The solution is a critical part of modern retail architecture. There are as many as 3,000 different use cases, and each client uses it differently.
President at Global Retail Technology Advisors, LLC
Very fast with good stability and great for microservice architecture
Pros and Cons
- "The solution has good speed. It's very fast."
- "While AWS often is at the top of my list to recommend to people, I always have to tell them, "Hey, you got to be careful because if they don't like you, they can shut you down in a heartbeat. And they can kill an entire company by doing that.""
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
This video explains the whole microservice architecture of which AWS is a key player: (3) Microservice POS Design - YouTube Enjoy
What is most valuable?
It's been a while since I've looked at the AWS model, however, just at a high level, of course, being able to build a microservice architecture, that's the heart of modern retail. That's where they have to go. COVID has driven everybody to realize that's what you got to do. That's one of the key components of AWS. The cloud piece is a nice supporting concept and it's necessary to make the microservices features work and make the whole architecture really agile. That's a critical component of it as well.
Of course, being able to figure out how you want to coordinate services - that whole service management piece - is critical. You could have thousands of services and I'm pretty sure you'd just be overwhelmed due to the fact that you've lost track of everything and you're back to the way things were when you had the big monolithic models.
The stability is excellent.
The solution has good speed. It's very fast.
The execution is fantastic.
What needs improvement?
I haven't delved down deep enough into the solution in order to come up with an answer for what may be lacking.
The only real downside to AWS is they can easily shut you down if they want to.
Clients ask us "Well, what happens if I go and put this on AWS and they don't like me for some screwy reason and all of a sudden they shut me down, they've killed my entire company?"
While AWS often is at the top of my list to recommend to people, I always have to tell them, "Hey, you got to be careful because if they don't like you, they can shut you down in a heartbeat. And they can kill an entire company by doing that."
Buyer's Guide
Amazon AWS
February 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Amazon AWS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
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For how long have I used the solution?
I've had a good understanding of how AWS works for a while. It's likely been about three or four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is excellent. It doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is extremely scalable. You can be a small company or a multi-billion dollar company and it will work for you. It's number one on my list of recommendations due to its scalability.
How are customer service and support?
I've never reached out to technical support in the past. I can't speak to how knowledgeable or responsive they are.
How was the initial setup?
I didn't actually set up an operating AWS model on my computer. Therefore, it would be difficult to discuss the initial setup.
I tell clients to use it, however, I don't go into building one on my own. I don't have a need for it here, and I don't have applications to run on it. In my case, it's more an architectural world rather than a physical world.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I work on the technology side, I don't work on the financial side. Therefore, I really don't have any clue how much it costs.
What other advice do I have?
I'm just a consultant. I don't have a partnership with AWS or any other company.
AWS is a key part of the whole microservice cloud computing.
I would recommend the solution to other organizations.
However, if I'm a multi-billion dollar retailer and I need to depend on something, how do I trust a company that can shut me down on a whim? That's a real problem. That moves AWS down and it moves Azure up just on my recommendation list.
From a technology perspective, it's well-proven, it's extensive, it covers just about everything you want to do. That's what I talk about with clients mostly, is the technology side.
While I used to rate the solution ten out of ten, the fact that Amazon can just kill a company on a whim makes me lower my rating. Currently, I'd rate it at an eight out of ten. It's great in almost every way. However, a company needs to understand that AWS can kill your company in a moment if it feels like it.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Sr Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Priced competitively, reliable, but difficult figuring out usage cost
Pros and Cons
- "This solution is stable and reliable."
- "We have had some difficulty figuring out how to monitor how many EC2 instances have been networked into our entire enterprise. We usually try to create a diagram outside of AWS. The types of information we are trying to determine are, for example, what hardware devices are interconnected, and when was the interconnection made."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution predominately to reduce the amount of effort we need to migrate to the cloud.
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
We have had some difficulty figuring out how to monitor how many EC2 instances have been networked into our entire enterprise. We usually try to create a diagram outside of AWS. The types of information we are trying to determine are, for example, what hardware devices are interconnected, and when was the interconnection made.
It is difficult to extrapolate budgeting costs and schedules from the information gathered from the usage of the solution in our systems. We are given a large lump sum of money at the beginning of the year for our budget but it is hard to summarize costs to put down on paper for justification or projections.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for approximately one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is stable and reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We are planning on moving more of our systems to the cloud. Currently, we have approximately 60% of our applications on the cloud.
How was the initial setup?
Our developers found the installation a moderate level of difficulty, there was not anything that was complex. It is helpful to have some tutorials to follow.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is on a pay-as-use pricing model. The price of the solution could always be better but it is priced competitively.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We have evaluated Lambda, and in some cases, it might be a better option than EC2. However, we have decided to go with EC2 because it is closer to a drop-in displacement which works better with our applications, for example, Spring Boot and other similar variations.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others is EC2 has its specific use case needs like other solutions, such as Lamda. If you have the need for a specific use case this solution could be the right choice. For example, it is possible to have your monolithic application on the cloud and decompose it into your microservice architecture or use it with Lambda capabilities. You can do this and have a high percentage of your application on the cloud. However, you need to be sure it is the right choice, it is something you need to be careful of.
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate Amazon AWS a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Amazon AWS
February 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Amazon AWS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior Technical Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Highly scalable, highly stable, and fast support
Pros and Cons
- "We are mostly using EC2 compute and other resources. Most of our managed services are in AWS, which some of our clients prefer."
- "User personalization and robotic process automation services need to be mature enough. More APIs are required for robotic process automation services. Azure is more mature in terms of user personalization and robotic process automation services. The document processing can also be better. Whenever we want to do any kind of document management, I try to do OCR, ICR, etc. The functionality in AWS has to be more like that."
What is our primary use case?
Most of our managed services are in Amazon Web Services. We also use Kubernetes clusters for some of the cases.
We are basically on the cloud, and most of our clients prefer AWS as the cloud provider. Most of the solutions have been on-premises, which basically involves migration to AWS. We also started using a hybrid model because some of the clients prefer a hybrid cloud kind of approach, where they have an on-premises model and something on the cloud so that they can just connect their data centers to the public cloud.
What is most valuable?
We are mostly using EC2 compute and other resources. Most of our managed services are in AWS, which some of our clients prefer.
What needs improvement?
User personalization and robotic process automation services need to be mature enough. More APIs are required for robotic process automation services. Azure is more mature in terms of user personalization and robotic process automation services.
The document processing can also be better. Whenever we want to do any kind of document management, I try to do OCR, ICR, etc. The functionality in AWS has to be more like that.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon AWS for almost two and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable product. We do not have any issues with its stability. Most of the customers come for 99% to 99.95% availability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
AWS has a very highly scalable model. Because the availability requirements are high, we typically go for additional redundancy. It is easily possible to support different operating models in AWS.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their technical support is very good and fast. Whenever you need something to be fixed, they are able to do it completely.
How was the initial setup?
It is comparatively very easy. We have our own R&D environment where we do our work. When we want to actually do something for the client, we just move the work that we have done in our R&D environment into the client's cloud. It is very easy to use all the services.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its price is kind of okay. When we do a migration from on-premises to the cloud, we typically use the lift-and-shift model. Based on the studies that we have done, cost savings are definitely there when we moved from on-premises to the cloud.
What other advice do I have?
I feel that you shouldn't basically stick with any particular cloud provider. If you really want to take the benefits of a multi-cloud environment, you should not build your applications focused on any particular cloud provider. You should build something that is generic, and whenever required, you should be able to switch to any kind of cloud provider. People tend to actually focus on one particular cloud provider, and they start building their applications to cater to that provider. You shouldn't do that. You should reap the benefits of all cloud providers. This is what we also say to our clients.
I would rate Amazon AWS an eight out of ten. It is really good as compared to the other cloud providers such as Google Cloud.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Independent Contractor at Legacy Lighthouse Ltd
Reliable, and scalable, but artificial intelligence tools could improve
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of Amazon AWS are the EC2 instance for web applications with CDN Networks."
- "There is a feature called Kinesis, which has to do with image processing. There are a few artificial intelligence tools that Amazon AWS should improve on."
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Amazon AWS are the EC2 instance for web applications with CDN Networks.
AWS Cloudfront is the official reference for the Global content delivery network (CDN) which significantly reduces latency or slow loading times.
What needs improvement?
There is a feature called Kinesis, which has to do with image processing. There are a few artificial intelligence tools that Amazon AWS should improve on.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon AWS for approximately five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have found Amazon AWS to be stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Amazon AWS is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support has been challenging. I have found more tickets are being placed and the availability of the agents has been limited for some of the team members.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We selected Amazon AWS because it was the most mature at the time. It was the initial cloud provider. Then Google and Microsoft also came up with Azure and TensorFlow. TensorFlow is catching up with a few code web programming tools, and that is a point of interest as well as image processing.
In a future release, the solution could improve on the IoT integrations and API access.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Amazon AWS is complex due to how infrastructure is set up in different organizations.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
For the initial 12 months, the solution is reasonably priced. On enterprise license contracts where you negotiate, have been reasonable too.
What other advice do I have?
I would encourage the student package for someone who is starting out, they can get acquainted with the interface and the tools available.
I rate Amazon AWS a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Sr. Systems Architect at Orison Tech
Good community support, but the pricing could be improved
Pros and Cons
- "AWS has large community support."
- "The billing should be more competitive."
What is our primary use case?
We are both a user and a provider of services to some of our clients. We are not official partners, but we provide regular services to set up our clients' infrastructure on AWS. We deploy their projects there with their own account so that we can hand over technical ownership whenever they need it. As a result, they can continue to provide their services to other consultants. we offer these services to set up their systems and their services.
We use Amazon AWS mostly for typical hosting for applications, some emails, queuing services, and databases most of the time.
What is most valuable?
I am not sure what features they'd like.
AWS has large community support. You are never stuck with anything if something doesn't work in time.
What needs improvement?
We don't have any issues for the time being, because I intend to use this in a limited, not exhaustive, manner. For the time being, we're fine with whatever we're doing.
The billing should be more competitive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon AWS for more than two years.
As AWS is online we are always using the most current version. We have some virtual machines that you create based on the version when you initialize them, but the services that you use on a daily basis are always the most recent version.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have a limited number of users and use standard services.
How are customer service and support?
There have been no issues. The support is good.
There are no issues at the moment.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were hosting on bare metal servers. Then we moved on to VPS servers, which were managed by our technical staff. And now we're utilizing cloud services.
That technical management part for the multiple VPS, as well as for ourselves and our client, is taking a long time to maintain and everything. As a result, we went to manage services.
These are some additional options. I've seen that Azure has the best cloud dashboard, but the billing and other features are very difficult to use. The same as any other cloud service. The documentation is far superior.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Cloudflare and other services are developing more affordable solutions. They provide a much cheaper alternative to Amazon's S3 storage buckets. That's something that could be improved.
This should be comparable to the other options on the market.
Billing for cloud services can be difficult at times. In the VPS, you only have quota-based billing management, but in the cloud, it's as if every bit and byte and every I/O operation is metered, and your bills can be surprisingly high when you've published something that can attract a lot of traffic, which is one catch.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We researched Microsure and Google Firebase, but we are not using these solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I'm not an expert. I don't have any advice at the moment, but whenever they're looking to host some applications, when there's a lot of traffic or bandwidth, they should think about it carefully.
I would rate Amazon AWS a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Director Of Sales Marketing at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Many merits regarding stability, scalability, and availability
Pros and Cons
- "Amazon AWS has many merits, in terms of scalability, stability, and availability. I have loved using this tool."
- "Amazon AWS could be improved with cheaper licensing costs."
What is our primary use case?
My primary use case of AWS is cloud computing. I have been using the EKS, EFS, S3, and Lambda. I have a lot of experience with the Kubernetes cluster service, as well as AWS, Azure, and GCP.
This solution is cloud-based.
What is most valuable?
Amazon AWS has many merits, in terms of scalability, stability, and availability. I have loved using this tool.
What needs improvement?
Amazon AWS could be improved with cheaper licensing costs.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon AWS for more than four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This solution is scalable.
In my organization, there are approximately 500 to 1,000 users of Amazon AWS.
How are customer service and support?
Amazon's technical support is excellent. I am very satisfied with their support.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was very simple. I have been using Terraform as an infrastructure as code tool, and with Terraform, it's very simple. Within one day, I can provision the AWS Infrastructure as a Service tool and install our platform based on the cloud and data analytics.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
From a cost perspective, Amazon AWS is excellent. You need to pay for a license to use AWS, and the license could be cheaper, but in each of the cases and instances I've used AWS, there has been a good chance to save money.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Amazon AWS a ten out of ten. I usually recommend AWS because I have loved using this tool. Most of the time, I recommend it as a real-time information and patching service with Lambda.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Global Data Architecture and Data Science Director at FH
Great cloud platform with scalability a key feature
Pros and Cons
- "Great scalability."
- "Could be more user friendly and include additional applications."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution for all modern application development and data-led processes as well as for building architecture, AWS Lambda and more scalable solutions for our clients on AWS cloud. I'm a practice partner of data analytics and AI.
What is most valuable?
This is a great cloud platform and scalability is an outstanding feature. It's very useful.
What needs improvement?
I think the solution could be more user-friendly, like Microsoft products. They could include a lot more applications and make free resources available. I'd like to see more code application within AWS to build modern and good applications. A lot of cases we deal with need to write a lot of code in AWS and it would be helpful if there were designer functionalities.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for six years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a very scalable solution. Most of the enterprises use AWS today, it's the number one cloud provider today.
How are customer service and technical support?
AWS technical support is good. They have a partner that provides us with technical support. It's managed either by AWS or by partner support, and it's good.
How was the initial setup?
Because the solution is on cloud, there's no real installation. You download to the cloud and login. When it comes to infrastructure positioning you need to have different teams. It requires some infrastructure support but it's fully managed by AWS. We plan to increase usage.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing options are either a monthly pay for use option or a contract option.
What other advice do I have?
I would definitely recommend this solution.
I rate this product a nine out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Manager at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Scalable and easy to use with its own ecosystem
Pros and Cons
- "Technical support is quite helpful."
- "The solution could always be further improved on the commercial side of things. Amazon Web Services are not cheap. It would be ideal if it was less expensive for the customer."
What is our primary use case?
We have, for example, a big analytical platform running on top of AWS. We have many Lighthouse projects in the digital space running on AWS. We have so many things running on AWS. We use it for storage services. We use it for computing services. Its use cases are really very broad.
What is most valuable?
The product is very easy to use. It's flexible.
It's the leading cloud platform in the world, and it has a very wide variety of services.
The product has a very good ecosystem of its own.
The product has proven itself to be very stable.
The scalability of the product is great.
Technical support is quite helpful.
What needs improvement?
The solution could always be further improved on the commercial side of things. Amazon Web Services are not cheap. It would be ideal if it was less expensive for the customer.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using the solution for a couple of years at this point. We're a good AWS customer.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good. the performance is excellent. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. Overall, it's excellent.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution can scale very, very well. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so without too much trouble.
Currently, I would say, the number of end-users who use applications on top of AWS is only at about 1,000.
We do have plans to continue to use the product and to expand it in the future. We will be scaling it ourselves.
How are customer service and technical support?
We've used technical support in the past. We've been very happy with them overall. I have no complaints. they are helpful, knowledgeable, and responsive.
How was the initial setup?
There is no installation or implementation per see. It's a cloud service. You simply have to sign up.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution can get rather pricey. It should be more reasonable. It's our main complaint about the product - the total cost of ownership is just too high.
We aren't buying licenses, we are buying cloud services.
What other advice do I have?
We are an enterprise with thousands of applications. We have really a broad mix of infrastructure. We have a technology standard list of several thousand products. We use a lot of AWS services. We're a customer and an end-user.
As a cloud-based solution, we're always using the latest version.
I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We've been very happy with it overall.
I would recommend the product to other users and companies.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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