How to Cancel and Delete an AWS Account? | ServerPronto University

Hadley Eliot
Serverpronto
Published in
4 min readAug 13, 2019

There’s been a lot of hype surrounding cloud-based hosting services with AWS often leading the conversation though the service is still far from perfect.

If you gave it a try but now feel like it’s time to cancel your AWS account and try a different hosting provider, keep reading.

Steps to cancel an AWS account

Follow these steps to cancel your AWS account in just a couple of minutes:

( Note: If you want to close the master account in an organization, first delete the organization)

  1. Sign in as the root user of the account that you want to close
  2. Open the Account Settings page of the Billing and Cost Management console
  3. Scroll to the Close Account heading
  4. Read and accept the terms of closing the account
  5. Select the checkbox, and then choose Close Account
  6. In the confirmation box, choose Close Account

After finishing this last step, you’ll receive an email confirming your account was successfully closed.

Before you cancel an AWS account

Here are a few things to keep in mind before you cancel your AWS account:

  • If the account is a member account in an organization, remove the account from the organization before closing it.
  • Member accounts created using AWS Organizations don’t have a root password by default. You must reset the root user password for these accounts before you can sign in as the root user.
  • Back up any resources or data you want to keep before you cancel your AWS account.
  • 90 days after you cancel your AWS account, it will be permanently deleted, inaccessible, and can’t be reopened.
  • The email address associated with the account at the time it’s closed can’t be used to create new AWS accounts.

Cons of using AWS

As it is now, Amazon hosting is meant for a specific type of user and business. If you don’t fit into the category, you’ll probably be better off looking for server and hosting servers somewhere else.

Though they offer many options, shared or VPS hosting and dedicated servers are not among them, leaving you with cloud hosting as your only choice.

Here’s a detailed look at the AWS platform disadvantages:

High Variance in Performance

Since their cloud servers manage a bigger workload compared to other cloud servers, the performance often varies. Sometimes can reach top performance while others it can fall way behind, making this service anything but reliable or stable.

Limited Service

Limited bandwidth and disk space are a couple of problems users have mentioned. Since their servers have to handle massive traffic daily, the resources the cloud has can get a little compromised. If you’re looking for a lot of storage, AWS may not be for you.

Confusing Pricing

AWS’ price scheme varies a lot, making it a little confusing for users to navigate. The pricing also changes a lot depending on the services you choose.

There’s also the point about the prices being on the higher end compares to similar providers, even for the most active businesses

Too Many Options

Sometimes having too much to choose from can become a problem. Since AWS has so many options and services, it gets tricky to navigate, choose and customize a hosting solution through their infrastructure.

There are consultants available to help you pick the best services and AWS plans for you but then again, it’s an additional expense you have to pay just to know your way around Amazon’s services.

Technical downsides

  • Reliability and functionality issues when scaling up due to EC2 limitations.
  • Since AWS storage solutions are internet-based, access is entirely reliant on connection causing cause speed problems.
  • Companies migrating their legacy data and software into the AWS cloud might need a greater level of control than EC2 can offer.
  • Instance controls are limited to one option. Each instance per host must be uniform that requires users to specify configurations like RAM, CPU, and bandwidth requirements.
  • The EC2 virtual hardware is reportedly not as robust as physical hardware.
  • Several non-localized instances in a shared LAN compete for bandwidth resulting in latency issues.
  • Widespread LAN leads to latency and congestion issues that result in problems for people who depend on quick database calls.

If you’ve made the decision to leave AWS and need a reliable and affordable hosting provider, consider looking into ServerPronto. Their services are cost-efficient and easily manageable, offering powerful solutions for every type of business.

Chief Tech writer at ServerPronto. Helping businesses grow with useful tech information.

Originally published at https://www.serverpronto.com on August 13, 2019.

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