Key takeaways
- The server behind citocd.com runs 17 containers across 4 products with 4 databases for ₹2,499 a month.
- The same workload on AWS Mumbai with Kubernetes (EKS) comes to roughly ₹46,200 a month: about 18× more, or ≈ ₹5.2 lakh a year.
- Even a single plain EC2 server of the same size costs about ₹20,200 a month, around 8× more.
- The biggest AWS costs are not the server: they are managed databases, the Kubernetes control plane, NAT gateways, load balancers and data transfer.
The workload we compared
This is not a hypothetical. It is our own production server, which runs this website, our CRM and two other products:
- 17 containers across 4 products: the CItoCD website, a SaaS product (web, API, background worker, PostgreSQL, Redis), SuiteCRM (app, scheduler, MySQL, web) and a portfolio site, plus admin tools.
- 4 databases: two PostgreSQL and two MySQL instances.
- One VPS: 4 vCPU, 16 GB RAM, 200 GB NVMe storage, with bandwidth included.
- Security: everything behind Cloudflare with zero open inbound ports, and SSH reachable only through an identity-checked tunnel.
What it costs on a VPS
| Item | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Hostinger KVM VPS: 4 vCPU, 16 GB RAM, 200 GB NVMe, bandwidth included | ₹2,499 |
| Docker Swarm, Nginx, Prometheus, Grafana, Loki (open source) | ₹0 |
| Cloudflare CDN, WAF, tunnels and Zero Trust access (free plans) | ₹0 |
| Databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis) in containers | included |
| Total | ₹2,499 |
What the same workload costs on AWS Mumbai
Here is the setup a typical cloud consultancy would propose for these products on AWS: a Kubernetes cluster, a load balancer, private networking with a NAT gateway, and managed databases.
| AWS item (ap-south-1, on-demand) | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Amazon EKS control plane ($0.10/hour) | ₹6,935 |
| Worker node: 1 × m6i.xlarge, 4 vCPU, 16 GB ($0.202/hour) | ₹14,009 |
| Application Load Balancer (base + about 1 LCU) | ₹2,212 |
| NAT gateway (hourly + 50 GB processed) | ₹4,150 |
| EBS gp3 storage, 200 GB | ₹1,733 |
| RDS PostgreSQL + RDS MySQL, db.t4g.medium each | ₹11,590 |
| Internet data transfer out, 500 GB (100 GB free) | ₹4,153 |
| CloudWatch logs and metrics, Route 53 (estimate) | ₹1,425 |
| Total | ≈ ₹46,207 |
Without Kubernetes, a single EC2 server of the same size with storage, a public IPv4 address and the same traffic comes to about ₹20,242 a month.
Side by side
| Setup | Per month | Per year | vs VPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lean VPS stack | ₹2,499 | ₹29,988 | 1× |
| AWS, single EC2 server | ≈ ₹20,242 | ≈ ₹2.43 lakh | ≈ 8× |
| AWS with EKS and managed databases | ≈ ₹46,207 | ≈ ₹5.54 lakh | ≈ 18× |
Assumptions, stated honestly
- AWS Mumbai (ap-south-1) on-demand list prices as of October 2026, converted at ₹95 per US$.
- 500 GB of internet traffic per month; a single worker node; managed databases at the smallest practical size.
- Reserved instances or savings plans can cut AWS compute costs by roughly a third. High availability (two or more nodes, Multi-AZ databases) would raise AWS costs further.
- Hosting costs only, paid to the provider in both cases: excluding DevOps services, support and taxes. We do not resell hosting; clients keep their own VPS account.
- A single VPS is one node. For high availability we add a second VPS and replicate, which still costs a fraction of the AWS setup.
AWS prices from public AWS pricing data and third-party price trackers in October 2026. Always confirm with the AWS Pricing Calculator for your own usage.
Where the AWS money actually goes
The server itself is only about a third of the AWS bill. The rest is the platform around it: the Kubernetes control plane, managed databases, the NAT gateway that private subnets need for outbound traffic, the load balancer, and per-GB data transfer. Each is reasonable on its own; together they multiply the bill.
On a well-designed VPS stack, those jobs are done by open-source tools you run yourself (Docker Swarm, Nginx, containerised databases with tested backups) and by Cloudflare's free edge network in front.
When AWS is still the right choice
- Traffic is very spiky and needs autoscaling within minutes.
- You need multi-region availability with strict uptime commitments.
- A regulator or enterprise customer requires specific managed cloud services.
- You are spending startup credits that cover the bill for now. Even then, design so you can move later.
For many startups and SMEs with steady traffic and up to around 50 services, a lean DevOps stack delivers the same reliability for a fraction of the cost. Read Docker Swarm vs Kubernetes to see how the orchestration compares.
Want this for your product?
You keep your own VPS account (Hostinger, DigitalOcean, Linode, Hetzner, Vultr, OVHcloud and others) and pay the provider directly; we design, build and manage the lean stack on it, using open-source tools you own. See DevOps for your VPS provider. Start with a free 30-day pilot, or ask for a walkthrough of the exact blueprint behind this website.