My primary use case was as a place to migrate legacy systems.
Senior Researcher at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Stable, scalable, and reduces overhead costs
Pros and Cons
- "Cost-effective and tolerant."
- "AWS has reduced our costs and maintenance requirements."
- "Setup is somewhat complex."
- "An area for improvement would be API creation - a lot of tools are provided, but there can be issues with integrating them."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
AWS has reduced our costs and maintenance requirements. It also allows us to control our load in peak times and automatically increases or decreases your capacity as required.
What is most valuable?
The features I have found most valuable are S3 buckets and Lambda services.
What needs improvement?
An area for improvement would be API creation - a lot of tools are provided, but there can be issues with integrating them. There is also a cost underlay, in that at the end of the day, some costs are not in the picture, so AWS needs to improve its costing toolset.
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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of AWS has improved over time and can now be well managed.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This solution is scalable to any limit.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used Rackspace Openstack but switched because it required more manpower than AWS, and AWS is more cost-effective and tolerant.
How was the initial setup?
The setup was somewhat complex. It was done in three phases over a year.
What was our ROI?
This solution reduced our overhead cost by 30-40%.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Technical support is expensive to use.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I evaluated Oracle Cloud, but it was more complex to use and provided a smaller toolset than AWS.
What other advice do I have?
This solution is one of the top tools available for legacy migration. I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Vice President Information Technology at TASC Towers
Issue-free with good performance and a relatively simple setup
Pros and Cons
- "It's very stable and the performance is good."
- "The product offers a lot of functionality."
- "The solution can get to be a little expensive."
- "The solution can get to be a little expensive."
What is our primary use case?
We are using the solution for our core applications and our core infrastructure.
What is most valuable?
The product offers a lot of functionality.
Our vendor who provides us a specific core application uses AWS and it's just simple for us if we use it too.
The initial setup is straightforward.
The solution has been issue-free. It's very stable and the performance is good.
What needs improvement?
The solution can get to be a little expensive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is stable. There are no bugs or glitches. The performance is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have about 100 users on the solution right now.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is good. We have had no issues with them. We are satisfied with their service.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We also use Microsoft Azure.
How was the initial setup?
The initial implementation process is pretty simple and easy. It's not complex or overly difficult. A company shouldn't have any issues with the deployment process.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The costs could always be lowered.
How often we pay can vary, depending on the exact service. We pay, for example, both yearly and monthly.
What other advice do I have?
As a cloud-based solution, we are using the latest version all the time.
I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.
I would recommend the solution to other users and organizations.
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 does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Amazon AWS
March 2026
Learn what your peers think about Amazon AWS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Software Architect at AIOPS group
Very stable and scalable, but could use more integration
Pros and Cons
- "One of the most valuable things about it, besides the stability, is that you can forget about infrastructure because you're just doing it on AWS. I remember the times before AWS and other cloud solutions existed, and it was a huge pain to get real hardware, put it inside, configure everything, report everything, and do a scale. It was very, very difficult compared to how it is now. Not even just AWS, but what all these cloud providers are doing, I would say, is a huge advancement in technology."
- "One of the most valuable things about it, besides the stability, is that you can forget about infrastructure because you're just doing it on AWS."
- "AWS could be improved with more integration, but I can see that they're developing these features and working very hard on their platform."
- "AWS could be improved with more integration, but I can see that they're developing these features and working very hard on their platform."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case of AWS, for most projects, is for hosting on AWS and developing locally, as well as testing some AWS environments. We are mostly using this platform from a developer point of view. AWS is our cloud platform by choice.
What is most valuable?
One of the most valuable things about it, besides the stability, is that you can forget about infrastructure because you're just doing it on AWS. I remember the times before AWS and other cloud solutions existed, and it was a huge pain to get real hardware, put it inside, configure everything, report everything, and do a scale. It was very, very difficult compared to how it is now. Not even just AWS, but what all these cloud providers are doing, I would say, is a huge advancement in technology.
What needs improvement?
AWS could be improved with more integration, but I can see that they're developing these features and working very hard on their platform.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with AWS for a few years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Amazon AWS is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
One of the major points for AWS is the scalability that comes with it. You can monitor it really well, and you can even adjust down, or sometimes up. What this technology allows is very nice.
AWS is predominantly used in most of the projects that we have. In my organization, there are thousands of users who are using AWS.
How are customer service and support?
I have never personally contacted tech support.
How was the initial setup?
There isn't really an installation for AWS, but you will need certain certificates to download the interface. I generated some certificates, put them on my machine, and then used them to connect to AWS services.
It depends on the project, but there is usually only one guy needed for deployment. For bigger, more complex platforms, you may need two or three guys to deploy AWS.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented AWS myself.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
You pay for a license, and that's how you get your own account. These are usually not individual licenses, but rather for a group of people. I think these licenses come at some volume, but I don't know many details about the licensing.
What other advice do I have?
I rate AWS a five out of ten, but it's mainly because I don't feel very experienced in AWS. I have gone to the console many times and seen many features that I have never used. I'm sure I can learn quickly, though, because there is a lot of information shared on the internet about how to use it—there are a lot of resources that you can use to learn, and there are a lot of features available on AWS. They're working very hard on their platform, and I can only see their usage growing in the future.
I would certainly recommend AWS to others.
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 does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Software Developer at Generate Impact
Great documentation with an excellent community and a reasonable pricing structure
Pros and Cons
- "The pricing model is good. It's pay-as-you-go."
- "I'm just a customer and an end-user; I'd highly recommend the solution to other users as one of the best cloud options out there right now."
- "It would be ideal if they could provide automatic health reports. That way, I would be able to understand at a glance the state of my services at any given time."
- "It would be ideal if they could provide automatic health reports. That way, I would be able to understand at a glance the state of my services at any given time."
What is our primary use case?
I use the solution for deploying some applications that use cloud computing.
What is most valuable?
It offers a lot of tools, which we leverage.
At the moment I'm using Lambda service and also AC2 machines - as a platform as a service and infrastructure as a service.
The pricing model is good. It's pay-as-you-go. You only pay for what you use.
The solution offers a lot of very helpful documentation. There's also a great community that surrounds it that is quite helpful if you have questions or want to learn something.
What needs improvement?
Personally, I need to improve myself in terms of the knowledge I have around the product. My goal is to maybe get certified in order to understand it better. It would be helpful if they would be able to provide me with more certification information.
It's a good platform. I don't have any issues with it at the moment.
It would be ideal if they could provide automatic health reports. That way, I would be able to understand at a glance the state of my services at any given time.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for three or four years at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable. We have many items deployed in AWS and we haven't had any issues. there are no bugs or glitches. It's problem-free.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
AWS provides us with a lot of tools for deploying automatically when we are working, for example, in a new feature. We have options for automatic deployments and don't have issues with size.
How are customer service and support?
There's a lot of great documentation and community support. I'm learning a lot and can find any answers I need there.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I'm working with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Computing right now.
How was the initial setup?
I work with my customer's solutions and I deploy into AWS to provide the end product for my customers. I don't directly deal with AWS implementations themselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is good and it's set up as a pay-as-you-go. It's not overly expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I'm just a customer and an end-user.
I'd highly recommend the solution to other users. It's one of the best cloud options out there right now.
I'd rate the solution at an eight 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: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Systems Architect at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Flexible and good for building machine learning workloads
Pros and Cons
- "We've built several AI ML solutions and done lots of work on the GPUs available on Amazon servers. We did a lot of work around web spidering, natural language processing, and machine learning or deep learning workloads."
- "We've built several AI ML solutions and done lots of work on the GPUs available on Amazon servers."
- "I think Amazon could improve some of the security or fine-grained access for metadata and many other things."
- "I think Amazon could improve some of the security or fine-grained access for metadata and many other things."
What is our primary use case?
We're using AWS for limited purposes right now. The university has its storage, servers, and large amounts of data center equipment, and the cloud fills a niche. We put things in the cloud so that others have access. But from a storage standpoint, 95 percent of the usage is entirely on-premises. We might use it more in the future, but we're trying to build up a storage ecosystem right now. We'll likely build that around some open-source solution, like Ceph or MEAN.io, or something from a popular vendor.
RedHat has Ceph storage too, and IBM has object storage. I'm not sure what the university will go with, but those are the ones we are looking at. We're using AWS S3 for general storage and storing images. We also use AWS as a platform for building some web services and things like that.
What is most valuable?
We've built several AI ML solutions and done lots of work on the GPUs available on Amazon servers. We did a lot of work around web spidering, natural language processing, and machine learning or deep learning workloads.
What needs improvement?
I think Amazon could improve some of the security or fine-grained access for metadata and many other things. From a cloud standpoint, Amazon provides more ways to restrict access or provide fine-grained access to different services. For the time being, I think the ecosystem is relatively secure, but there is room for improvement.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
AWS is scalable. It's serving about 150 users at my company right now. All of the users are researchers who do their own thing. Each research team manages its own partition and has fine-grained access to all the services. Small groups of around 10 to 15 people manage their own respective groups as to all the requirements associated with AWS.
How was the initial setup?
We customized our Amazon AWS deployment. The process takes about three to five hours, depending on the ecosystems we are building. It depends on whether it is related to web services or the call configuration. Some configurations take no more than half an hour. If you're doing something involving the server, you need to personally install some servers and some of the other database-related stuff.
I'm one of the AWS architects, but we have administrators who take care of the maintenance. I'm looking at some of the SNIA content, and it seems pretty good for object storage or some of the other storage-related options. I'm still trying to see which solutions are potentially more suitable for us.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not sure about the licensing. I don't know what kind of subscription the university bought. I imagine it's similar to Cognizant, which had a usage-based mechanism. We bought yearly subscriptions for specific servers while pre-booking some of the server-based storage or computing infrastructure.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We've used Azure also. They are all fairly good.
What other advice do I have?
I rate AWS eight out of 10. I used to work in Cognizant and TCS before that, and we used different cloud services, such as Amazon and Azure. If you want some kind of public cloud infrastructure, I would go with one of these or maybe Google Cloud. The university is in the process of setting up its own storage or server ecosystem. We plan to store massive amounts of video, images, and other objects, like our AI/ML workloads.
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 does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Director - Technology Operations at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees
Helpful service for a variety of applications
Pros and Cons
- "Amazon AWS contains a lot of helpful services."
- "Amazon AWS contains a lot of helpful services."
- "Amazon AWS would be improved if it were more stable and if customer support's responses were faster."
- "Amazon AWS would be improved if it were more stable and if customer support's responses were faster."
What is our primary use case?
We use Amazon AWS for many applications as well as Amazon's native services. We have a mix of content-based workloads and traditional legacy type of applications.
What is most valuable?
Amazon AWS contains a lot of helpful services.
What needs improvement?
Amazon AWS would be improved if it were more stable and if customer support's responses were faster.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for many years, somewhere between seven and ten.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution has been relatively stable. We had one issue sometime back, so the infrastructure could be more resilient.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This solution is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
I have contacted customer support and their response time could be faster.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We migrated to Amazon AWS from the Data Centers.
How was the initial setup?
The installation was straightforward. The installation time varies depending on workloads.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented through an in-house team. We have multiple teams for deployment and maintenance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There is no licensing cost.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Amazon AWS an eight out of ten. I recommend this solution to anyone who wants to start using it.
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 does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Lead architect at Tech Mahindra Limited
Stable, scalable, and offers many services
Pros and Cons
- "Amazon AWS is easy to use and in the past two years, I've never had any issues with scalability or stability."
- "Amazon AWS is easy to use and in the past two years, I've never had any issues with scalability or stability."
- "This solution could be improved by a better licensing model, especially for third-party software. Amazon AWS could also potentially be improved by more free storage, but I think that it's okay when compared to competitors' products."
- "This solution could be improved by a better licensing model, especially for third-party software."
What is our primary use case?
This solution has many use cases. Amazon AWS offers a lot of services, all of which are useful. How useful this solution will be for you depends on how it fits your business.
What is most valuable?
Amazon AWS is easy to use and in the past two years, I've never had any issues with scalability or stability.
What needs improvement?
This solution could be improved by a better licensing model, especially for third-party software. Amazon AWS could also potentially be improved by more free storage, but I think that it's okay when compared to competitors' products.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon AWS for more than two or three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is stable. I haven't had any problems with stability in the past two years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This solution is cloud-based, so it's scalable. It is elastic, so as soon as you want to increase storage, you do so without any issues. There are about four thousand to five thousand people using AWS in my organization.
How are customer service and support?
I have contacted Amazon's technical support and it was quite an easy process. You will have a solution within 24 hours.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I didn't use another fast cloud solution before Amazon AWS.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy and you don't really need to install anything. If you understand cloud solutions, you can easily do it yourself.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented myself, with an in-house team.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We need to pay for everything. If someone is a personal user, they get one year free. But if you are using this as a professional or enterprise solution, then your company has to pay. The license pricing is comparable to that of competitors'.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Amazon AWS a nine out of ten, primarily because I have a background in Java. Someone else with more experience in Microsoft technologies would probably prefer Azure. I recommend AWS to anyone considering implementing it because it's easy to use.
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 does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Principal Consultant at High Sierra Consultants
Good elasticity, good performance, and reasonable price
Pros and Cons
- "Macie is great. It is a service that makes recommendations on a data layer for cybersecurity. It is a great service."
- "Macie is great; it is a service that makes recommendations on a data layer for cybersecurity, and its elasticity is good, and I haven't come across any problems with it."
- "One thing that Azure offers that I think is good is Migrate appliance. So, Azure has a migrate appliance that allows you to run against workloads to determine the cost, preparedness, and scalability. I haven't found a similar feature in AWS. That kind of service would be great on AWS too if you could point it to the data center."
- "One thing that Azure offers that I think is good is Migrate appliance. So, Azure has a migrate appliance that allows you to run against workloads to determine the cost, preparedness, and scalability. I haven't found a similar feature in AWS."
What is our primary use case?
I am using it for enterprise warehousing. I am using it for web development, data warehousing, and also for building apps.
I am using its latest version. In terms of deployment, it is a platform as a service.
What is most valuable?
Macie is great. It is a service that makes recommendations on a data layer for cybersecurity. It is a great service.
Its elasticity is good, and I haven't come across any problems with it. So far, everything has been good.
What needs improvement?
One thing that Azure offers that I think is good is Migrate appliance. So, Azure has a migrate appliance that allows you to run against workloads to determine the cost, preparedness, and scalability. I haven't found a similar feature in AWS. That kind of service would be great on AWS too if you could point it to the data center.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for well over five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not had any performance issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's very easy to scale. Its elasticity is good. If you want to scale up or down, you can. You can scale out. There is no problem at all. That's one of the features that I like about it.
We have less than 50 people who are using this solution.
How are customer service and support?
I've not used their tech support yet.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We didn't use a different solution previously. They're the first.
How was the initial setup?
You need to know what you're doing. I know they're trying to make it easy. Some things are easy. Some things you have to know what you're doing.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It seems to be reasonable. It's the first one that I've used as a cloud platform, so they've set the benchmark for me, and now, I'm comparing everything else to them.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise others to just plan out what they are looking for in terms of use cases.
I would rate Amazon AWS an eight out of 10.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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