> Surely the AWS options save you doing all the DBA / Server admin / security work. Albeit for more money but time = money. They do, but you need to invest eno

> Surely the AWS options save you doing all the DBA / Server admin / security work. Albeit for more money but time = money. They do, but you need to invest enough to understand AWS's offerings, and how they fit together. Amazon's documentation is very extensive, I'll give it that - but it takes a while to build enough of a mental model to know how to fit everything together. Generally, managing your own server is closer to the skillset people already have when starting out (unless your training was platform-specific), so starting off with a raw VPS may in fact be quicker, even if in the long term AWS/Google/etc. would save time for someone who's equally experienced in both.