What is Amazon Web Services used for?

Amazon Web Services is a large cloud platform from Amazon offering compute, storage, databases, networking, AI and many other managed services on a pay-as-you-go basis. It is a good fit for hosting applications and databases, building data analytics pipelines, and migrating on-premises workloads to the cloud.

Is Amazon Web Services free?

Yes. Amazon Web Services has a free plan.

Is Amazon Web Services open source?

No. Amazon Web Services is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Amazon Web Services include Sealos, Ubicloud and Apache CloudStack.

What are some alternatives to Amazon Web Services?

Amazon Web Services competes with Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Amazon Web Services alternatives.

Amazon Web Services: features, pricing and alternatives

About Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services, or AWS, is Amazon's cloud computing platform. It provides infrastructure and managed services that organizations rent on demand instead of buying and running their own hardware, and it is used by individuals, startups and large enterprises alike.

Its product catalog is organized into categories such as compute, storage, databases, networking and content delivery, analytics, application integration, artificial intelligence, developer tools, management tools, security and identity, media services, game tech, migration and modernization, and multicloud and hybrid offerings. Well-known services include virtual servers, object storage and serverless functions.

AWS is proprietary and vendor-hosted. The vendor describes it as free to join with payment only for what you use, and it publishes a pricing section, a trust center, documentation and a marketplace of third-party software.

Key features

Virtual servers and serverless compute
Object storage and managed databases
Networking and content delivery
AI and analytics services
Security and identity management
Developer and management tools
AWS Marketplace for third-party software

Good fit for

→Hosting applications and databases
→Building data analytics pipelines
→Migrating on-premises workloads to the cloud

Tags: cloud; iaas; paas; aws; compute; storage; databases; serverless

Amazon Web Services: questions and answers

What is Amazon Web Services used for?: Amazon Web Services is a large cloud platform from Amazon offering compute, storage, databases, networking, AI and many other managed services on a pay-as-you-go basis. It is a good fit for hosting applications and databases, building data analytics pipelines, and migrating on-premises workloads to the cloud.
Is Amazon Web Services free?: Yes. Amazon Web Services has a free plan.
Is Amazon Web Services open source?: No. Amazon Web Services is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Amazon Web Services include Sealos, Ubicloud and Apache CloudStack.
What are some alternatives to Amazon Web Services?: Amazon Web Services competes with Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Amazon Web Services alternatives.