NeoCities is currently using OVH. We were using Hetzner but we ran into issues when our server was the victim of a DDoS attack, and Hetzner responded by null-routing our server's IP address for a few days. OVH has better DDoS mitigation strategies (supposedly), so that's why we're switching.
I've used AWS before in corporate work, and I have to say I was very unimpressed with it. The prices for what you get are exorbitantly high. I've heard people say "they are affordable for corporate standards", but my reaction to that is just that their previous hosts were even worse about it. Every hosting solution I have had other than AWS has been cheaper.
More importantly to me than price though is the knowledge. I really don't like that AWS is a "black box" of mystery meat. I don't know how most of the systems are implemented under the hood, which means I can't predict what the failure points are and what I'm implementing. The way I would compile capabilities of AWS systems together was through anecdotal information via blog posts. We would have servers fail and be given no explanation as to why. And many of the interfaces are proprietary, which means that moving to an alternative is not an option. Not to mention the APIs are not particularly stellar (a lot of XML). The only options for persistent storage are network drives and local disks that go away on shutdown, which is not a particularly good choice of options.
With OVH, I get a server. I know what a server is, how to back it up, and what its fail points are. If OVH does something I don't agree with, I can move to another company and have exactly the same environment.
I'm not saying AWS is useless (again, I've used it for corporate environments before), but it's hard to justify the high cost when you're on a budget, especially when you can't even determine if the tradeoff is worth it.
I've used AWS before in corporate work, and I have to say I was very unimpressed with it. The prices for what you get are exorbitantly high. I've heard people say "they are affordable for corporate standards", but my reaction to that is just that their previous hosts were even worse about it. Every hosting solution I have had other than AWS has been cheaper.
More importantly to me than price though is the knowledge. I really don't like that AWS is a "black box" of mystery meat. I don't know how most of the systems are implemented under the hood, which means I can't predict what the failure points are and what I'm implementing. The way I would compile capabilities of AWS systems together was through anecdotal information via blog posts. We would have servers fail and be given no explanation as to why. And many of the interfaces are proprietary, which means that moving to an alternative is not an option. Not to mention the APIs are not particularly stellar (a lot of XML). The only options for persistent storage are network drives and local disks that go away on shutdown, which is not a particularly good choice of options.
With OVH, I get a server. I know what a server is, how to back it up, and what its fail points are. If OVH does something I don't agree with, I can move to another company and have exactly the same environment.
I'm not saying AWS is useless (again, I've used it for corporate environments before), but it's hard to justify the high cost when you're on a budget, especially when you can't even determine if the tradeoff is worth it.