{
  "slug": "aws",
  "name": "Amazon Web Services",
  "aliases": ["AWS"],
  "vendor": { "name": "Amazon Web Services, Inc.", "slug": "amazon-web-services", "website": "https://aws.amazon.com" },
  "homepage_url": "https://aws.amazon.com/",
  "docs_url": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/",
  "pricing_url": "https://aws.amazon.com/pricing/",
  "product_type": "platform",
  "product_status": "active",
  "summary": "Amazon's public cloud with hundreds of usage-billed services spanning compute (EC2, Lambda), storage (S3), databases (RDS), networking, AI (Bedrock) and analytics",
  "description": "Amazon Web Services is the public cloud platform of Amazon. Its catalogue runs from foundational building blocks, EC2 virtual machines, S3 object storage, VPC networking, IAM identity, to managed databases (RDS for PostgreSQL and MySQL, DynamoDB, Aurora), serverless compute (Lambda), container orchestration (ECS, EKS), the Bedrock service for hosted foundation models, and data and analytics tools such as Athena, Redshift and Glue, deployed across many geographic regions.\n\nEverything is driven by the same APIs through the console, the AWS CLI, SDKs for the main languages, CloudFormation and the Terraform provider. Billing is usage-based with a free tier and reserved or savings-plan discounts for committed use. S3's API has become a de facto standard implemented by MinIO, Cloudflare R2 and others, so many tools in this encyclopedia use S3-compatible storage even when not on AWS.\n\nThe platform's breadth is its difficulty: cost management, IAM policy design and service selection require expertise, and egress and cross-service charges can surprise small projects.",
  "capabilities": ["Virtual machines, serverless functions and container services", "Object, block and file storage led by S3", "Managed relational, key-value and graph databases", "Hosted foundation models through Bedrock and ML tooling through SageMaker", "Networking, DNS (Route 53), CDN (CloudFront) and identity (IAM)", "Infrastructure as code with CloudFormation, CDK and Terraform"],
  "workflows": ["Store datasets in S3 and query them with Athena or DuckDB", "Run a managed PostgreSQL database for an application", "Deploy containers to ECS or EKS behind a load balancer"],
  "advantages": ["Largest service catalogue and global footprint", "Mature tooling, SDKs and documentation", "S3 API is an industry standard"],
  "limitations": ["Cost complexity and egress charges", "Steep learning curve across services and IAM", "Vendor lock-in for higher-level managed services"],
  "prerequisites": ["AWS account with billing"],
  "audiences": ["Enterprises and startups", "Data and ML teams", "Developers needing managed services"],
  "alternatives": ["google-cloud", "azure", "hetzner", "ovhcloud"],
  "comparison_notes": "Google Cloud and Azure are the other hyperscalers with comparable breadth, differing in strengths (data analytics and Kubernetes for Google, Microsoft ecosystem integration for Azure). Hetzner and OVHcloud provide servers and a few storage products at lower cost without the managed catalogue.",
  "categories": [{ "slug": "cloud-hosting", "primary": true }],
  "tags": ["cloud", "s3", "serverless", "api", "usage-based", "managed-databases"],
  "use_cases": ["host-web-apps", "provision-infrastructure", "serve-models", "store-data"],
  "operating_systems": ["web"],
  "execution_modes": ["cloud"],
  "interfaces": ["web", "api", "cli", "sdk"],
  "deployment_models": ["managed-cloud"],
  "integrations": ["Terraform", "Kubernetes", "Docker", "GitHub Actions", "PostgreSQL"],
  "data_formats": ["JSON", "Parquet (Athena, Glue)", "CloudFormation YAML"],
  "languages": ["Python", "JavaScript", "TypeScript", "Java", "Go", "Rust", "C#"],
  "source_model": "proprietary",
  "pricing_model": ["usage-based", "freemium", "enterprise"],
  "pricing_checked_at": "2026-11-02",
  "self_hostable": false,
  "sources": [
    { "url": "https://aws.amazon.com/", "type": "official_site", "title": "Amazon Web Services", "supports": ["name", "summary", "capabilities"], "checked_at": "2026-11-02" },
    { "url": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/", "type": "official_docs", "title": "AWS Documentation", "supports": ["capabilities", "interfaces", "languages"], "checked_at": "2026-11-02" },
    { "url": "https://aws.amazon.com/pricing/", "type": "pricing_page", "title": "AWS Pricing", "supports": ["pricing_model"], "checked_at": "2026-11-02" }
  ],
  "confidence": "high",
  "discovery_method": "editorial-research",
  "depth": "standard",
  "editorial_status": "reviewed",
  "visibility": "public",
  "featured": false,
  "author": "batch-B2"
}