Did you use spot instances when possible? Did you use autoscaling to keep your instance count as small as possible? These could be reasons why your costs were

Did you use spot instances when possible? Did you use autoscaling to keep your instance count as small as possible? These could be reasons why your costs were so high. Another reason why companies use AWS is that it allows them to move faster. If you're afraid of lock-in and want to build everything yourself then yes, AWS will be damn expensive. But if you use the services they provide, you can build things pretty quickly without much workforce.