Aren't AWS, Azure and GCP all comparatively expensive? They are good for certain workloads and it's good that this project exists, but if you wanted cheap cloud resources, you'd probably need to look at one of the smaller cloud vendors: Hetzner, Scaleway, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Contabo and others. Of course, if you need GPUs, things can get limiting.
For infrequent, unpredictable workloads using something like spot instances on AWS and scaling as needed (including to zero) will likely be cheaper.
I think Hetzner and other budget cloud providers are excellent choices for use cases that require always on, reasonably predictable workloads like webservers.
The thing is they are so much cheaper, especially for egress, that it takes really extreme spikes or batch jobs for it to be cheaper to use AWS vs. leaving an excess number of server running permanently on somewhere like Hetzner. Very few sites have variable enough traffic that scaling up and down with usage saves enough to even get close.
There certainly are genuine cases where AWS will come out ahead, but they're rare. E.g. if you suddenly need several hundred instances for on average a few days a month, it's probably worth it. Very few people do that, and paying for the capacity to be able to offer that is part of the reason for why AWS is so expensive. Peoples belief that AWS is cheap is another reason.
Ironically, the ability to run a hybrid setup that scales up in AWS when you genuinely need rapid extra capacity changes the maths even further in favour of dedicated servers from places like Hetzner (as does the fact most places like Hetzner now have their own cloud offerings) because it means you can go closer to the wire on your dedicated servers.
Such configurations sadly aren't relevant for me, because neither are any of my workloads that demanding, nor could I ever afford to rent such servers anyways. At that point, one might as well make the argument for forking over money towards the more "enterprise" platforms.
However, out of curiosity, I actually checked all of the mentioned platforms, to figure out where they cap out.
Cloud services:
Contabo - CLOUD VDS XXL has 12 CPU and 96 GB of RAM, 149 euros/month
Hetzner - CCX62 has 48 CPU and 192 GB of RAM, 532 euros/month
DigitalOcean - caps out at around 32 CPU and 256 GB of RAM, 2096 euros/month
Scaleway - ENT1-2XL has 96 CPU and 384 GB of RAM, 2576 euros/month
Vultr - caps out at around 96 CPU and 255 GB of RAM, 3840 euros/month
Dedicated servers:
Contabo - AMD EPYC 32 Cores has 32 CPU and 256 GB of RAM, 249 euros/month
Hetzner - AX161 has 32 CPU and 1024 GB of RAM, 833 euros/month
Scaleway - EM-T210E-NVME has 128 CPU and 2048 GB of RAM, 2625 euros/month
Vultr - NVIDIA A100 has 96 CPU and 960 GB of RAM, 14000 euros/month
So to answer that question, yes, most of the platforms out there have more performant offerings, while the prices and details vary. It's great that these alternatives exist, even if the needs of most people will be more modest.
For example, my hybrid container cluster with 6 nodes has 13 CPU cores in and a total of 54 GB of RAM and even that's with room for growth, hosting basically everything that I need for about 30 euros a month. Most people out there will probably care about finding ways to cheaply run their WordPress site or something, as opposed to scaling way up.
That's kind of the beauty of the current market - there's something for everyone out there!
