Just to be clear: This service is offered by Amazon/AWS themselves, it isn't a third party. That's a question I had when I first clicked, which is why I am answering it here.
One big "gotcha" for AWS newbies which I cannot tell if this addresses: Does this set or allow the user to set a cost ceiling?
AWS have offered billing alerts since forever. They'll also occasionally refund unexpected expenses (one time thing). But they've never offered a hard "suspend my account" ceiling that a lot of people with limited budgets have asked for.
They claim this is a competitor for Digital Ocean, but with DO what they say they charge is what they actually charge. I'm already seeing looking through the FAQ various ways for this to exceed the supposed monthly charges listed on the homepage (and no way to stop that).
Why even offer a service like this if you cannot GUARANTEE that the $5 they say they charge is all you'll ever get charged? How is this different from AWS if a $5 VPS can cost $50, or $500?
That's what Amazon is missing. People want ironclad guarantees about how much this can cost under any and all circumstances. I'd welcome an account suspend instead of bill shock.
One big "gotcha" for AWS newbies which I cannot tell if this addresses: Does this set or allow the user to set a cost ceiling?
AWS have offered billing alerts since forever. They'll also occasionally refund unexpected expenses (one time thing). But they've never offered a hard "suspend my account" ceiling that a lot of people with limited budgets have asked for.
They claim this is a competitor for Digital Ocean, but with DO what they say they charge is what they actually charge. I'm already seeing looking through the FAQ various ways for this to exceed the supposed monthly charges listed on the homepage (and no way to stop that).
Why even offer a service like this if you cannot GUARANTEE that the $5 they say they charge is all you'll ever get charged? How is this different from AWS if a $5 VPS can cost $50, or $500?
That's what Amazon is missing. People want ironclad guarantees about how much this can cost under any and all circumstances. I'd welcome an account suspend instead of bill shock.