AWS has different instance types. Some are running on Nitro, which is very close to bare metal, and they have so called "metal" instance types, which involves

AWS has different instance types. Some are running on Nitro, which is very close to bare metal, and they have so called "metal" instance types, which involves no virtualization between you and the hardware, as the name implies. And it's quite possible to create new images for these instances for your needs. You're right about the complexity and lock in. Using such services are often a trade off in dev complexity vs speed. If you're following a well defined process that doesn't change often that's going to peg the CPU of a 72-core machine for days, it might be worth it to eek out every speed improvement you can. If, on the other hand, you're constantly iterating and updating your code, and responding to handful of user requests that barely causes a blip on a single core VM, CPU speed is probably not your primary concern. People are doing it, I'm one of them. It's a niche though, and most assuredly not for ever case.