When should I pick Render over Amazon Web Services?

Pick Render if: You have a long-running server, a background worker and a database to deploy together.

Which is cheaper, Amazon Web Services or Render?

At requests 5 million requests, data transfer out 100 GB, serverless function compute 100 GB-hours: Amazon Web Services $17/mo (Pay as you go (Lambda + EC2 t4g.small)), Render $39/mo (Hobby), at list prices.

Which do more makers use for hosting?

Among makers' products we track: Amazon Web Services 386, Render 128.

Are people switching from Amazon Web Services to Render?

Public GitHub pull requests since 2024-10-02: 8 from Amazon Web Services to Render, 19 from Render to Amazon Web Services.

Amazon Web Services vs Render for hosting: which fits you

Which fits you

Choose Amazon Web Services if

The widest catalog of building blocks — Lambda, containers, managed databases, queues — to assemble your own infrastructure.

Use it whenYou need a specific AWS service, enterprise customers ask for it, or you have credits to spend.

Trade-offYou wire up networking, permissions and deploys yourself; billing is per service and hard to predict.

Choose Render if

You have a long-running server, a background worker and a database to deploy together

Use it whenYou want a managed server, cron jobs and Postgres with a flat per-instance price.

Trade-offFree instances sleep when idle and wake slowly; paid instances are billed whether busy or not.

At a glance

	Amazon Web Services	Render
Used by	386 makers' products · 17 open-source projects	128 makers' products
Cost at default usagerequests 5 million requests, data transfer out 100 GB, serverless function compute 100 GB-hours	$17/mo Pay as you go (Lambda + EC2 t4g.small)	$39/mo Hobby
Moved to it on GitHubpull requests since Oct 2024	19 from Render	8 from Amazon Web Services
Downloads	4.2M/wk−39% vs npm
Pricing	Pay-as-you-go per service; new accounts get up to $200 in Free Tier credits over 6 months. · paid from Pay as you go	Free tier for static sites and small services; paid per instance. · paid from $7/mo per instance
Free tier	Yes	Yes
Open source	No	No
Incidents, 90 daysfrom its status page	no public status feed	16 (10 major)

Cost as you grow

At 100k requests Amazon Web Services costs less ($16 vs $25); from about 500M requests Render does ($1,524 vs $1,600). They're different kinds of tool — hyperscaler cloud and paaS — so the prices don't buy the same thing.

Render Amazon Web Servicesx: requests per month (million requests), other usage scaled with it; held at 1 server (always-on app servers) · cheapest usable plan at each point, list prices · try your own numbers

The numbers, plan by plan

Requests per month	Amazon Web Services	Render
0.1	$16 Pay as you go (Lambda + EC2 t4g.small)	$25 Hobby
0.5	$16 Pay as you go (Lambda + EC2 t4g.small)	$26 Hobby
1	$16 Pay as you go (Lambda + EC2 t4g.small)	$27 Hobby
5	$17 Pay as you go (Lambda + EC2 t4g.small)	$39 Hobby
10	$32 Pay as you go (Lambda + EC2 t4g.small)	$54 Hobby
50	$160 Pay as you go (Lambda + EC2 t4g.small)	$174 Hobby
100	$320 Pay as you go (Lambda + EC2 t4g.small)	$324 Hobby
500	$1,600 Pay as you go (Lambda + EC2 t4g.small)	$1,524 Hobby

From each vendor's pricing page: Amazon Web Services, Render.

Who moves from one to the other

Public pull requests on GitHub since Oct 2024 whose title says "Amazon Web Services to Render" or the reverse — real code changes, by developers in general rather than makers only.

Render →

Amazon Web Services19 PRs

[enterprise-4.21][OCPBUGS-86765]: Add render-sensitive flag to HCP on AWS procedureopenshift/openshift-docs · 2026-08-19
[enterprise-4.20][OCPBUGS-86765]: Add render-sensitive flag to HCP on AWS procedureopenshift/openshift-docs · 2026-08-19
[enterprise-4.19][OCPBUGS-86765]: Add render-sensitive flag to HCP on AWS procedureopenshift/openshift-docs · 2026-08-19
[enterprise-4.18][OCPBUGS-86765]: Add render-sensitive flag to HCP on AWS procedureopenshift/openshift-docs · 2026-08-19
[enterprise-5.0] [OCPBUGS-86765]: Add render-sensitive flag to HCP on AWS procedureopenshift/openshift-docs · 2026-08-19
[enterprise-4.22] [OCPBUGS-86765]: Add render-sensitive flag to HCP on AWS procedureopenshift/openshift-docs · 2026-08-19
[OCPBUGS-86765]: Add render-sensitive flag to HCP on AWS procedureopenshift/openshift-docs · 2026-08-19
tf: Add Render access to AWS Redis via PrivateLinkpolarsource/polar · 2026-08-11
Move the API from Render to AWS LightsailHrishi75/CropBid · 2026-07-29
feat: migrate deployment from Render to AWS serverlessglaboryp/fontray · 2026-07-20

All matching pull requests on GitHub ↗

Amazon Web Services →

Render8 PRs

Move hosting from AWS to Render + Cloudflare R2zupa-na-plantach/zupa · 2026-09-29
feat: migrate application configuration from AWS to Render, update environment variables and remove AWS dependencies (#150)vertsan/sbku-app · 2026-07-19
feat: migrate application configuration from AWS to Render, update environment variables and remove AWS dependenciesvertsan/sbku-app · 2026-07-18
replace config from aws to renderryannguyen1105/Simplepayment · 2026-04-22
fix(env): update dead AWS IP to active Render backend URLmhdmirzan/RecruBotX · 2026-03-08
fukk aws ec2, back to renderreijjo/bet · 2025-09-29
from aws to rendermjkats/mercado-lance · 2025-05-26
fix(common): migrate aws to renderminhoyunlife/my-projects · 2025-05-12

All matching pull requests on GitHub ↗

What makers say

Makers on using it for hosting, from Product Hunt and Starter Story interviews, each linked to the source. Products with a page of their own and fuller notes first.

On Amazon Web Services

We are so excited to integrate with AWS Lambda. Look for our upcoming co-authored blog about how Fleak and AWS Lambda bring goodness to data teams and help them win their time back!

Fleak, the makerSep 2026 ↗

AWS provides the global infrastructure we need to deliver low-latency voice translation to users worldwide. Their reliable services ensure our calls connect seamlessly across regions.

The Banana App, the makerSep 2026 ↗

AWS Lambda's scalability is definitely a game-changer, especially for handling the traffic spikes from a Product Hunt launch. Shoutout to AWS Lambda for making it possible! 🚀

Gan.AI, the makerSep 2026 ↗

152 more on the Amazon Web Services page →

On Render

Simple, predictable deploys for our Node/Express backend with none of the AWS-console overhead. We needed infra that stayed out of our way while we were heads-down on the product.

Compendium, the makerSep 2026 ↗

Render is stable, easy to use, and get started with - ideally for a startup. We considered Railway but we had some issues with it and didn't have the time to work through them.

Agen, the makerSep 2026 ↗

Render made hosting and deployment ridiculously simple. It’s honestly so smooth that we dont use Azure and AWS, even though we still have a bunch of credits sitting there.

Documentation.AI, the makerSep 2026 ↗

44 more on the Render page →

Loved and watch-outs

Themes that recur in makers' words and Hacker News comments, each linked to what it summarises.

Amazon Web Services

Most loved

It offers a huge catalog of services in one place, from databases to queues to AI. PH PH 2 PH 3 PH 4
It scales up and down with bursty traffic without re-architecting. PH PH 2 PH 3
Its reliability record is something teams are willing to bet a product on. PH PH 2 PH 3 PH 4

Watch-outs

Major outages, from long us-east incidents to struck data centers, have taken customer services down. HN HN 2 HN 3 HN 4
Its services can be tricky to configure. PH

On Product Hunt: 5.0★, 282 reviews · mentioned most: reliable cloud services, scalable infrastructure, extensive service offerings

Render

Most loved

Connecting a GitHub repo gives automatic deploys without building pipelines. PH
TLS, scaling, health checks and zero-downtime deploys work out of the box. PH
Teams find it far simpler than AWS or GCP, and one migration from GCP cut costs sharply. PH

Watch-outs