Canva's AWS Outage

calendar October 20, 2025

October 20, 2025 — When Canva went completely dark today, affecting millions of users worldwide, it wasn't due to a bug in their code or a mistake by their engineering team. The culprit? Their cloud provider: Amazon Web Services (AWS).

This incident reveals a critical truth that many SME owners and software developers overlook: your infrastructure choices don't just affect your budget—they can completely halt your business.

The Canva Case: When AWS Dependency Becomes a Liability

At 18:14 AEDT today, Canva's entire platform went offline. Every single feature—from login and design editing to mobile apps, API integrations, and even their educational LMS platforms—showed "Major Outage" status.

Canva runs its entire infrastructure on AWS, using services like Amazon EC2, Amazon S3 (storing over 230 petabytes of data), and various other AWS services to serve over 235 million monthly users worldwide.

In their status update, Canva revealed: "There is a major issue with our underlying cloud provider."

Translation: Even a company as sophisticated as Canva—backed by substantial funding and employing world-class engineers—is completely at the mercy of AWS when things go wrong.

The AWS Cost Problem: Why You're Probably Overpaying

While AWS dominates the cloud market, this dominance comes at a premium price that many businesses simply cannot justify. The numbers tell a sobering story:

Real Cost Comparisons

AWS is approximately 7 times more expensive than Hetzner for equivalent instances. For a standard 4 vCPU, 8GB RAM configuration: AWS On-Demand costs $226.59/month versus Hetzner's $32.70/month. Even with AWS 1-Year Reserved Instances at $180.60/month, you're still paying 5.5 times more than Hetzner.

Performance benchmarks show that Hetzner delivers 76% better performance than AWS and 101% better than Azure in multi-core benchmarks, while maintaining significantly lower costs.

The "AWS Tax" on Your Business

For startups and SMEs, these costs compound quickly:

  • Startups burn cash faster: Companies like Ahrefs calculated they saved approximately $400 million over 2.5 years by NOT using AWS for their infrastructure
  • Hidden fees everywhere: Data egress charges, IP addresses, load balancers, and storage transfer costs that AWS bills separately can double or triple your expected costs
  • Complexity kills agility: AWS's minimum monthly bills often exceed $70 for basic setups, making it prohibitively expensive for non-profit projects and early-stage ventures

Enter Hetzner: The European Cloud Alternative

Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Germany, Hetzner has become the go-to choice for cost-conscious businesses that refuse to compromise on performance or reliability.

Why Developers and SMEs Love Hetzner

1. Transparent, Predictable Pricing

Starting at just €3.49/month, you can deploy a CX11 server with 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 20 GB SSD, and 20 TB of included traffic in the EU/US regions. No surprise bills. No complex calculations. Just straightforward pricing that makes budgeting simple.

2. Exceptional Performance

Hetzner's local NVMe SSD storage significantly outperforms the network-attached storage solutions used by AWS EBS, delivering superior disk I/O performance for database and file-intensive workloads.

3. Generous Traffic Allowances

Unlike AWS where data egress can bankrupt your budget, Hetzner includes 20TB of bandwidth with European datacenters and 1TB with US and Singapore locations—more than enough for most applications without additional charges.

4. GDPR Compliance Everywhere

All Hetzner cloud plans comply with strict EU data protection regulations like GDPR, even at their locations in Finland, USA, and Singapore. This gives European businesses peace of mind regarding data sovereignty.

5. Modern Developer Experience

Hetzner integrates seamlessly with:

  • Terraform for infrastructure as code
  • Kubernetes for container orchestration
  • REST API and CLI tools for automation
  • Standard DevOps workflows (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Jenkins)

Global Reach Without the AWS Price Tag

Hetzner now operates datacenters in:

  • Europe: Germany (multiple locations), Finland
  • North America: Ashburn, Virginia and Hillsboro, Oregon
  • Asia: Singapore

This global presence ensures low latency for international customers while maintaining competitive pricing.

When Should You Choose Hetzner Over AWS?

Perfect Use Cases for Hetzner:

✅ Startups and SMEs with limited budgets needing reliable infrastructure
✅ Development and staging environments where AWS costs add up quickly
✅ High-bandwidth applications (media streaming, file hosting, CDN origins)
✅ European businesses prioritizing GDPR compliance and data sovereignty
✅ Predictable workloads with stable resource requirements
✅ Cost-conscious projects where every euro matters

When AWS Might Make Sense:

  • Global enterprises requiring AWS-specific managed services
  • Companies with unpredictable, highly variable workloads needing instant scaling
  • Organizations locked into AWS ecosystem (Lambda, DynamoDB, etc.)
  • Applications requiring specific AWS compliance certifications beyond GDPR

Real-World Success Stories

David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails, highlighted at Rails World Conference 2024 how developers can buy 40 cores, 96 threads, and 256 GB of RAM for $220/month from Hetzner—a configuration that would cost thousands on AWS.

Developers hosting production applications on Hetzner for years report excellent stability and performance, with monthly costs often under $100 for configurations that would exceed $1,000 on AWS.

The GPO Solution: Expert Cloud Migration

At GPO OU, we specialize in helping businesses make smart infrastructure decisions. Whether you're:

  • Building a new application and want to start with cost-effective infrastructure
  • Migrating from AWS to reduce your monthly cloud bills by 70-90%
  • Optimizing existing deployments for better performance and lower costs
  • Seeking GDPR-compliant European hosting solutions

We have the expertise to guide you through the transition seamlessly.

Our Services Include:

  • Cloud Architecture Design - Right-sized infrastructure from day one
  • Migration Planning & Execution - Zero-downtime transitions from AWS to Hetzner
  • DevOps Automation - Terraform, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipeline setup
  • Performance Optimization - Get more from your infrastructure investment
  • Ongoing Support - 24/7 monitoring and maintenance options

Ready to Cut Your Cloud Costs?

Special Offer for New Hetzner Users:

We're offering free Hetzner Cloud invitations to businesses interested in exploring this cost-effective alternative. Getting started with Hetzner typically includes €20 in free credits, and we'll help you set everything up properly.

Get Your Hetzner Invitation Today

Contact GPO OU:

Include a brief description of your current infrastructure needs, and we'll:

  1. Send you a Hetzner invitation with bonus credits
  2. Provide a free 30-minute consultation to discuss your requirements
  3. Share a customized cost comparison showing your potential savings

The Bottom Line

Today's Canva outage demonstrates that even industry leaders running on AWS are vulnerable to infrastructure failures beyond their control. But there's another lesson here: you don't need to pay AWS premium prices to run world-class infrastructure.

With Hetzner being 4-10 times less expensive than AWS for similar performance, the question isn't whether you can afford to switch—it's whether you can afford not to.

For startups, SMEs, and development teams tired of unpredictable AWS bills and vendor lock-in, Hetzner represents a pragmatic alternative that delivers exceptional value without compromising on performance, reliability, or compliance.

Take Action Now

Don't wait for your own infrastructure crisis or the next shocking AWS bill. Contact GPO OU today to:

  1. Request your free Hetzner invitation with bonus credits
  2. Schedule a free consultation about your cloud strategy
  3. Get a custom cost analysis comparing your current setup to Hetzner

Remember: The best time to optimize your infrastructure was yesterday. The second-best time is today.

 

About GPO OU: We're a software development company specializing in modern, cost-effective cloud solutions for SMEs. Our expertise spans cloud architecture, DevOps automation, and strategic infrastructure planning. Let us help you build better software without breaking the bank.

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