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I feel similarly about AWS and I've been using it for a while. AWS is very powerful and flexible but the number of options and different services can be bewilde

I feel similarly about AWS and I've been using it for a while. AWS is very powerful and flexible but the number of options and different services can be bewildering. I've suggested AWS to several developers I know that have never used it before and they were turned off from not being able to understand what was being offered and how much it would cost them. For example, compare the Heroku pricing page and the AWS pricing page for EC2: https://www.heroku.com/pricing https://www.heroku.com/pricing http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/ http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/ The Heroku one is significantly easier to understand in my opinion. I understand AWS has more options and is therefore harder to summarise though.

sciurus 12y ago
I think this just illustrates your point, but EC2 and Heroku Dynos are two different types of services (IAAS vs PAAS). The appropriate comparisons are AWS Elastic Beanstalk to Heroku Dynos and AWS RDS to Heroku Postgres. https://aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/ https://aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/ https://aws.amazon.com/rds/ https://aws.amazon.com/rds/
- seanwilson 12y ago
  Yes, a link to Elastic Beanstalk would be a fairer comparison of what is being offered by Heroku but my point was most AWS pages are like that and aren't easy to follow, especially if you're new to AWS.
  - derefr 12y ago
    The "you" in the comparison changes as well, though. Indeed, the copy for (say) EC2 isn't comprehensible to the same people that the copy for Elastic Beanstock is. But different people will be reading the copy for those two things. The person AWS is selling EC2 to isn't a newbie developer wanting to run their app; it's someone wanting to build out something like Heroku: someone with lots of system-architecture experience. Or, to put it more simply: the intended audience for AWS ad copy is exactly the set of people who are currently trying to compare some specific AWS service to similar services of competitors. AWS is never trying to "create a need" for something nobody was already asking for; they're just trying to serve the needs people already do have better/cheaper/more flexibly.

sciurus 12y ago

I think this just illustrates your point, but EC2 and Heroku Dynos are two different types of services (IAAS vs PAAS). The appropriate comparisons are AWS Elastic Beanstalk to Heroku Dynos and AWS RDS to Heroku Postgres. https://aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/ https://aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/ https://aws.amazon.com/rds/ https://aws.amazon.com/rds/

seanwilson 12y ago
Yes, a link to Elastic Beanstalk would be a fairer comparison of what is being offered by Heroku but my point was most AWS pages are like that and aren't easy to follow, especially if you're new to AWS.
- derefr 12y ago
  The "you" in the comparison changes as well, though. Indeed, the copy for (say) EC2 isn't comprehensible to the same people that the copy for Elastic Beanstock is. But different people will be reading the copy for those two things. The person AWS is selling EC2 to isn't a newbie developer wanting to run their app; it's someone wanting to build out something like Heroku: someone with lots of system-architecture experience. Or, to put it more simply: the intended audience for AWS ad copy is exactly the set of people who are currently trying to compare some specific AWS service to similar services of competitors. AWS is never trying to "create a need" for something nobody was already asking for; they're just trying to serve the needs people already do have better/cheaper/more flexibly.