AWS to bare metal two years later: Answering your questions about leaving AWS

The most frustrating part of hyperscalers is that it's so easy to make mistakes. Active tracking of you bill is a must, but the data is 24-48h late in some cases. So a single engineer can cause 5-figure regrettable spend very quickly.

I see more comments in favor than pushing back.

The problem I have with these stories is the confirmation bias that comes with them. Going self-hosted or on-premises does make sense in some carefully selected use cases, but I have dozens of stories of startup teams spinning their wheels with self-hosting strategies that turn into a big waste of time and headcount that they should have been using to grow their businesses instead.

The shared theme of all of the failure stories is missing the true cost of self-hosting: The hours spent getting the servers just right, managing the hosting, debating the best way to run things, and dealing with little issues add up but are easily lost in the noise if you’re not looking closely. Everyone goes through a honeymoon phase where the servers arrive and your software is up and running and you’re busy patting yourselves on the back about how you’re saving money. The real test comes 12 months later when the person who last set up the servers has left for a new job and the team is trying to do forensics to understand why the documentation they wrote doesn’t actually match what’s happening on the servers, or your project managers look back at the sprints and realize that the average time spent on self-hosting related tasks and ideas has added up to a lot more than anyone would have guessed.

Those stories aren’t shared as often. When they are, they’re not upvoted. A lot of people in my local startup scene have sheepish stories about how they finally threw in the towel on self-hosting and went to AWS and got back to focusing on their core product. Few people are writing blog posts about that because it’s not a story people want to hear. We like the heroic stories where someone sets up some servers and everything just works perfectly and there are no downsides.

You really need to weigh the tradeoffs, but many people are not equipped to do that. They just think their chosen solution will be perfect and the other side will be the bad one.

The real cost of self-hosting, in my direct experience with multiple startup teams trying it, is the endless small tasks, decisions, debates, and little changes that add up over time to more overhead than anyone would have expected. Everyone thinks it’s going to be as simple as having the colo put the boxes in the rack and then doing some SSH stuff, then you’re free of those AWS bills. In my experience it’s a Pandora’s box of tiny little tasks, decisions, debates, and “one more thing” small changes and overhauls that add up to a drain on the team after the honeymoon period is over.

If you’re a stable business with engineers sitting idle that could be the right choice. For most startups who just need to get a product out there and get customers, pulling limited headcount away from the core product to save pennies (relatively speaking) on a potential AWS bill can be a trap.