DevOps Services
Thinking about leaving AWS for cheaper servers?
Cheaper servers can cut your hosting bill a lot. Someone still has to run them at 3am. We plan the move on real 2026 prices and keep it running after.
Most teams start with the free AWS bill check. Once the bill is down, we review the rest of your setup for free, and this is one of the things we can take on. How the steps work
The blog post that made it look easy
You have read the stories. A team moved from AWS to rented servers at Hetzner, OVH or a similar provider and cut its bill by 70% or more. Your own bill keeps growing, most of it is steady servers and data transfer, and the math looks obvious.
It can be the right move. It is also a move where the savings get talked about loudly and the costs quietly.
What could happen, both ways
If you stay and do nothing: a steady workload on on-demand cloud pricing can cost several times what the same capacity costs on rented servers, and data transfer out of the big clouds is often the most expensive line per gigabyte.
If you move without a plan:
- Nobody runs it at 3am. On AWS, a lot of maintenance happens for you. On a rented server, updates, backups, failover and monitoring become your job. The most common reply to every "we left AWS and saved 80%" post is some version of does it require one full salary to maintain?
- No uptime promise. Some low-cost hosts don't offer an uptime guarantee (an SLA) at all, give short notice for maintenance, and can suspend an account over a failed card payment.
- Prices change too. Hetzner raised prices twice in 2026, on April 1 and again on June 15. Reported increases ran from roughly a third on many cloud servers to more than double on some x86 cloud server types, according to heise and DatacenterDynamics. Savings math from a 2024 blog post is out of date.
- Missing pieces. Managed databases, queues, file storage and load balancers have to be replaced with something you run yourself, or a third-party service.
The savings are often real. They are only worth it if the move is planned on current prices and someone looks after the result every month.
What we do, step by step
- Start with the bill. In the free review, software reads three months of your AWS bill and splits it into what would move cheaply (steady servers, data transfer, storage) and what wouldn't (heavily managed services, spiky workloads). A senior engineer checks the split.
- Fix the cheap wins first. Sometimes cleanup and discounts on AWS close most of the gap, without a move. We tell you if that is the case. See cloud costs.
- Price the move honestly. If a move still makes sense, you get a comparison on current 2026 prices: the new monthly hosting cost, the one-off move, and our monthly care, side by side with what you pay today.
- Design for the risks. Backups stored with a different provider, monitoring from outside, a written plan to rebuild on another host if one fails, and accounts in your own name. You can leave us, or the host, without losing anything.
- Move in steps. Usually the steady, expensive parts first, with the old setup kept running until the new one is proven. Each step has a way back.
- Keep it running every month. We only do this move together with monthly care, because the move is not where these projects fail. Updates, tested backups, uptime alerts and capacity watch continue from day one.
Software does the bill analysis, inventory and ongoing checks. A senior engineer designs the target setup, reviews every step of the move and signs off each cutover.
What you can do yourself today
- Split your AWS bill into compute, databases, storage, data transfer and "everything else." Which group is largest?
- Estimate how much of your server capacity runs flat out all month. Steady load moves well; spiky load often doesn't.
- List the AWS services you use that have no simple equivalent on a rented server.
- Price the same capacity at two or three providers on their current price lists, not on old blog posts.
- Ask honestly: who on your team would get the call at 3am, and are they happy about it?
What's included in which plan
The move itself is a project, quoted after the review. Monthly care is required with it:
| Guard $700/mo | Watch $1,200/mo | Operate $2,800/mo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Updates, tested before they go live | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Locked-down servers and network rules | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Backups restore-tested, stored off-provider | No | Yes | Yes |
| Uptime and capacity alerts to us first | No | Yes | Yes |
| Incident handling and changes on request | No | No | Yes |
For most moves we recommend Watch at minimum, because backups and uptime alerts are what the cloud used to cover for you. See all plans.
Questions about moving off AWS
How much will we save?
We don't know until we have seen your bill and priced the target on current prices. For some teams it is a large share of the bill; for others, cleanup on AWS gets most of the way without the risk of a move. The review tells you which.
Why do you insist on monthly care with the move?
Because the problems after a move are ongoing: updates, failed disks, backups, a host doing maintenance. A move without someone looking after it trades a known bill for an unknown risk, and we don't want to sell you that.
Will our app be down during the move?
We plan for short, scheduled windows, usually with the old and new setups running side by side until you switch. Databases are the tricky part, and we tell you the expected downtime per step before you approve it.
What if the new host raises prices or fails?
Everything is set up so it can be rebuilt elsewhere from written steps and off-provider backups, and the accounts are in your name. You are not locked to the host, or to us.
How we work with your systems
You stay in control
Read-only access first
The free bill check needs read access and nothing else. Nothing in your systems changes.
You approve every change
Each change comes as a short written note first: what, why, and how to undo it.
Your data and billing stay yours
Everything stays in your own account. We never become your billing contact.
Every action logged
Every action we take is logged, and the log is visible to you.
One-click access removal
Delete the access role and our access ends at once, with no penalty.
Month to month
There is no minimum term and no exit fee. Stop at the end of any month.
Your free AWS bill check, in 48 hours
One read-only template. Every dollar you could stop paying, ranked. You keep the report even if you never hire us.
read-only accessno savings, no feemonth to month
