8 Best AWS Alternatives

You don’t have to work in technology to know of AWS’s (Amazon Web Services) resounding success. In just ten years since it was founded, the cloud computing platform became more profitable than Amazon’s entire North American retail branch. The business keeps growing at an impressive rate and for good reason.

In the early 2010s, there were few AWS alternatives that could seriously compete with this industry giant. This is true even now, as Amazon boasts more than 200 services, from cloud computing to storage, analytics, developer tools, and more. One such service, AWS Direct Connect, allows for a dedicated network connection to the cloud, offering improved performance and security for data transfers. AWS is a basically a one-stop-shop for anyone who wants to tap into the power of the cloud. 

That said, Amazon is no longer the only cowboy in town. Far from it. It took some time for the main AWS competitors to mature, but the cloud market has become a highly competitive one. From other providers with similar portfolios to managed cloud hosting services, there are plenty of alternatives to AWS to choose from.

Depending on your needs, some Amazon Web Services competitors will be more suitable than others. I’ve tested and researched the leading AWS alternatives and put together a list of the very best. Some of them offer only managed solutions, while others are viable all-in-one alternatives to Amazon. Read on to find out more.

Top AWS Alternatives

Some of the Amazon AWS competitors I recommend offer comparable services, while others focus on more specific solutions. Whether you’re looking for Amazon EC2 competitors or a managed service that can offer a gateway to the cloud, you’ll find something to suit your needs in this list. 

During my search, I’ve kept in mind both the current capabilities of different providers and their potential to support your future growth. After all, if you’re looking to manage tens of terabytes of information, maybe even more, having to switch from one cloud to another would be inconvenient, to say the least.

In a hurry? Here’s the short version of my AWS alternatives list:

• Cloudways – ideal for those who want a secure, managed multi-cloud with a tiered support system.
• Kamatera – affordable managed and unmanaged cloud infrastructures with state-of-the-art servers.
• Google Cloud Platform – one-on-one alternative to AWS that’s more affordable and easier to work with.
• Microsoft Azure – a great choice for hybrid clouds and companies already running MS products.
• SiteGround – hosting service with premium cloud support and a developer-friendly environment.
• Liquid Web – expert assistance with compliance applications and excellent enterprise solutions. 
• FastComet – an up-and-coming hosting company with great security and robust performance.
• Rackspace – out-of-the-box managed operations and enterprise-grade security solutions.

You’ll notice that just some of these companies are competing directly with AWS. The big players in the cloud business offer little, if any, access to managed cloud solutions. This means that they won’t help you run a website or a web application. They just give you the machines and you have to do the rest.

For small and growing businesses, managed cloud solutions are a better option. For instance, both Cloudways and Kamatera have an excellent range of managed cloud products, including storage, virtual private networks, and more. 

That said, if you are looking for specific products, such as AI and Machine Learning tools to automate parts of your business, you’re better off with either Azure or GCP.

1. Cloudways

Some see Cloudways as a hosting company, but that’s not technically the case. Cloudways doesn’t have its own infrastructure, but rather manages other popular services for you. It’s the perfect solution for customers who don’t have the experience to handle a VM (virtual machine), but still want to take advantage of the cloud. 

With a great mix of value and affordability, Cloudways’ prices include the baseline costs of the infrastructure of your choice. The team sets up your servers and gives you an intuitive dashboard to help manage your web services. You also get expert tech support for the duration of your subscription.

The reason why Cloudways is my no. 1 AWS competitor is that it allows you to provision a VM from major cloud services, AWS included. You can choose one or several clouds and Cloudways will manage everything for you. In turn, you can focus on expanding your website(s) or application(s).

Technically speaking, Cloudways is a more specialized AWS alternative, since it offers an additional layer of support between you and your cloud.

Tiered Cloud Support 

When you provision resources from AWS, you’re basically on your own. Sure, there are extensive knowledge bases and helpful communities you can use to your advantage, but the work you have to put into server maintenance takes from the time you can dedicate to growing your business or website.

Cloudways is a great Amazon AWS alternative thanks to its excellent support. If you need help to accomplish a server-side task, you have someone knowledgeable to turn to. 

On Basic support plans, you get live chat and ticket interactions, while Advanced and Premium support include priority queues, deep application troubleshooting, direct phone calls, and even a dedicated account manager.

With the right type of support from Cloudways, you no longer have to retain professionals or an entire IT department to take care of the SysOps aspect of your business. 

Performance Oriented Service

Cloudways guarantees the very best when it comes to the performance of your cloud infrastructure. Its system administrators provision dedicated server resources on your behalf, which means that these resources won’t be shared with other users. If speed and responsiveness are critical to your website or application, this is the way to go.

Depending on what it is that you need, the team can optimize your web service stack with advanced caching, including Nginx, Varnish, Memcached, and Redis. Particularly for applications with a lot of dynamic content, advanced HTTP accelerators will be necessary to ensure decent loading times.

Cloudways also throws in a free WordPress cache plugin, Breeze. This is an in-house tool developed specifically for websites built with the WordPress CMS (content management system). With it, your website is guaranteed to perform even better on a consistent basis. 

CloudwaysCDN is included in all plans, which is great news if your website gets visitors from around the world. You can use the CDN to ensure great loading speeds for users who are geographically remote from your servers.

Excellent Managed Security

Another important reason why customers look for alternatives to AWS is security. You might have the infrastructure, but how do you secure it from malicious third parties? Cloudways has the answer.

Its in-house experts make use of OS-level firewalls that filter out unwanted intruders. Even if your server is compromised, odds are very small that a virus can spread through it in the first place.

You benefit from free SSL certificates, which are installed and managed by the team, 2-factor authentication, and managed security updates, wherever this is applicable. You basically don’t have to worry about the safety of your website or app because Cloudways is taking care of it for you.

2. Kamatera

Kamatera may not have Amazon’s massive server fleet or the hundreds of services associated with it, but its high-performance Intel Platinum servers are affordable and easy to work with. 

Unlike Cloudways, Kamatera offers two levels of managed services and you get access to a 30-day free trial on top of that. This is one of the few AWS alternatives that is free to use for a period of time. You can sign up and see how your application or website performs and then, based on the results, stick with Kamatera or move on to something else.

If you don’t want to worry about any server-related tasks, Kamatera’s fully managed option is most suitable. This service comes at a fixed cost and you can opt in and out of it at any given time. Otherwise, you benefit from managed services by default, which includes basic monitoring and maintenance. 

The reason why Kamatera didn’t take the first spot in my list of the best AWS competitors isn’t because it’s worse than Cloudways. Cloudways is more flexible in terms of the infrastructures it manages. They don’t mind switching between AWS, GCP, Digital Ocean, and several others, which means you have more options.

However, if you need a simple cloud compute, storage, or hosting solution, Kamatera is the better, more affordable solution.

Highly Customizable Cutting-Edge Servers

This is one company that does not slack or skimp on technology upgrades. Kamatera relies on the second generation of Intel Xeon processors (formerly Cascade Lake) that have no less than 26 cores and can work with up to 1TB of DDR4 RAM. 

In addition, you can easily customize your VM by adding or removing additional vCPUs, memory, storage, or IP addresses. Few companies give you access to configurations that have up to 104 vCPUs, but with Kamatera, this is possible. 

You can easily host some of the most resource-intensive applications currently available. Need to change servers to a different continent to be closer to your shifting customer base? No problem. You have more than a dozen locations to choose from.

Depending on how many resources you need, you can opt for one of four different types of cloud hosting. From the most affordable to the most expensive, these are: Availability, General Purpose, Burstable, and Dedicated. 

Cost-Effective Managed Cloud

What makes Kamatera an excellent AWS competitor is its bespoke managed cloud service. Unlike Cloudways, whose costs escalate with the size of your cloud, Kamatera’s fully managed option has a fixed cost whether you want just one machine or a thousand.

With the managed cloud add-on, your infrastructure is closely monitored and maintained by Kamatera’s SysOps experts. This is a 24/7 service that you can rely on to keep your entire IT branch in working order, from databases to web servers, firewalls, operating systems, and the infrastructure itself.

The company also offers expert migration services, which are perfect for those who want to transfer their data, websites, or apps to a better place, but don’t want to handle all the fuss associated with the move. Depending on the size of your systems, you may even benefit from an entirely free migration. 

Disaster Recovery Management

Contingency plans may not be the first thing on your mind when looking for the top Amazon AWS competitors, but all the major companies have one. 

Consistency plays an important part in success, and if you can’t guarantee a way out of a tough situation, such as a cyberattack or equipment failure, it’s likely that your clients will take their business elsewhere.

Kamatera has a subscription-based disaster recovery program that saves your databases in real time. Should anything happen to your primary infrastructure, the SRO machines are triggered and all traffic is routed to the failover. Clean and simple.

3. Google Cloud Platform

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is the first of my AWS competitors that can directly challenge Amazon on almost all fronts. Although it doesn’t yet compare in size or revenue to AWS, GCP has made up a lot of ground in the late 2010s due to its excellent global infrastructure that keeps on growing.

GCP basically gives clients access to the same planet-wide network that Google’s services run on. In addition to on-demand cloud computing, which you can also get from companies like Kamatera, Google includes an impressive series of modular products that have very specific use cases.  

Google is lower on my list of best alternatives to AWS because it’s not that different from Amazon, although it is cheaper and more straightforward. Keep in mind that I’m simplifying here. Everything from the software to the servers themselves is proprietary and done in Google’s own way. 

Google’s affordability is particularly noticeable in the IaaS department, since its Compute Engine is significantly cheaper than Amazon’s EC2. This is the reason why it’s widely viewed as the foremost AWS EC2 competitor.

Impressive List of Google Products

With GCP you can get into things like machine learning, (big) data analytics, or IoT development. There are really no bounds to what you can achieve if you migrate your services to Google’s Cloud. 

Although it has fewer options compared to Amazon, GCP’s stack allows for a more straightforward deployment of applications. In fact, its entire platform is more customer-friendly than that of Amazon, which is notorious for its steep learning curve.

You also have step-by-step guides on how to achieve some of the most commonplace tasks in the cloud, so if you ever want to save some money and manage your own infrastructure, you can do it easily with GCP.

As the creators of Kubernetes (k8s), the most popular option for container orchestration, Google makes it possible to easily create, deploy, and scale cloud native apps. Most importantly, Kubernetes is open-source and it’s going to stay that way. This pretty much ensures that k8s will continue to be an industry-leader in terms of high-availability control planes.

Unbeatable Prices

One of the main drivers behind the growth of GCP as a major AWS competitor is pricing. As is the case with Amazon, you pay only for the resources that you use, in minute-level increments. However, the costs of Google Compute Engine are significantly smaller than AWS’s Elastic Compute cloud.

This might not seem like a big deal, but if you’re trying to keep your overheads to a minimum, I guarantee that you’ll notice the difference. This is even more so the case when you need to provision powerful VMs that boast at least 16 vCPUs and 30GBs of RAM each.

If you have long-running workloads, GCP gives you a discount based on sustained use. This is the opposite of Amazon (and most of the hosting industry), which only gives discounts based on reserving instances for long periods of time and paying up-front.

In the mid-2010s, competition from Google forced Amazon to lower its prices. Even so, GCP is still a more affordable alternative to AWS. In fact, in some instances, your costs with Google will be up to 50% lower than with Amazon.

Commitment to Global Expansion

An obvious, but often-overlooked aspect of GCP is its immense global network. A private distributed network of servers connects all of the company’s data centers. If you want your website or application to run exclusively through these low-latency connections, you just have to opt in on the premium-tier cloud.

Aside from investments into worldwide cable systems, Google continues to build more data centers and upgrade its current ones. With GCP, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have outstanding loading speeds all over the world. Now and in the future.

4. Microsoft Azure

Of all the AWS competitors, Microsoft Azure is the one that experienced the most growth in the least amount of time. Part of the reason why is that 95% of all Fortune 500 companies use it.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since Microsoft’s cloud includes nearly 100 compliance solutions, from HIPAA to PCI, GDPR, HITRUST and everything in-between. Your auditors can even see how well Microsoft did in each category of compliance certification.

The reason why Azure takes a lower spot on my list of best Amazon web services competitors is its pricing and narrow target audience. Microsoft’s cloud is a great solution for businesses that want access to one of the most advanced and secure global networks, as well as for developers who can take advantage of serverless computing.

However, everyone else is likely to have a hard time figuring their way around Azure. Granted, there’s a generous trial to work with and a series of helpful services that are always free. But this is also the case with GCP and AWS.

Get Certified for Free

Unlike with Amazon, the Microsoft Learn platform is completely free and it includes numerous courses that are required to obtain Microsoft certifications. All courses are designed to be engaging and to address a variety of interests. You just have to fire up the platform, select an area you’d like to specialize in, and start reading.

The best part is that Microsoft doesn’t make you learn everything about Azure development if you don’t want to. If you just want to know how to store data or manage a website, select the appropriate path and you’ll be given only the courses that address your needs.

If your cloud experience includes some availability for learning, Azure and GCP are definitely some of the best AWS competitors out there.

The Home of Hybrid Clouds

Another important part of Microsoft’s success with enterprises is its openness towards hybrid cloud platforms. Hybrid clouds combine on-premises hardware with Azure’s global platform. For the most part of Amazon’s lifetime, this was next-to-impossible to achieve.

Having seen how much of its business was lost to Azure because of the hybrid cloud, AWS introduced its own proprietary solution, but I argue that it’s too little, too late. Microsoft is already dominating the hybrid cloud niche and it’s unlikely that this will change anytime soon.

Seamless Integration with MS Platforms

Managers dream of being able to integrate disparate services in order to simplify workflows. Azure is an ideal solution for people who want to achieve high-level integration such as orchestrating tasks from a single interface or connecting various applications (both on-premises and in the cloud).

In terms of business data, Azure’s cloud can integrate all of your information coming in from Office 365, the Dynamics Enterprise Resource Planning suite, and much more. Switching to either a cloud or a hybrid cloud with Azure will help you integrate anything that Microsoft offers as PaaS or SaaS.

5. SiteGround

SiteGround is not known as one of the main Amazon AWS alternatives, but the hosting company offers great value through its managed cloud plans. SiteGround has a reputation as an excellent hosting service with nearly two decade’s worth of happy customers.

More recently, SiteGround entered a partnership with GCP and merged some of its infrastructure with Google’s environment. The company is keeping its bare metal servers, but has migrated a series of vital networking services to the cloud. The reason? Improved performance, easier scaling, and budget-friendly overheads.

As is the case with Cloudways, fully-managed cloud is the only option with SiteGround. SiteGround’s baseline managed cloud is pricier, but you’re still getting great value for your money thanks to the features and support that come with each plan. Let’s take a closer look.

Developer-friendly Environment

One of the main reasons to choose SiteGround as an alternative to AWS is the fact that it makes developers’ lives easier. If you’re a webmaster (or looking to become one), this is the right place for you.

The dashboard lets you add collaborators on each individual website you’re working on. You can create users, give them privileges, and make it possible for them to work on projects and even contact support if needed.

When you’re done with a website, you can easily ship it to your client, so long as they also sign up on SiteGround. You can even recommend plans or services that might benefit them. You can also continue to work with clients by giving them access to the file manager or app manager. They can publish content while you maintain the backend.

And you never have to worry about any project taking too much of your hosting resources by limiting them to any amount you think appropriate.

Premium Cloud Support Included

Unlike with Cloudways, where you have to choose between three tiers for support, all of SiteGround’s cloud plans come with the highest level of support (Advanced Priority) included. This means that you won’t have to pay more money to benefit from instant expert advice on complicated matters.

From the get-go, you have 24/7 assistance through live chat, help desk tickets with an average response time of 15 minutes, and a direct phone line to the specialists.

By comparison, purchasing the Advanced support on Cloudways renders its plans slightly more expensive than those of SiteGround. If you were considering Cloudways’ Premium support add-on for phone assistance… let’s just say that you’d be saving a lot of money with SiteGround.

Value Features

In addition to support, there are several other important features included in SiteGround’s managed cloud plans. Even though the offers are more expensive to begin with, these tools and services deliver a lot of value.

In addition to free collaborator tools and premium support, SiteGround does not charge for CDN services, nor does it incur additional expenses for the daily automatic backups. You get free automatic backups going back 7 days and can add up to 5 on-demand ones from your dashboard.

You can also rest assured that your hosting stack will come out-of-the-box optimized for performance with Apache/Nginx, CentOS, and the latest PHP versions.

6. Liquid Web

Liquid Web focuses on premium hosting solutions for large enterprises. This is a company with a great track record that spans more than two decades of hosting and an airtight service-level agreement.

With Liquid Web, you know exactly what quality of service to expect. Its SLA states that live chat and phone responses take under one minute. Otherwise, you are reimbursed for ten times the delay. I’ve read through a lot of SLAs and I have to say, even I’m impressed.

That said, Liquid Web’s plans are rather costly, especially compared to some of the other services on my list. So long as you can afford it, the company’s managed cloud service is a leading alternative to AWS. Why? Here are a few great reasons.

Bigger Investment, Better Return

While you can opt for an unmanaged cloud VPS plan, the difference in price is not really worth it. You’re paying a premium as is, so why not enjoy everything that comes with it?

Liquid Web goes all in when it comes to its managed cloud platform. To begin with, the team migrates your existing application, site, or online store. Once this is done, you benefit from proactive hosting management, which means that the availability, security, and network health of your resources are all guaranteed. When your environment is all set up, Liquid Web makes sure that everything is running smoothly.

The company is used to working with clients who have different needs. You can even ask them to recommend the ideal hosting plan for your circumstances. If nothing predefined looks good enough, the team can whip up high-performance or high-availability solutions at your discretion.

Liquid Web is one of the few companies that offer 100% power and network uptime guarantee. If, for any reason, its machines are not reachable at any given time, you are eligible for compensation worth ten times the actual amount of downtime.

Best-in-Class Managed Support

Each Liquid Web support agent is trained according to their area of competence, so you can rest assured there are no hit-and-miss calls here.

If you’re uncertain or you want clarifications regarding your order, technicians can pull it up at any time and verify it for you. During the build process, the staff will communicate with you continuously and track all of the services and equipment that go into your VM.

For those who also need migrations, the Liquid Web team includes free transfers for the most used control panels (cPanel, Plesk, and Interworx). If you were looking for an AWS alternative that can make your life easier, you’ve found it.

Expert Compliance Assistance

Liquid Web is known to provide solutions for businesses that are under strict legal regulations in terms of handling customer information. If you’re looking for a cloud platform for ecommerce or healthcare, this is one of the best places to find it.

Third-party audits confirm that Liquid Web’s infrastructure is compliant with HIPAA/HITECH privacy and security guidelines. Moreover, you can custom-order PCI compliance for any number of IPs. If you have any doubts over suspicious activity, the host has a highly affordable monthly vulnerability scan and assessment service.

7. FastComet

Compared to most companies on this list, FastComet is a newcomer to the world of cloud hosting. Fewer advanced features and lack of renown are the two main reasons it takes a lower spot on my list. Don’t be discouraged, though: it’s still a great alternative to AWS.

A number of great hosting companies and domain providers fly under the radar for most of their business cycle. This isn’t something unusual, especially since the majority of platforms prefer to invest back in the service, rather than in marketing or publicity.

As a hosting company, FastComet has grown by leaps and bounds. Behind its success lies a simple story of affordable, high-performance infrastructure, but the excellent support service doesn’t hurt either.

FastComet often runs significant discounts for its services. For example, it used to offer a lifetime of free domain, and it now has a significant 20% off cloud VPS prices.

High-Performance Stack

FastComet’s out-of-the-box cloud solution uses the latest versions of PHP/MySQL and guarantees fast loading times for applications and websites alike. The RocketBooster upgrade adds another layer of technology that will deliver your content at lightning speed.

RocketBooster is tailor-made for both dynamic and static caching. Aside from the LiteSpeed web server, it includes opcode caching, Varnish, as well as optimized static content processing. If you’re running PHP in the backend (i.e. your website uses WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.), your website will be near-instantly delivered to visitors from all over the world.

Furthermore, you can turn on the Cloudflare CDN straight from your dashboard. You won’t have to worry about the potential for faulty configurations/installations because everything is already integrated, preconfigured, and ready to go.

Powerful Cloud Control Panel

FastComet takes pride in its straightforward cloud control panel and it is these kinds of solutions that the AWS competition thrives on. With the SmartControl panel, you can easily manage your website on any device.

This is not a software built entirely from the ground up, though. The team built on the functionality of the cPanel/WHM and added a lot of neat features to help make it better. For one, there is a helpful and responsive client area where you can easily keep track of your services, accounts, and billing using any smartphone or mobile device.

In addition, you get comprehensive metrics on everything related to cloud hosting. You can view how many resources each individual website or application is using, see optimization reports, and more. Everything is integrated in the Observer Monitoring Dashboard. How’s that for easy management?

Professional Hosting Security

FastComet developed its own, in-house security system, FastGuard, to ensure that malicious activities are promptly recognized and thwarted before any damage is done. The AI algorithm works with BitNinJA to create a defense network firewall that informs individual servers about potential threats.

Even with shared hosting, all accounts are isolated from one another. In the off-chance that another website on your server is corrupted by malware, you don’t have to worry about it affecting your environment as well.

The Web Application Firewall (WAF) adds another layer of security to your individual websites and it does so by verifying whether incoming traffic is attempting to exploit any part of your website, such as various plugins or extensions.

8. Rackspace

Rackspace has over two decades of experience in the hosting industry. Unlike the leading cloud platforms, Rackspace does offer managed cloud services in addition to unmanaged infrastructure. This makes it a solid AWS alternative.

You can have Rackspace manage your Azure, Oracle, or AWS technology, although this will come at a significant cost. This is the main reason why Rackspace is so low on my list. Its comprehensive business solutions are pricey.

What’s more, the company will charge you for services that are usually free (or really cheap) with other hosts, such as backups and bandwidth. When you provision additional storage space from them, you’ll be charged a separate fee for partitioning. Is it an industry standard? No, not really.

That said, Rackspace ensures that your website or application has exceptional performance whether your visitors are from the US, Europe, India or Australia. Everything is managed for you and you can rely on Rackspace to solve any problem that comes up on the way.

Exceptional Cloud Performance

From general purpose to compute- or memory-optimized solutions, you can count on Rackspace to deliver a high-performance infrastructure stack anywhere in the world. Its virtual cloud servers are powered by OpenStack and you’ll be able to easily integrate them with either dedicated or on-premise machines.

If more resources are needed, you can use its auto scaling and cloud orchestration services. In terms of software, the Rackspace team can configure the machines according to your own personal preferences, whether you want Windows, any Linux-based distro, or a custom image.

In situations where traffic management is an issue, you can use the Rackspace cloud load balancer. The service supports over 10 different protocols, from HTTPS to SFTP, and includes advanced access management, as well as health monitoring for your workloads.

Commitment to Enterprise Security

Rackspace’s data centers are N+2 redundant, while the physical facilities require biometric authentication. The company has a customer security operations center that monitors its global network 24/7/365 and that takes immediate action when there’s any sign of suspicious activity.

Rackspace also provides guidance for security compliance. From risk assessment to compliance reports, testing, and remediation, you can count on them to protect your business and machines.

If need be, you can work with them solely as a managed security services provider. In this quality, Rackspace will do active threat monitoring and data protection on your behalf. This can reduce costs on your end because you won’t need to maintain a fully-staffed security team.

Managed Operations

Rackspace has positioned itself as an out-of-the-box managed cloud solution for enterprises.

Do you want to modernize your applications and transform your business processes through widespread systems integrations? They can do it for you. Do you want to provision the experience of Rackspace’s DevOps or rely on them for container adoption? No problem.

Overall, the value proposition depends on each specific case, as well as your current potential. There’s no doubt that Rackspace can help organizations be more agile and reduce the time it takes for investments to create profit through modern infrastructures, but I recommend a thorough cost-benefit analysis before moving forward with this service.

It might just be that Rackspace will cost you much more than you can afford to spend and that incremental improvements would be more suitable.

Reasons to Look for AWS Competitors

Amazon may be at the forefront of the cloud computing market, but this doesn’t make it the best choice for everyone. For example, AWS is not for hosting beginners. It does not have an intuitive control panel and it will require basic (at the very least) knowledge of systems administration.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you should look for an AWS alternative right away. The Amazon knowledgebase has tutorials that will guide you through every hosting task you can think of, including the installation of a popular CMS like WordPress. The problem is that the learning curve is quite steep, and Amazon has its proprietary technology that you have to get used to.

If you have time on your hands, there might be no need to look for alternatives to AWS in the first place. However, here’s what Amazon Web Services competitors can offer you:

• Managed Services. You will likely struggle with database management, security, and file monitoring, which is the main reason to look for AWS competitors. You can save a great deal of time you would otherwise spend on configuring and maintaining your VMs because managed services take infrastructure maintenance off your back.

• Better Prices. Although Amazon tries to be more cost-effective, it’s still one of the most expensive services out there. In fact, with the exception of Rackspace, none of the top AWS competitors will charge you as much as they do. Whether you want a similar cloud platform or a company that offers managed services, this is one of the important reasons to look for other solutions.

• Affordable Technical Support. Amazon’s technical support is very expensive and this cannot be overstated. For the business tier, you will have to pay either $100 or a percentage of your AWS monthly charges, whichever is higher. You can definitely get quality, 24/7 live chat, phone, and email tech services for less than that.

Finding the best alternative to AWS will ultimately come down to your particular needs and budget. That said, given the numerous Amazon Web Services competitors, I guarantee you can find something to fit your circumstance.

Top AWS Competitors: The Takeaway

If you want someone to help you with the management and security of cloud computing, Cloudways is one of the best, most affordable services of its kind.

On the other hand, Kamatera is my go-to option for high-performance hosting with tiered managed services. By comparison to AWS, Kamatera will actually save you money in the long run, and it also gives you a month-long free trial.

GCP and Azure give you more or less what Amazon does, but they’re both more affordable. I’d recommend GCP for straightforward cloud development and deployment, whereas Azure might be a better choice for organizations already working with MS products.

SiteGround and Liquid Web are hosting companies with great track records. If you want to start off small with a shared hosting plan or a managed WordPress one, these two hosts can give you everything you need and then some.

Similarly, FastComet might be a newcomer, but its discounted offers are often too good to pass up on.

Lastly, Rackspace is more of a niche alternative to AWS, since they specialize in enterprise-grade solutions. Keep in mind that while Rackspace offers bespoke high-performance servers, their service will likely cost you as much as AWS, perhaps more in some circumstances.