TL;DR: AWS is incredibly powerful - but absurdly complex and expensive for teams that just need to ship a product. Miget gives you a fixed compute plan (CPU + RAM) with unlimited apps, workers, and databases inside it - one monthly price, no cloud architecture degree required.
Quick Comparison
Pricing as of April 2026. Check AWS pricing pages for current rates.
| Miget | AWS (ECS Fargate + RDS) | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Fixed-capacity, per-resource | Per-service, per-hour, per-GB |
| Starting price | $0/month (free tier) | ~$50-80/month minimum viable setup |
| Apps per plan | Unlimited | Each task/service billed separately |
| Managed PostgreSQL | Included | RDS ($12-200+/month) |
| Managed Redis/Valkey | Included | ElastiCache ($13-200+/month) |
| Load balancer | Included | ALB ($16-35+/month) |
| NAT gateway | Not needed | $33-100+/month |
| Isolation | MicroVM (CloudHypervisor) | Container (shared kernel) |
| Team members | 5 free, then $5/user | IAM users (free, but complex) |
| Free tier | Yes (256 MiB, always available) | 12-month limited trial |
| Custom domains + SSL | Included (auto-TLS) | ACM (free) + ALB required |
| Preview environments | Included (unlimited) | Manual setup required |
| Deployment | Git push or Docker | Multi-step pipeline setup |
| Billing surprises | None - fixed monthly price | Common (data transfer, NAT, logs) |
Pricing Breakdown: Real Numbers
AWS pricing is notoriously hard to estimate. Services that look cheap in isolation stack up fast when you factor in load balancers, NAT gateways, data transfer, logging, and monitoring. Here is what a realistic AWS bill looks like compared to Miget.
All AWS pricing as of April 2026, US East (N. Virginia). Miget pricing from miget.com/plans.
Scenario 1: Solo developer - 1 web app + PostgreSQL
A single containerized web app with a small PostgreSQL database. The most basic production setup.
On Miget:
| Line item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Hobby plan (1 GiB RAM, 1 vCPU) | $7/month |
| PostgreSQL database | Included |
| SSL + custom domain | Included |
| Total | $7/month |
On AWS (ECS Fargate + RDS):
| Line item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Fargate task (0.5 vCPU, 1 GB) | ~$18/month |
| RDS db.t4g.micro (2 vCPU, 1 GiB) | ~$12/month |
| RDS storage (20 GB gp3) | ~$2/month |
| Application Load Balancer | ~$18/month |
| NAT Gateway (hourly only) | ~$33/month |
| NAT Gateway data processing (10 GB) | ~$0.50/month |
| CloudWatch Logs | ~$3/month |
| Total | ~$87/month |
That is a 12x price difference for the same result: one app, one database, accessible on the internet. The NAT gateway and load balancer alone cost more than the entire Miget plan.
Scenario 2: Small team - 2 apps + PostgreSQL + Redis + background worker
A typical early-stage SaaS: an API, a frontend, a background job processor, PostgreSQL for data, and Redis for caching or queues.
On Miget:
| Line item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Hobby plan (4 GiB RAM, 2 vCPU) | $25/month |
| 2 web apps + 1 worker | Included (unlimited) |
| PostgreSQL | Included |
| Redis/Valkey | Included |
| 3 team members | Included (5 free) |
| Total | $25/month |
On AWS (ECS Fargate + RDS + ElastiCache):
| Line item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Fargate - API (0.5 vCPU, 1 GB) | ~$18/month |
| Fargate - frontend (0.25 vCPU, 0.5 GB) | ~$10/month |
| Fargate - worker (0.5 vCPU, 1 GB) | ~$18/month |
| RDS db.t4g.micro (PostgreSQL) | ~$12/month |
| RDS storage (20 GB gp3) | ~$2/month |
| ElastiCache t4g.micro (Redis) | ~$13/month |
| Application Load Balancer | ~$18/month |
| NAT Gateway | ~$35/month |
| CloudWatch Logs | ~$5/month |
| Data transfer out (20 GB) | ~$2/month |
| Total | ~$133/month |
Miget is 5x cheaper and you did not have to think about VPCs, security groups, target groups, task definitions, or IAM roles.
Scenario 3: Growing startup - 4 apps + PostgreSQL + Redis + Kafka + 2 workers
A production SaaS with multiple services, event streaming, and dedicated compute.
On Miget:
| Line item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Professional plan (8 GiB RAM, 4 vCPU) | $85/month |
| 4 web apps + 2 workers | Included (unlimited) |
| PostgreSQL | Included |
| Redis/Valkey | Included |
| Kafka | Included |
| 8 team members | $15/month (5 free + 3 at $5) |
| Total | $100/month |
On AWS (ECS Fargate + RDS + ElastiCache + MSK Serverless):
| Line item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Fargate - 4 web services (avg 0.5 vCPU, 1 GB each) | ~$72/month |
| Fargate - 2 workers (avg 0.5 vCPU, 1 GB each) | ~$36/month |
| RDS db.t4g.small (PostgreSQL, 2 vCPU, 2 GiB) | ~$24/month |
| RDS storage (50 GB gp3) | ~$5/month |
| ElastiCache t4g.small (Redis) | ~$25/month |
| MSK Serverless (Kafka) | ~$50/month |
| Application Load Balancer | ~$25/month |
| NAT Gateway | ~$40/month |
| CloudWatch Logs + metrics | ~$15/month |
| Data transfer out (50 GB) | ~$5/month |
| Secrets Manager (12 secrets) | ~$5/month |
| Total | ~$302/month |
At this scale, Miget saves you over $200/month - and more importantly, saves you dozens of hours of infrastructure management every month.
The Real Cost of AWS: Complexity
Price tables only tell part of the story. The bigger cost of AWS for small teams is time.
What deploying a basic web app on AWS actually requires
- Create a VPC with public and private subnets across 2+ availability zones
- Set up an internet gateway and route tables
- Configure a NAT gateway for private subnet internet access
- Create security groups for your app, database, and load balancer
- Set up an Application Load Balancer with target groups and listeners
- Create an ECS cluster, task definition, and service
- Configure an ECR repository and push your Docker image
- Create an RDS instance in the private subnet
- Set up IAM roles for task execution, task role, and deployment
- Configure CloudWatch log groups and alarms
- Set up a deployment pipeline (CodePipeline, CodeBuild, or GitHub Actions with AWS credentials)
- Create SSL certificates via ACM and attach them to the ALB
- Configure Route 53 or your DNS provider
That is 13 steps before your first user hits your app. On Miget, it is: connect your repo, pick a plan, deploy. Three steps.
Services you need to understand on AWS
Even a simple deployment touches a minimum of 10-15 AWS services: ECS, ECR, RDS, VPC, ALB, IAM, CloudWatch, ACM, Route 53, Secrets Manager, S3 (for build artifacts), and usually CloudFormation or Terraform to manage it all.
Each service has its own pricing page, its own set of limits, its own documentation, and its own failure modes. When something breaks at 2 AM, you are debugging across half a dozen service consoles.
On Miget, there is one dashboard, one set of logs, one billing page.
Where Miget Wins
Predictable pricing with no bill shock
AWS bills are famously unpredictable. NAT gateway charges, data transfer fees, and CloudWatch log ingestion costs catch teams off guard every month. One widely reported case involved a team whose NAT gateway charges spiked from $40 to $800/month after a traffic increase.
Miget charges a flat monthly fee. Your bill is the same whether you deploy 1 app or 20. No meters, no per-GB charges, no surprise line items.
Everything managed, nothing to assemble
On Miget, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis/Valkey, RabbitMQ, and Kafka are all included in your plan and managed for you. No RDS configuration, no ElastiCache node selection, no MSK cluster sizing.
On AWS, every managed service is a separate product with its own pricing, configuration, and maintenance overhead.
Real isolation without the complexity
Miget runs every app in a MicroVM powered by CloudHypervisor - the same technology used by AWS Firecracker (which powers Lambda and Fargate). You get hardware-level isolation without managing VPCs, security groups, or network ACLs.
Deploy in minutes, not days
A new developer on your team can deploy to Miget on their first day. On AWS, onboarding someone to your infrastructure typically involves IAM permissions, VPN access, understanding your Terraform modules, and reading internal docs about your deployment pipeline.
Unlimited apps and services
Miget does not charge per app, per worker, or per database. Deploy as many services as your plan's resources can handle. On AWS, every additional Fargate task, RDS instance, or ElastiCache node adds to your bill.
What Developers Say About AWS Complexity
The frustration with AWS complexity is not a niche opinion. It is one of the most consistent complaints in the developer community.
On infrastructure overhead: developers regularly report that setting up a basic web application on AWS requires understanding networking concepts (VPCs, subnets, NAT gateways) that have nothing to do with building their product.
On billing surprises: stories about unexpected AWS bills are so common that "AWS bill shock" has become a recognized term. Data transfer charges, NAT gateway fees, and CloudWatch costs are the most frequently cited sources of surprise charges.
On operational burden: small teams report spending 20-40% of their engineering time on infrastructure management rather than product development when running on AWS directly.
On the learning curve: AWS documentation spans thousands of pages. New developers often describe the experience as overwhelming, with dozens of overlapping services that solve similar problems (EC2 vs ECS vs EKS vs Lambda vs App Runner vs Lightsail vs Elastic Beanstalk - just for running code).
The pattern is clear: AWS is designed for large organizations with dedicated platform teams. If your team is under 20 engineers, the operational overhead of AWS often outweighs its flexibility.
Migrating from AWS to Miget
If your AWS workloads are containerized (ECS, EKS, or even EC2 with Docker), migration is straightforward. Your containers do not depend on AWS-specific runtimes.
Step-by-step migration
-
Audit your services - List every ECS task, RDS instance, ElastiCache node, and Lambda function. Identify what moves and what stays.
-
Export your Docker images - Pull images from ECR or rebuild from your Dockerfiles. Miget supports any standard Docker image.
-
Create a Miget account - Sign up at app.miget.com and create your workspace. Pick a plan that matches your current resource usage.
-
Deploy your applications - Connect your Git repository or push Docker images. Each app deploys as a service inside your plan.
-
Set up databases - Create PostgreSQL, MySQL, or Redis instances from the Miget dashboard. These are included in your plan at no extra cost.
-
Migrate your data - Export data from RDS using
pg_dump(PostgreSQL) ormysqldump(MySQL). Import into your Miget database. -
Copy environment variables - Transfer your environment configuration from AWS Parameter Store or Secrets Manager to Miget's environment variable management.
-
Update DNS - Point your domains to Miget's endpoints. SSL certificates are provisioned automatically.
-
Test and cut over - Run both environments in parallel, verify everything works, then decommission AWS resources.
What about Lambda functions?
If you use Lambda for background jobs or scheduled tasks, these typically convert to background workers on Miget. Workers run inside your plan alongside your web apps - no per-invocation billing.
If you use Lambda for event-driven architectures at massive scale (millions of invocations per day), that workload may be better suited to staying on AWS.
What about S3?
Miget includes object storage (Buckets) for file storage needs. For most applications, this is a direct replacement for S3. If you use S3 for CDN origin, static hosting, or data lake storage at terabyte scale, you may want to keep S3 for that specific use case.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Miget a real AWS alternative or just a toy?
Miget runs every app inside a MicroVM with dedicated CPU and RAM allocation via the Fair Scheduler. You get hardware-level isolation - the same technology (CloudHypervisor/Firecracker) that powers AWS Lambda and Fargate. It is production infrastructure, not a playground.
Can Miget handle production traffic?
Yes. Miget's Professional plans offer dedicated vCPU and RAM with no noisy-neighbor effects. The Fair Scheduler guarantees your resources are always available, and built-in load balancing handles traffic distribution across your services.
What about AWS-specific services like SQS, SNS, or DynamoDB?
Miget includes PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis/Valkey, RabbitMQ, and Kafka as managed services. For most SaaS applications, these cover queuing (RabbitMQ/Kafka), caching (Redis), and data storage (PostgreSQL/MySQL). If you depend heavily on DynamoDB, Kinesis, or other AWS-proprietary services, those workloads may need to stay on AWS or be refactored.
How does Miget pricing compare to AWS Lightsail?
AWS Lightsail starts at $3.50/month for 512 MB RAM and 1 vCPU - but that is a single server. No managed database, no load balancing, no container orchestration. Adding a managed database starts at $15/month. Miget's $7/month Hobby plan includes unlimited apps AND a managed database in the same plan.
Can I use AWS for some services and Miget for others?
Absolutely. Many teams start by moving their web applications and databases to Miget while keeping AWS for specialized services like S3, CloudFront, or SageMaker. There is no requirement to go all-in.
What happens if I outgrow Miget?
You can upgrade plans at any time - from Hobby ($5/month) all the way to Professional ($169/month for 16 GiB RAM, 8 vCPU). If you eventually need AWS-scale infrastructure (multi-region, hundreds of services, petabyte data), Miget makes it easy to migrate out since everything runs in standard Docker containers.
Who Should Stay on AWS
Be honest about this: AWS is the right choice if you need multi-region deployments across 5+ regions, have a dedicated platform/DevOps team (3+ engineers), depend on AWS-specific services with no portable alternative, require specific compliance certifications that Miget does not yet offer, or process petabytes of data through services like Redshift, EMR, or Kinesis.
If none of those apply to you - and for most startups and small teams, they do not - you are paying the AWS complexity tax for no reason.
Stop Managing Infrastructure. Start Shipping Product.
AWS gives you infinite flexibility. Miget gives you the fastest path from code to production.
For solo developers, small teams, and growing startups, the choice is straightforward: predictable pricing, managed everything, and zero infrastructure overhead.
- Free tier - 256 MiB RAM, 0.1 vCPU, always available
- Hobby plans from $5/month - unlimited apps, managed databases included
- Professional plans from $22/month - dedicated vCPU, MicroVM isolation
- All plans include PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, RabbitMQ, Kafka, and SSL