Why Paying For Something You Can Get For Free?
#ask#free#hosting#serverless
Bayu Angora

Bayu Angora @bayuangora

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Why Paying For Something You Can Get For Free?

Publish Date: Sep 16 '19
9 8

Dear All

I use Netlify for my website because Netlify provide complete feature (SSL, hosting, deployment, etc) for free.

Another service such AWS, Azure, Firebase, etc, there are good. But the feature isn't as complete as Netlify. You need to integrate with external deployment to make it works. Or you have to subscribe monthly payment to upgrade the limitation.

I don't affiliated with Netlify or another service above. But I just curious, why so many people out there choose another service with limited feature and monthly payment?

Cheers!

Comments 8 total

  • Vicente G. Reyes
    Vicente G. ReyesSep 16, 2019

    Netlify is only for static sites.

    • Bayu Angora
      Bayu AngoraSep 16, 2019

      Yes. I mean, so many people out there choose to monthly payment only for their static website such Hugo, Jekyll, Gatsby, etc.

      • Vicente G. Reyes
        Vicente G. ReyesSep 16, 2019

        That only means that they need something aside from Netlify.

  • Renato Byrro
    Renato ByrroSep 16, 2019

    I can say about my experience with AWS. I have multiple sites hosted there in a similar fashion to Netlify using S3 & CloudFront. When I need anything dynamic, I can easily attach Lambda for computing, DynamoDB for persistence, SQS for queuing, all serverless.

    Haven't tested Netlify, their pricing page scares me away:

    If you need SLA (as probably all professional sites do), Netlify costs $500. AWS gives that for free.

    If you collaborate with co-workers, Netlify costs $45 (for only 3 users), AWS IAM provides multiple users for free and a fine grained access control logic.

    If you need premium support, Netlify costs $500, while on AWS you can get support for few dozen bucks.

    Global CDN is free by default on AWS CloudFront (pay-per-use), but costs $500 on Netlify.

    I could go on here, but you get the idea: anything a little more advanced than what a personal website needs is free on AWS and very expensive on Netlify.

    So, I ask you: why would someone pay Netlify when it's free on AWS? I guess people like how it works, find it easier to work with... I don't know...

    Apart from financials:

    AWS also offers private repo, CI/CD, infra-as-code, everything for free and in one place. It's not just Netlify that offers that type of deployment experience.

    And sometimes it's better to have everything in one place. If you use a DB service in AWS, for example, hosting your site there can make more sense.

    • Bayu Angora
      Bayu AngoraSep 16, 2019

      Thanks for response. I think AWS is better choice for pay per usage too. By the way, how about free monthly bandwidth of AWS compared to (100gb free monthly bandwidth) of Netlify?

      • Renato Byrro
        Renato ByrroSep 16, 2019

        AWS offers 50 GB/mo free only for the first 12 months. Then pricing depends on the region you deploy. In the US & Canada, 100 GB will cost you around $8.

  • Mahesh K
    Mahesh KSep 16, 2019

    You are locked in many ways if you think free services like Netlify suits all peoples scenario. I'd never recommend netflify, gatsby to the guys who want to mess with database and do experimentation on server. For them VPS is best bet.

  • Reese Poirier
    Reese PoirierSep 16, 2019

    My guess, based on personal experience, is that there are a lot of people with the mentality that "It's just a static site now, but when I finally get around to making that web app I'll want more flexible hosting," and then they just never get around to writing the app they wanted to because work and life get in the way.

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