November 4, 2025
Popcorn vs. platform
Send this article to your friend who still thinks the cloud is a good idea
One dev dumps the cloud, claims 10x savings — commenters say genius, others yell “reckless”
TLDR: A developer claims he saved 10x by leaving Amazon’s cloud for cheaper rented servers, sparking a brawl: cost-cutters cheer, while others say cloud is worth it for scaling and peace of mind. It matters because it’s a real trade-off between lower bills and the convenience of not running everything yourself.
A fed‑up developer bragged that ditching Amazon’s cloud cut his bill from about $1,400 to $120 a month and made his apps 2x faster — and tech Twitter/Hacker News went nuclear. He blasted “cloud people” as overpaid complexity addicts, and the backlash was instant. One camp cheered the savings and the escape from vendor lock‑in (being stuck with one provider). Another camp clapped back that cloud isn’t a scam — it’s what keeps apps alive when traffic explodes.
The frugal crowd waved receipts: Hetzner’s dirt‑cheap servers, even auction boxes with no setup fee, and the idea that “servers aren’t expensive.” A penny‑pincher even flexed a $3/month Amazon instance as proof you can go ultra‑cheap without touching hardware. The pro‑cloud crew called the post “idiotic” for ignoring the big picture: scaling, backups, and sleep. They argue small teams can’t run databases, updates, and security on their own — that’s what SaaS (software you rent) is for. A voice of reason chimed in: cloud is great until it’s the only thing you know.
Memes flew: “bare‑metal bros” vs “cloud cultists,” popcorn gifs, and the OP’s own “I don’t know, Rick…” becoming the catchphrase of the week. Bottom line? It’s a vibes war: pay less, tinker more vs pay more, sleep more. Choose your chaos
Key Points
- •The author migrated all projects from AWS to Hetzner, reporting a monthly cost drop from ~$1,400 to under $120.
- •He claims approximately a 2x performance speedup after moving to rented servers.
- •Hetzner pricing cited includes an 80-core server for about $190/month and VPS options like 8 cores/32GB RAM at around $50/month.
- •AWS compute-heavy C5/C6 instances with comparable vCPUs are described as costing $2,500–$3,500/month.
- •AWS Reserved Instances can reduce costs to ~ $1,300/month but require ~$46,000 upfront and a 3-year contract; some Hetzner offers include a €79 setup fee.