Is Amazon Web Services reasonably priced for a personal server? [closed]

Question

I currently have a Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Postfix web server that I setup on a spare computer at home that I am exploring transferring to Amazon Web Services. It's about as simple of a personal web server as it gets, I mainly use it for personal experimentation for PHP development, I have a blog, it hosts my e-mail, plus I do some C++ development on the server and run some small executable and networked personal applications.

The only traffic the server really sees is me (on a daily basis), plus some web crawlers, and the occasional hit from a Google search.

Is it reasonable to transfer my server to Amazon Web Services? Or is Amazon Web Services specifically targeted to larger scale servers? What's about the cheapest cost I can expect to pay for this hosting?

I tried using the AWS Simple Monthly Calculator but had a hard time estimating the numbers. Perhaps someone is doing something similar to my plans, and can inform me of what they are paying.

One of the reasons I am interested in AWS, is I am contemplating using my website as cloud storage for a mobile application I am working on, and if that application takes off quickly, I would like to be able to quickly scale to the traffic.

Answer 1

If you need a simple setup, it is sufficient to use a t1.micro instance. The monthly price for such an instance (depending on the location of the server) is about 15 US$. If you plan to run your server for a longer time, consider using reserved instances. You pay a one-time fee and get reduced hourly prices afterwards. If you run your server all the time, you should use a "High Utilization" instance. I think you won't get a lot of traffic and EBS requests, so I would focus on the main part regarding costs which is the EC2 instance hours.

Here is a basic example calculation with the above setup as a start. This calculation does not include a 1-year-free trial that Amazon offers.

If you need to scale, then you have a lot of options available. You can launch bigger instances if you need it. Have a look at the instance types page to get an overview (also includes details on the Micro instance). If scaling and possible upgrades are a main factor in your decision, then you should consider AWS.