What is AWS?
Corbin Brown
3 min read
Part of the Vibe Coding Fundamentals video series on YouTube.
AWS, short for Amazon Web Services, is Amazon's collection of rentable computers, storage, and hundreds of other services that businesses pay for by the hour or by usage. It's the backbone of a large part of the internet. Many of the tools vibe coders reach for, including Vercel and Supabase, are built on top of AWS. So if your app is deployed on one of those, you're already an AWS customer at one remove.
Why you rarely touch it directly
AWS is built for teams that want every knob. It has hundreds of services with names like EC2 (rented virtual machines), S3 (file storage), and Lambda (run code without managing a server), each with its own settings, permissions, and pricing table. That flexibility is exactly what a beginner does not need. Platforms like Vercel, Supabase, and Cloudflare exist to hide that complexity: they rent the AWS-style infrastructure for you and hand you a simple deploy button. Your AI agent will usually pick one of those, and that's the right call for a first product.
Three things to know anyway
- The bill is pay-as-you-go, with no ceiling by default. A misconfigured service or a runaway script can run up real money overnight. If you ever open an AWS account, the first thing to set up is a billing alert.
- Access keys are secrets. AWS gives your code keys that can create and delete infrastructure. They belong in a .env file, never in code you publish, and they should be scoped to the minimum the job needs. An agent that pastes an AWS key into a public project has handed strangers your credit card.
- Regions matter. AWS runs data centers around the world, and you pick where your data lives. It affects speed for your users and, sometimes, what privacy rules apply. The managed platforms choose sensibly for you; on raw AWS it's your decision.
When you might graduate to it
Direct AWS starts to make sense when a managed platform's pricing or limits stop fitting: very large file storage, heavy compute jobs, or a compliance requirement that dictates exactly where and how data is stored. Until you hit one of those walls, the platforms built on AWS are the better deal in both money and hours.
FAQ
Is AWS free?
There's a free tier for many services, but it is usage-based and time-limited, not a flat free plan, and the terms change. It's easy to drift out of the free range without noticing, which is why the billing alert comes first.
AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure?
Same category: Google and Microsoft run competing clouds. For a vibe coder none of the three is the right first choice; a managed platform is. If you later need a raw cloud, pick the one your team or the service you're integrating already uses.
The 60-second version
In a hurry? AWS Explained in 36 seconds: the whole idea, as a Short.