AWS Web Hosting Review (2023)
- 9 Minutes to read
Table of Content
- Introduction
- What is AWS?
- AWS Cloud Products
- Why AWS for WordPress?
- How to Host your WordPress Website on Amazon EC2 and S3
- Review of AWS Web Hosting: What It Offers
- Review of AWS Web Hosting: Services Offered
- Who Else does AWS Benefit?
- How does AWS pricing work?
- AWS Website Solutions
- AWS Advantages
- AWS Disadvantages
- Conclusion
Introduction
Amazon Web Services (AWS) tops the list of web hosting services providers with more than 34% market share. Where Google Cloud is positioned in 2nd position with 21% of the market share. If you’re running an enterprise-level business and want high-capacity database storage, processing capacity, content distribution, and highly-scalable networking capacity then AWS will be best-suitable to fulfill your all needs related to web hosting. It’s not easy to find and choose one of the best web hosting services for your needs, especially since there are so many to choose from. AWS lets you choose solutions and pay for only what you use, it saves you money without sacrificing application performance or user experience.
What is AWS?
AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides Cloud Computing platforms and APIs to developers or companies who want to develop cloud-based applications. AWS can be used for quality development because it offers over 200 fully featured services from worldwide data centers.
AWS is a mixture of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and packaged software as a service (SaaS). AWS has a large customer base from start-ups, and government organizations, to Fortune 500 companies. This article is intended to help you gain a comprehensive understanding of this popular cloud platform, its components, services, and more.
The top Amazon Web Services offerings are:
- Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2)
- AWS Lightsail
- Amplify
- Simple Storage Service from Amazon (S3)
- Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
- Relational Database Services from Amazon (RDS)
AWS Cloud Products
Let’s have a quick look at the various AWS domains and the services offered within each domain.
Compute
The Compute domain is made up of services that are related to compute workloads. These services are:
- EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)
- Lambda
- Elastic Beanstalk
- LightSail by Amazon
Storage
The Storage domain has services that have to do with storing data. These services are:
- S3 (Simple Storage Service)
- Stretchy Block Shop
- Amazon Glacier
- Snowball by AWS
Database
The Database domain is for tasks that have to do with databases. It has the following services:
- Amazon Aurora
- Amazon RDS
- Amazon DynamoDB
- Amazon’s RedShift
Migration
The Migration domain is used to move data to or from the AWS Infrastructure. It has the following services:
- The Database Migration Service from AWS
- SnowBall AWS
Networking and Content Delivery
The Networking and Content Delivery domain is used to separate your network infrastructure, and content delivery is used to speed up the delivery of content. It comes with the services below:
- Amazon Route 53
- AWS CloudFront
- Amazon API Gateway
Management Tools
The Management Tools domain is made up of AWS services that are used to manage other AWS services. These services are:
- The AWS CloudWatch
- CloudFomation from AWS
- CloudTrail by AWS
Security & Identity, Compliance
The Security & Identity, Compliance domain is made up of services that are used to manage and protect your AWS resources by authenticating them and giving them security. The following services are part of it:
- AWS IAM
- AWS KMS
- AWS Shield
Messaging
The Messaging domain is made up of services that are used to put messages in a queue, send notifications, or send emails. It is made up of the following areas:
- Amazon SQS
- Amazon SNS
- Amazon SES
- Amazon Pinpoint
Why AWS for WordPress?
If you want to host your WordPress site, there are many reasons to go with AWS.
Advantages of Hosting WordPress on AWS
There are numerous benefits to hosting your WordPress site on AWS. Here are the most significant advantages:
- Full Ownership
- Flexibility
- Better User Experience
- Very Flexible
- Cost Savings
How to Host your WordPress Website on Amazon EC2 and S3
By hosting your website on the cloud, you can make sure it is reliable, fast, and safe (against any kind of data loss). Below is mentioned how to use Amazon S3 and EC2 to host your WordPress site.
Using Amazon S3 to Host WordPress
Hosting your images on Amazon S3 is a great idea because you don’t have to worry about backing them up since S3 keeps multiple copies of your files and gives you quick access to them. It also cuts down on the number of images on your server.
Use Amazon EC2 to Host WordPress
Amazon EC2 lets you make memory and processing power that can be changed online (on the cloud). When you host on AWS, you have a great plug-and-play option for your server’s hard drives, storage space, and processing power.
Why is it Helpful to Host on AWS EC2 and S3?
- You can choose how much you want to pay for each service you want to use.
- The dashboard for configuration is so easy to use. So that you can set up even if you don’t know much about Amazon S3 and EC2.
- You get hosting that is scalable.
- Now you have a website that is very accessible.
- You will find it easy to pull content from high-potential sources for your website.
Review of AWS Web Hosting: What It Offers
Amazon Web services base plans do not have exclusive features to build and manage business websites. Let’s Look at some important features such as web hosting, traffic management, web platform support, server hosting, web management, and scalability.
Web Hosting
AWS provides web hosting services that stand out from its competitors as business owners have many different hosting needs. AWS lets you customize the package based on the types of websites and servers you want to use.
Maintaining Website Traffic
AWS helps you manage website traffic so that your business website works well every day, no matter how many or few people visit your landing pages. How much traffic it can handle, though, depends on which plan you sign up for.
Help for Website Platform
AWS supports a wide range of platforms that let you build and run business websites and apps. This gives you the freedom to choose the platform that works best for you. Amazon Lightsail is compatible with Joomla, Magento, and Drupal, and it can also be used to make WordPress websites. Next, AWS Amplify lets you use frameworks for single-page apps, such as React JS, Angular JS, Nuxt, and Vue JS.
Server Hosting
When it comes to hosting servers, the different AWS packages have different features. On the one hand, the Amazon Lightsail plan gives you virtual servers that run on either Windows or Linux/Unix, along with the right amount of storage, memory, and processing power.
Website Management
Each AWS plan gives you different ways to handle your websites, apps, and data. For example, Amazon Lightsail has a single console that you can use to manage your web server, networking, and DNS.
Scalability
The AWS infrastructure can grow or shrink depending on the size of your business, your budget, and your needs. Even though you can start with just one server, Amazon Lightsail lets you add up to five servers. You can scale your web architecture up to enterprise levels with both AWS Amplify and Amazon S3. But Amazon EC2 beats them all because it gives you the most flexibility to grow your business and handle more traffic.
Review of AWS Web Hosting: Services Offered
AWS works according to the extra services or top-up services added to your hosting package. You can add some of the following AWS web hosting services to your package:
Moving to the cloud
AWS lets you put websites, apps, databases, storage, and virtual or physical servers in the cloud. It also lets you move centers from a location on your own premises, a public cloud, or a hosting facility to AWS.
eCommerce
Amazon is one of the most popular eCommerce sites in the world, so it’s no surprise that AWS offers digital commerce solutions. It helps businesses of all sizes sell goods and services to customers over the internet by giving them online sales and retail services.
Remote Work
AWS makes it easy to manage remote workers like call center agents, freelance artists, and people who work from home. Remote work solutions help your team be more productive and keep the information they share and store and send online safe.
Database Management
AWS gives you the chance to move data to databases that you can manage on a large scale. Plus, it makes sure that your databases work very well and are always available. After all, AWS’s databases are made to work quickly so that they can handle heavy business loads.
Backup & Restore
You can use AWS’s backup and restore services as part of your business’s risk management plan. To keep your data safe and secure for a long time, you can choose from different ways to store it, transfer data, and connect to networks.
Front-End Web & mobile app development
You can build mobile and web apps with the help of AWS’s handy development tools. It helps with the process of making apps for Android, iOS, React Native, and JavaScript. Because of this, it makes it easier to build, deploy, and run different kinds of apps.
Security
AWS gives you ways to keep your accounts, data, and workloads safe. Some of the services for protecting data are encryption, finding threats, and managing keys. You can also manage permissions, identities, and resources with the identity and access management services.
Support Plans
You need to sign up for one of the support plans if you want to get better customer service than what comes with the AWS packages. Depending on what kind of technical help your business needs, you can choose from developer support, business support, enterprise support, and enterprise on-ramp support.
Who Else Does AWS Benefit?
AWS benefits a number of large-scale enterprises. Many organizations use AWS to host applications, including tech companies, TV networks, banks, food producers, and governments.
AWS has been a popular choice for many established startups too.
How Does AWS Pricing Work?
AWS’s cloud services are mostly pay-as-you-go. AWS charges solely for the services you use, without long-term contracts or costly licensing. AWS pricing is like water and electricity. You just pay for the services you use, and there are no termination fees. Below are the steps to pay for AWS
- Pay-as-you-go
- Save when you commit
- Pay less by using more
Why Use AWS for Web Hosting?
Extensive Device Compatibility
All major content management systems (CMS), platforms, and programming languages are compatible with AWS hosting.
Data Centers Worldwide
Clients could come from any country. With AWS, setting up a data center or content delivery network to host your website anywhere in the world only takes a few clicks.
Immediately Scalable
The number of visitors to a website may rise and fall dramatically. The scalability of AWS means that it can adapt to a wide range of situations, from the middle of the night when traffic is low to the height of a social media sharing campaign when traffic increases dramatically.
Flexible Pricing Models
There are no setup fees or minimum commitment periods with AWS, you’re only charged for the resources you actually use. You can choose between a monthly subscription plan or a pay-as-you-go model when it comes to web hosting on AWS.
AWS Website Solutions
Simple Web Hosting
Simple websites have a single web server running a CMS like WordPress, an eCommerce system like Magento, or a development stack like LAMP. The software simplifies website building, updating, managing, and serving.
Simple websites are appropriate for low to medium-frequented sites with various authors and regular content updates, such as marketing, content, or blog websites. They give a simple foundation for a future website. These low-cost sites require IT administration of the web server and aren’t scalable beyond a few servers.
Simple Static Website Hosting
Static websites don’t have any server-side application code like PHP or ASP.NET. Instead, they give your website visitors HTML, JavaScript, images, videos, and other files. They are usually used to make personal or business sites.
Static websites don’t cost much, are very reliable, don’t need any server management, and can handle enterprise-level traffic without any extra work.
Enterprise Web Hosting
Enterprise websites include social, travel, and other application-heavy sites, as well as popular marketing and media sites. AWS is used to host the websites of companies like Lamborghini, Coursera, and Nordstrom. Enterprise websites need to be able to scale their resources on the fly and have a high level of availability to support the most popular and demanding websites.
Enterprise websites often use more than one AWS service and are spread across more than one data center (called Availability Zones). Enterprise websites built on AWS have high levels of availability, scalability, and performance, but they need more management and administration than simple or static websites.
AWS Advantages
User-Friendly
AWS is a secure, easy-to-use platform that makes it straightforward to change data. AWS is simpler than Azure or Google Cloud Platform for most enterprises. AWS provides information, documentation, and video lessons for each service.
Flexible Pricing
Amazon’s pricing is flexible. You can pay per hour, month, or year. Services start at $0.08 per hour and $57.60 per month. Your account isn’t inexpensive, but it has many features.
Secure
AWS’s secure architecture protects your data. Professionals give a secure data structure like:
- Privacy
- ID/access management
- Protecting infrastructure
- Continuous danger detection
- Privacy and Compliance
It’s an end-to-end solution that lets companies focus on growth without worrying about privacy.
Customer Support
AWS offers live chat, email, and phone assistance 24*7 to prospective customers. Their customer service team will help you. AWS offers 4 levels. Business, Enterprise, Developer, Basic. Support is included. Basic support includes 24/7 customer service, forums, tech support for health checks, and FAQs.
Backup and Restore
Even though your hosting plan doesn’t come with automatic backups, you can buy AWS’ backup and data protection software. It protects your data with “99.999999999% data durability” by keeping copies uploaded to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon S3 Glacier and stored on at least three devices in an AWS Region.
AWS Disadvantages
Confusing Pricing
Their price is strange. Some Amazon web hosting reviews mention consulting for pricing. Pricing varies per service and time period. Amazon’s prices are low, yet still high. Amazon is more expensive than its rivals. It’s expensive for Amazon sellers.
Limited Services
Amazon’s hosting services have limits. Amazon’s bandwidth and disc space are restricted. This is owing to the massive daily load Amazon’s servers endure. Clouds have their limits. Amazon’s services may not be best if you need lots of storage.
High Variance in Performance
Amazon is normally reliable, but occasionally it fails. This may be due to the fact that their servers are busier than others. Occasionally performing better than the competition and occasionally performing worse. The service is inconsistent since it operates in various ways.
Conclusion
Amazon is no longer ‘just’ a retail giant. It also dominates the field when it comes to cloud hosting services. AWS powers the web services of tech giants such as Apple and Netflix, so you know you’re in good company. This blog was an attempt to dig deep into the benefits and drawbacks of Amazon Web Services. It offers some of the best services that make anyone forget about flaws. Amazon has always tried to reach customers’ expectations, which is also a reason why it is so popular.
Depending on which AWS product you use, there can be a steep learning curve. However, AWS Lightsail makes it easy to launch WordPress websites. If you’ve ever used VPS hosting before, creating a Lightsail instance is as simple as launching a VPS.
Furthermore, AWS hosting offers three months of free hosting for some of its Lightsail plans to new customers. That’s more than enough time to test the service for yourself and launch a new WordPress website.
