Moving away from AWS for small projects: what actually matters before MVP?
I have a few small ideas at the validation stage: landing pages, a dev environment, Docker, PostgreSQL, basic infrastructure. Nothing complex. And I caught myself keeping all of this on AWS purely out of habit, even though all I actually need is a solid Linux VPS with root access where I install packages myself, handle security and DNS myself, without extra layers of abstraction on top of every simple action.
AWS makes sense when a project has grown and you need managed services. But at the pre-MVP stage it is just unnecessary overhead and unpredictable billing. Looking at Digita͏lOcean and Serve͏rspace as more straightforward alternatives without that. DO feels like the obvious starting point, Serverspace looks similar in approach, but I do not want to judge by websites alone.
Anyone who has run small Docker and PostgreSQL projects on both AWS and regular VPS providers: what ended up mattering most before MVP? Cost predictability, panel simplicity, support, DNS, or does the AWS ecosystem still outweigh everything even at small scale?