I need to be always on IRC and so a few Google searches showed that it was possible with the Amazon EC2 free tier micro instance.
Once this free period ends, how much (approx.) should I be expected to shell out for this? My only requirements are running a IRC server + a small static HTML website.
If there is another better VPS option for the query I have described, what do you guys recommend?
Thanks!
Best Answer
Amazon Web Services provides a calculator that you can use to estimate your monthly cost.
Here are some things to consider: Reserved instance vs. On-demand instance vs. Spot instance.
EBS vs S3 root device
Bandwidth:
Elastic IP
Keep in mind that a static website (without the IRC part) can be hosted from S3 without the need for EC2. Naturally, this is a far cheaper alternative to running an EC2 server.
As an estimate, you are likely looking at between $13/mo (with a reserved instance) to $20/mo (on-demand) if you use a t1.micro.
As as estimate (us-east-1):
On-demand: $0.02/hr = 175.20
Heavy usage 1 year reserved: $62 + 0.005/hr = $105.80
Heavy usage 3 year reserved: $100 + 0.005/hr = $231.4 (for 3 years) = 77.13/year
Depending on your needs, you will likely want to backup your EBS volume(s) with snapshots. Snapshots are compressed and differential, so a single snapshot should be smaller than the used data on your EBS volume. Storing many of them, however, can add up. 3GB of snapshot data will add about $0.40/mo to your bill.
(The cheapest version would be an S3-backed t1.micro, 3-yr reserved, heavy utilization instance - you cannot change instance types if you reserve, but you can change AMIs (including whether or not the instance is S3 or EBS backed).