It is not necessarily a cost-saving measure, but it can be in some cases. In a project I was involved with, we came to the conclusion that we would pay AWS ever

It is not necessarily a cost-saving measure, but it can be in some cases. In a project I was involved with, we came to the conclusion that we would pay AWS every three month the cost of the hardware that we would by ourselfs. I am aware that AWS includes hosting and services. Nevertheless that is a very big difference.