the most complicated IaaS solutions across the world. Most of these services have their own pricing. So finding exactly what you need is not going to be easy at all. Besides, you’ll have to, first of all, calculate how much you are going to pay for each of those services and that’s another task of its own.
Even though there are consultants knowledgeable in this space ready to offer their help, that isn’t in itself the much-needed solution to this. In fact, if you intend to master this Amazon space, prepare to pay more for that.
Fluctuating Performance
For the most part, the performance is always remarkable, a reason why we termed the reliability exceptional, but sometimes the performance fluctuates. This is partly due to the fact that their servers handle huge amounts of workload compared to other cloud servers. As a result, you might experience some instability occasionally.
Limitations
Amazon is unfortunately among those web host that doesn’t offer unlimited disk space or bandwidth. This to an extend takes away some of its glory although considering that they receive huge amounts of traffic every other time, this may sound reasonable. However, for the person who looks to requiring plenty of space, AWS may not just be the right choice for you.
Confusion In Pricing
In most cases, you will need the help of a consultant to help you figure out the prices. Even the pricing model is unique but in a good way, the problem comes when you want to have other services onboard. And putting in mind that they have dozens of services to offer you, this is not guaranteed to be easy. Other than that, their prices, when compared to other web hosts offering the same service seem to be relatively expensive.
Top Features Of Amazon Web Services
Multiple Features
There’s a huge line-up of features to expect from Amazon Web Services. The significant ones include elastic load balancing, scheduled backups, and content delivery. As we mentioned earlier in our amazon web hosting review, you also have a choice of five categories to choose from:
- Compute
- Storage
- Database
- Migration
- Networking & Content Delivery
If you are after high-end services, you will require each of these services and the best thing is that you can control all of them with admin controls that you can access via a secure web client. Under each of these categories, there are ton of other services each specially designed to carry out specific functions. The most common ones include:
Amazon EC2 (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud)
Amazon EC2 is a special web service that lets businesses run application programs within the AWS public cloud. With the help of this service, a developer will be in a position to enjoy easier web-scale computing. Thanks to its interface, you will be able to not just obtain but configure capacity with little to no friction. Overall, it lets you have full control of all your computing resources and best of all, run an Amazon’s proven computing space. Want to learn more about Amazon EC2? Watch the following:
Amazon Cloud Front
This is an advanced Content Delivery Network (CDN) you can use to deliver your complete website, from the static to dynamic to streaming content by making use of a worldwide network of edge zones. In short, any request for your content will be routed automatically to the closest edge zone.
Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
If there’s something we could not afford to miss to mention in this amazon cloud services review, it’s Amazon S3. Amazon S3 is a cloud storage service that is not only web-based but low cost, scalable, and boasts high speeds too. It was designed to facilitate online backup as well as archiving of application programs and other data. One of Amazon’s S3 targets is to enable developers to experience easier web-scale computing.
Overall, even though most of their clientele consists of sellers who utilize their platform, users from outside can also sign up for their services,
Uptime and Reliability
If there’s something you are going to love in return for the money you spend on AWS, then it’s the exceptional reliability. To keep their servers from going down, they have server cloning, full redundancy, automated backup and a pile of other smart features that ensure their servers hardly go down.
Bear in mind that they run a global e-commerce store (www.amazon.com) so being up at all times comes on top of their priorities. Also, they have data centers spread out across the world, from Sao Paulo to California to Sydney to Oregon to Virginia and even Singapore.
Support for Multiple Platforms
Another great thing about Amazon.com web hosting services is that they are flexible. For many websites, the content management system forms the core part of it. So whether you choose WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Dot Net, Ruby or any other popular content management systems, you can be sure of it running on AWS.
Conclusion
Overall, what’s clear from our Amazon web hosting review is that Amazon Web Services make a great option for the person who needs premium cloud hosting services for their business. With plenty of services, third-party programs, and application program interfaces, any developer is sure to enjoy their services too.
But let’s also not forget their prices are relatively high and that you are going to need a consultant to help you figure a few things out. For general hosting, Amazon Web Services may also not be an appropriate option. In fact, if your target is shared, dedicated, VPS, reseller or managed hosting, the best option, in this case, would be HostGator.
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