AWS vs Coolify for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

AWS Overview

AWS is the largest cloud platform with 200+ services. EC2 for compute, S3 for storage, RDS for managed databases, Lambda for serverless, CloudFront for CDN, and hundreds more. It powers a huge portion of the internet, from startups to Fortune 500 companies.

For solo developers, AWS offers almost too much. The console is overwhelming. Pricing is opaque. Simple tasks like deploying a web app require navigating security groups, VPCs, IAM policies, and load balancers. AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Lightsail simplify things, but they're still more complex than purpose-built developer platforms.

The free tier used to be one of AWS's best on-ramps, but it changed on July 15, 2025. Accounts created after that date no longer get the old always-on 750 hours of t2.micro EC2 for twelve months. Instead, new customers get up to $200 in credits ($100 on sign-up plus $100 earned by completing five service activities) and a free account window that closes after 6 months or when the credits run out, whichever comes first. Accounts created before that date stay on the legacy 12-month tier. The practical upshot for a solo dev starting fresh in 2026 is that AWS is no longer free past the credit balance, so cost discipline matters from day one.

Coolify Overview

Coolify is open-source PaaS software you install on any Linux server. It gives you a web dashboard for deploying apps from Git, one-click database provisioning, automatic SSL via Let's Encrypt, and Docker-based orchestration with Traefik as the reverse proxy.

The value proposition is straightforward: get the deployment experience of platforms like Vercel, Render, or Railway without paying their per-service fees. Install Coolify on a $4/month Hetzner VPS, and you have unlimited app deployments, unlimited databases, and a clean dashboard to manage everything.

I set up Coolify on a VPS and the installation was smooth. The web UI walks you through connecting GitHub, deploying apps, and adding databases. It takes about 30 minutes to go from bare server to deployed application.

By the Numbers (2026)

Here is where the two land on the concrete details, all checked on 2026-05-28.

Coolify

• Latest release v4.1.1, shipped 2026-05-27. The 4.x line went stable with v4.0.0 on 2026-04-27.
• Open source under Apache-2.0, written primarily in PHP.
• 56,000+ GitHub stars and 4,600+ forks on the coollabsio/coolify repo.
• Self-hosting is free with no feature gates. Coolify Cloud (managed control plane, you still bring your own servers) is $5 per month for up to 2 connected servers, plus $3 per month for each additional server, with 20 percent off when billed annually.

AWS

• No version number; it ships continuously across 200+ services.
• EC2 t3.micro on-demand in US East (N. Virginia) runs $0.0104 per hour, which is roughly $7.59 for a 730-hour month.
• Lightsail, AWS's simplified VPS product, starts at $5 per month for 0.5 GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 20 GB SSD, and 1 TB transfer. The next rungs are $7 (1 GB RAM, 40 GB SSD, 2 TB), $12 (2 GB RAM, 60 GB SSD, 3 TB), and $24 (4 GB RAM, 80 GB SSD, 4 TB).
• Managed Postgres on RDS db.t3.micro (Single-AZ) is $0.018 per hour in US East (N. Virginia), about $13.14 per month, before storage and backups. General purpose gp2 storage adds $0.115 per GB-month.
• Data transfer out to the internet is free for the first 100 GB each month, then $0.09 per GB up to 10 TB.
• The free tier for accounts opened after July 15, 2025 is up to $200 in credits spread over a 6-month window, not the old 12-month always-on allowance.

For a like-for-like comparison, the closest spec match to a Hetzner CX22 (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe, 20 TB traffic at about $4.59 per month) on the AWS side is the $24 Lightsail bundle, and even that ships half the RAM-per-dollar and a fraction of the bundled transfer.

Key Differences

They're different categories of tools. AWS is a cloud infrastructure provider. Coolify is deployment software. You can run Coolify on an AWS EC2 instance. The real comparison is AWS's managed deployment services (Elastic Beanstalk, App Runner, Lightsail) versus Coolify running on a cheap VPS.

Cost structure. AWS charges per service, per hour, with data transfer fees, storage costs, and a dozen variables. A basic web app with managed Postgres on RDS lands around $36 per month at modest scale and climbs from there as snapshots, IPv4 charges, and logs stack up (see the worked breakdown below). Coolify on a Hetzner CX22 costs $4.59 per month total, running unlimited apps and databases on one server. The cost difference is roughly 8x for equivalent functionality at solo-dev scale.

Complexity. Deploying on AWS requires understanding VPCs, security groups, IAM roles, and service-specific configurations. Even Lightsail, AWS's simplified offering, has more complexity than Coolify. Coolify's dashboard abstracts Docker, Traefik, and SSL into a clean interface. Connect a repo, click deploy. For solo developers who want to ship fast, Coolify's simplicity is a major advantage.

Managed service ecosystem. AWS has managed versions of nearly everything: RDS for databases, ElastiCache for Redis, SES for email, SQS for queues, CloudWatch for monitoring. Coolify deploys these as Docker containers without managed features like automatic failover, backups, or read replicas. If you need enterprise-grade managed services, AWS provides them. Coolify provides convenience, not managed services.

Scalability. AWS scales to millions of users across global regions with load balancers, auto-scaling groups, and managed services designed for massive traffic. Coolify scales by upgrading your VPS or adding more servers with multi-server support. For hobby projects and early-stage startups, both are fine. For products expecting rapid, unpredictable growth, AWS's elastic scaling is more capable.

Vendor lock-in. Coolify runs on any Linux server. Migrating means copying your data and re-installing Coolify elsewhere. AWS services create lock-in through proprietary APIs, managed services, and integrations that don't transfer to other providers. Moving off AWS is significantly harder than moving off Coolify.

Real Cost at Solo-Dev Scale

Numbers in the abstract are easy to wave away, so here is one realistic workload priced out with the real per-unit rates above. The assumptions are deliberately modest, the kind of footprint a SaaS MVP, a small API, or a content app actually runs.

Assumptions. One always-on web app, one managed Postgres database with 20 GB of storage, and 250 GB of outbound data transfer per month. US East (N. Virginia) for AWS, on-demand pricing, Single-AZ database, no reserved or savings-plan discounts (a solo dev rarely commits to a one or three year term on day one).

AWS, the do-it-yourself EC2 plus RDS path:

• EC2 t3.micro compute: $0.0104 per hour times 730 hours equals $7.59
• RDS db.t3.micro Postgres (Single-AZ): $0.018 per hour times 730 hours equals $13.14
• RDS gp2 storage, 20 GB: 20 times $0.115 equals $2.30
• Data transfer out, 250 GB: first 100 GB free, then 150 GB times $0.09 equals $13.50
• Running total: about $36.53 per month

That figure still excludes the things AWS quietly meters on top, a dedicated IPv4 address, EBS snapshots, CloudWatch logs and alarms, and any NAT gateway you add later. In practice the real bill drifts higher, which is the entire point of the "opaque pricing" complaint.

If you reach for Lightsail instead to dodge the per-service math, the closest equivalent is the $24 bundle (4 GB RAM, 80 GB SSD, 4 TB transfer) plus a managed Lightsail database, which lands the all-in number in the same $35 to $40 range.

Coolify on a Hetzner CX22:

• Hetzner CX22 (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe, 20 TB transfer): $4.59 per month
• Coolify, self-hosted: $0
• The app and the Postgres container both run on that one server
• Running total: $4.59 per month

The 250 GB of egress is a rounding error against the 20 TB Hetzner bundles into that $4.59. If you want the managed Coolify Cloud control plane handling updates and alerts while still using your own Hetzner box, add $5 per month for a $9.59 all-in figure.

The delta. Roughly $36.53 versus $4.59 for the self-managed comparison, about 8x. Even against the managed Coolify Cloud option at $9.59, AWS is close to 4x. Over a year that is the difference between $438 and $55 (or $115 with Coolify Cloud). For a project that has not yet found a single paying user, the cheaper number is the one that lets you keep iterating.

When to Choose AWS

• You need specialized managed services (ML, analytics, IoT, queuing)
• Enterprise compliance requirements mandate AWS (HIPAA, FedRAMP)
• Your project could scale to millions of users
• The $200 in new-account credits covers your first six months of experimentation
• You need global infrastructure across many regions

When to Choose Coolify

• You want to deploy apps without paying per-service platform fees
• Budget is a primary concern and you want the most value per dollar
• A clean web dashboard for managing deployments appeals to you
• You're running multiple side projects and want one flat hosting cost
• Vendor lock-in is a concern and you want portability

The Verdict

For solo developers building web applications, Coolify on a cheap VPS beats AWS on almost every practical metric: cost, simplicity, deployment speed, and time-to-production. You get 90% of the deployment experience at 10% of the cost.

AWS makes sense when you need its unique capabilities: managed ML services, enterprise compliance, or truly elastic scaling across global regions. For a SaaS MVP, a blog, or an API, those requirements are rare.

My recommendation: start with Coolify on a Hetzner or DigitalOcean VPS. Ship your product, validate your idea, and start generating revenue. If your product grows to the point where you need AWS's specialized services, you'll have the revenue to justify the cost. Don't start with enterprise infrastructure for a project that might not find users.

Sources

All figures checked on 2026-05-28.

• Coolify pricing and self-hosted terms: coolify.io/pricing
• Coolify GitHub repo (stars, forks, language, license): github.com/coollabsio/coolify
• Coolify v4.1.1 release (2026-05-27): github.com/coollabsio/coolify/releases/tag/v4.1.1
• Amazon Lightsail pricing and bundle specs: aws.amazon.com/lightsail/pricing
• Amazon EC2 on-demand pricing: aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/on-demand
• Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL pricing (db.t3.micro, gp2 storage): aws.amazon.com/rds/postgresql/pricing and instances.vantage.sh/aws/rds/db.t3.micro
• AWS Free Tier update ($200 credits, 6-month window, July 15 2025): aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-free-tier-update and aws.amazon.com/free
• Hetzner Cloud CX22 pricing and specs: hetzner.com/cloud and docs.hetzner.com price adjustment