OVHcloud vs AWS: How We Reduced Cloud Costs by 40% Without Sacrificing Performance

Scaling a SaaS product is exciting, but watching your infrastructure bills skyrocket is a different story. Like many startups and growing businesses, we initially built our infrastructure on Amazon Web Services (AWS). It was the default choice—reliable, feature-rich, and the industry standard.

But as our traffic grew, so did the invoices. We soon found ourselves grappling with unpredictable billing cycles, complex pricing tiers, and hefty data egress fees that ate into our margins. The problem wasn’t just that AWS was expensive; it was that the costs felt disconnected from the actual value we were getting for our specific use case.

We needed a change. We needed cost predictability without compromising on speed or uptime. After extensive research and testing, we made the strategic decision to migrate our core infrastructure to OVHcloud. The result? A massive 40% reduction in our monthly cloud spend.

This article details our journey from AWS to OVHcloud. We’ll break down exactly why we switched, the technical steps we took to migrate without downtime, and the real-world performance benchmarks we achieved. If you are looking for an AWS alternative to reduce cloud costs, this case study is for you.

Our Infrastructure Before Switching from AWS

To understand the impact of our migration, you need to understand our starting point. Our application is a data-intensive SaaS platform serving thousands of users globally. Our architecture on AWS was robust but increasingly costly to maintain.

Workload Overview

Our setup relied heavily on EC2 instances for compute, RDS for database management, and S3 for object storage. We also utilized CloudFront for content delivery. While these services offered excellent integration, the costs associated with inter-region data transfer and outbound bandwidth were becoming a significant line item.

Monthly Spend Breakdown

Our AWS bill was consistently hitting five figures. The breakdown looked something like this:

• Compute (EC2): 45%
• Database (RDS): 25%
• Data Transfer (Bandwidth/Egress): 20%
• Storage & Others: 10%

The 20% spent on data transfer was the primary friction point. Every time a user downloaded a report or accessed media, the meter was running. High cloud hosting expenses were becoming a barrier to scaling efficiently.

Why We Started Looking for an AWS Alternative

The decision to leave the AWS ecosystem wasn’t made lightly. The platform offers incredible tools, but for a company of our size and traffic patterns, the pricing model felt punitive.

Unexpected Billing Spikes

One month, a sudden surge in traffic led to a billing spike that threw off our quarterly budget. The complexity of AWS pricing means it’s often difficult to foresee exactly how a traffic increase will translate to dollars until the invoice arrives.

Bandwidth Fees

AWS charges for data egress—traffic leaving their network. For a data-heavy application, this is a silent budget killer. We were effectively paying a tax on our own success; the more users we acquired, the more we were penalized for serving them data.

Scaling Complexity

While AWS offers auto-scaling, configuring it to be cost-effective requires deep expertise. We found ourselves spending valuable engineering hours optimizing costs rather than shipping new features. We needed an AWS alternative cloud hosting provider that offered simpler, more transparent pricing models to help us reduce cloud costs permanently.

Why We Chose OVHcloud

After evaluating several providers, including Google Cloud Platform, Azure, and DigitalOcean, we narrowed our focus to OVHcloud. Several key factors made them stand out as the ideal partner for our infrastructure.

Transparent Pricing

OVHcloud pricing is refreshingly simple. They offer predictable monthly billing with fewer hidden fees. Unlike the pay-as-you-go complexity of hyperscalers, OVHcloud often bundles resources in a way that makes forecasting spend much easier.

Dedicated Bandwidth

This was the game-changer. OVHcloud offers unmetered bandwidth on many of their dedicated servers and public cloud instances. This meant we could scale our user base and data throughput without worrying about a corresponding explosion in egress fees.

Global Data Centers

We needed to maintain low latency for our global user base. OVHcloud has a vast network of data centers across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, ensuring we could deploy resources close to our customers.

Migration Strategy: How We Moved Without Downtime

Migrating a live production environment is risky. A botched migration can lead to data loss and significant downtime, eroding user trust. To migrate from AWS to OVHcloud successfully, we executed a phased cloud migration strategy.

Planning and Mapping

We started by mapping our AWS services to their OVHcloud equivalents. EC2 instances were mapped to Public Cloud instances, and RDS was replaced with OVHcloud’s Managed Databases. We chose Kubernetes to orchestrate containers, ensuring portability.

Parallel Deployment

We didn’t just flip a switch. We built a parallel environment on OVHcloud while keeping our AWS infrastructure live. This allowed us to test the new environment rigorously under load without affecting real users. We synced our databases in real-time to ensure data consistency between the two clouds.

DNS Switching

Once we were confident in the stability of the OVHcloud environment, we used a weighted DNS routing strategy. We gradually shifted 10% of traffic to the new infrastructure, monitored for errors, and then increased the percentage over 48 hours until 100% of our traffic was hitting OVHcloud servers. This approach ensured zero downtime for our users.

Cost Comparison: AWS vs OVHcloud (Before & After)

The numbers speak for themselves. By switching providers, we achieved significant savings that we could reinvest into product development.

Here is a simplified view of our monthly cloud cost comparison:

Note: While our total savings fluctuate based on usage, we consistently see a reduction of between 40-50% compared to our previous setup.

When looking at the OVHcloud vs AWS pricing models, the elimination of bandwidth fees was the single largest contributor to our savings.

Performance Benchmarks After Migration

Saving money is pointless if your application becomes slow or unreliable. We closely monitored our key performance indicators (KPIs) post-migration to ensure we weren’t trading performance for savings.

Page Speed and Latency

We utilized OVHcloud’s high-performance object storage and compute instances. Surprisingly, our average server response time actually improved by roughly 15%. This was likely due to the high-performance hardware provided in their standard tiers, which often compares favorably to older-generation instances on AWS.

Uptime

Since the switch, we have maintained 99.99% uptime. The OVHcloud infrastructure has proven to be extremely stable, handling traffic spikes during our marketing campaigns without breaking a sweat.

When conducting our cloud hosting speed comparison, the OVHcloud performance metrics met or exceeded our benchmarks set during the AWS era.

How We Maintained Security and Reliability

Security is non-negotiable. Moving away from the “shared responsibility model” of AWS meant we had to ensure our new secure cloud hosting environment was hardened against threats.

Firewall and Anti-DDoS

One of OVHcloud’s strongest features is its built-in Anti-DDoS protection, which is included by default. This provides a robust layer of security against volumetric attacks. We also configured strict firewall rules at the network level to restrict access to sensitive ports.

Backups

We implemented an automated snapshot strategy for our block storage and databases. These backups are stored in a separate region to ensure disaster recovery capabilities.

Monitoring

We integrated our existing monitoring stack (Prometheus and Grafana) with the new infrastructure. This gave us granular visibility into CPU usage, memory, and network traffic, allowing us to maintain high reliability.

Unexpected Benefits We Gained

Beyond the immediate cost savings, the migration unlocked several operational wins we hadn’t anticipated.

• Predictable Billing: Finance loves us again. We know exactly what our bill will be at the end of the month, allowing for accurate forecasting.
• Simpler Infrastructure: We were forced to simplify our architecture during migration. We removed legacy dependencies and optimized our container orchestration, resulting in a cleaner, more manageable code base.
• Faster Support: While we utilize standard support, the response times for critical infrastructure queries have been impressive, often feeling more personalized than the automated loops of larger providers.

Potential Downsides and Trade-Offs

No transition is perfect, and transparency is key. There are ecosystem limitations when leaving a giant like AWS.

• Learning Curve: AWS has a tool for everything. OVHcloud has a robust set of core tools, but you may need to rely more on open-source solutions or third-party integrations for niche requirements. Your team will need to adapt to a new interface and API.
• Managed Services: AWS has an incredibly mature suite of managed services (like Redshift, DynamoDB, SageMaker). If your application is deeply coupled with proprietary AWS services, refactoring for a cloud-agnostic environment will require significant engineering effort.

Who Should Consider Switching to OVHcloud?

Is OVHcloud the right choice for everyone? Not necessarily. But for specific business profiles, it is a no-brainer.

Startups and Scale-ups

If you are bootstrapping or sensitive to burn rate, OVHcloud offers the best cloud hosting for startups. The predictable pricing allows you to extend your runway significantly.

SaaS Companies

For B2B SaaS platforms where margins matter, cutting infrastructure costs directly increases profitability. The lack of bandwidth fees is particularly attractive for data-heavy applications.

Budget-Sensitive Teams

If you simply want a cheap cloud provider that doesn’t compromise on hardware quality, OVHcloud sits in that sweet spot between budget VPS providers and expensive hyperscalers.

How to Calculate Your Potential Cloud Savings

Before you commit to a migration, you need to run the numbers.

1. Audit your current bill: Identify your top three cost centers (usually Compute, RDS, and Bandwidth).
2. Estimate Bandwidth: Look at your data transfer costs. If this number is high, your savings with OVHcloud will be substantial.
3. Use a Cost Calculator: Use a cloud cost calculator to compare instance types. Match CPU and RAM specs rather than instance names to get an accurate comparison.
4. Factor in Migration Costs: Remember to include the engineering hours required to plan and execute the move.

If you can reduce cloud costs by 30% or more, the migration effort usually pays for itself within a few months.

FAQ – OVHcloud vs AWS (High-Intent SEO)

Q1: Is OVHcloud cheaper than AWS?

Yes, in most scenarios involving standard compute and storage, OVHcloud is significantly cheaper. The most substantial savings come from OVHcloud’s inclusion of unmetered bandwidth, whereas AWS charges for data egress. For our use case, we saw a total cost reduction of roughly 40-50%.

Q2: Does OVHcloud offer the same performance as AWS?

OVHcloud offers high-performance cloud hosting that rivals AWS for most web and business applications. In our benchmarks, we saw improved page speeds and lower latency on comparable instance types. However, AWS may offer superior performance for extremely specialized high-performance computing (HPC) tasks due to their proprietary hardware options.

Q3: Can I migrate from AWS to OVHcloud easily?

Migration requires planning. If your architecture relies heavily on open-source technologies (Linux, Kubernetes, MySQL, Postgres), migration is relatively straightforward. If you are heavily reliant on proprietary AWS services (like Lambda, DynamoDB, or Kinesis), you will need to refactor your application, which adds complexity.

Q4: Is OVHcloud reliable for production workloads?

Absolutely. OVHcloud provides Service Level Agreements (SLAs) comparable to other major providers. We have experienced excellent uptime and stability since moving our production workloads.

Q5: What are the hidden costs of AWS?

The most common hidden costs in AWS include data egress fees (bandwidth), NAT gateway charges, fees for unattached IP addresses, and costs associated with monitoring logs (CloudWatch) if not carefully managed.

Q6: Which cloud provider is better for startups?

For early-stage startups where cash flow is king, OVHcloud is often the better choice due to its predictable, transparent pricing and lower entry cost. AWS is a strong choice if you require specific, advanced platform-as-a-service (PaaS) features that speed up development despite the higher cost.

Conclusion

Switching from AWS to OVHcloud was one of the most impactful operational decisions we made this year. It allowed us to escape the trap of unpredictable billing and high bandwidth taxes, reducing our cloud spend by 40% while maintaining a secure, high-performance environment for our users.

While the AWS ecosystem is vast and powerful, it is not the only option. For businesses looking to optimize their bottom line without sacrificing quality, OVHcloud proves that you don’t need a hyperscaler to scale high.

Ready to stop overpaying for cloud hosting?

Take a closer look at your current invoice. If bandwidth fees and compute costs are eating your profits, it’s time to explore alternatives. Calculate your potential savings today and see what a switch could do for your business.