TL;DR
An industry commentator argues that AWS’s onboarding and deployment workflow is needlessly complex, and that newer developers prefer platforms with far simpler developer experiences. The piece contrasts AWS with developer-focused hosts like Vercel and GCP’s more permissive default project model, and warns that AI-guided tooling may steer future engineers away from AWS.
What happened
A columnist described the end-to-end experience of deploying a basic web app to Amazon Web Services as cumbersome when starting from scratch. The author outlined several setup steps: creating an account, configuring AWS SSO (branded as IAM Identity Center) and an AWS Organization, mapping permission sets to IAM roles, signing in via an SSO portal, and linking that session to local tooling via the AWS SSO CLI or third-party open-source helpers such as granted.dev. From there developers must choose a deployment path (Amplify, EC2/Fargate, Lambda+API Gateway and others) and either manage secret/key storage or establish an OIDC relationship between GitHub (or GitLab) and AWS for CI/CD. The writer also singled out AWS Identity and Access Management as a recurring source of friction and contrasted the experience with Vercel, Netlify and Google Cloud Platform, which the columnist says offer faster, lower-friction paths to serving traffic.
Why it matters
- Developer experience shapes platform choice; high friction can deter newer engineers from adopting AWS.
- Complex IAM and multi-console workflows increase setup time and operational overhead for small projects and demos.
- Managed, developer-focused hosting may capture teams that prioritize speed and ease over granular control.
- AI-driven tooling and recommendations could amplify developer preferences, influencing long-term platform adoption.
Key facts
- The columnist walks through a zero-to-deploy workflow on AWS that includes account creation, SSO/IAM Identity Center configuration, permission sets, IAM roles and SSO login.
- Linking local development environments to AWS SSO can be done with the AWS SSO CLI or with the open-source project granted.dev, according to the piece.
- Deploying code requires either key management or establishing an OIDC trust between GitHub (or GitLab) and AWS for CI/CD.
- AWS offers many deployment targets — e.g., S3, CloudFront, Route 53, EC2, Fargate, Lambda+API Gateway, RDS or DynamoDB — and these require separate console configurations.
- IAM policy setup is presented as a frequent pain point: restrictive policies often block functionality and broadening them weakens security, per the author.
- The columnist contrasts AWS with Google Cloud Platform’s project-default permissive model and with hosts like Vercel, Netlify and Render that prioritize quick deployment.
- The piece notes that Vercel is built on top of AWS, using that to argue the UX gap is a matter of product design and executive priorities rather than underlying infrastructure.
- AWS CodeCatalyst is mentioned in the article as having been deprecated recently.
What to watch next
- Whether AWS will simplify onboarding and developer-facing UX across its console and identity flows (not confirmed in the source).
- Signs that younger developer cohorts shift default platform choices toward developer-first hosts over major public clouds (not confirmed in the source).
- How AI/LLM tooling influences platform recommendations and whether it steers new engineers away from AWS (not confirmed in the source).
Quick glossary
- IAM (Identity and Access Management): A framework for managing users, roles, permissions and access controls for resources in a cloud environment.
- SSO / IAM Identity Center: Single sign-on tooling that centralizes authentication across accounts and applications; AWS has rebranded its SSO offering as IAM Identity Center.
- OIDC (OpenID Connect): An authentication protocol built on OAuth 2.0 that lets services delegate user identity and enable federated login between providers.
- CI/CD: Continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment: automated practices and pipelines that build, test and deploy software changes.
- Vercel: A cloud platform focused on front-end and Jamstack deployments that emphasizes rapid deployment and developer ergonomics.
Reader FAQ
Why does the columnist say deploying to AWS is painful?
They describe multi-step setup for identity, permissions and deployment targets, and point to IAM policy work and scattered console flows as major friction points.
Are there tools to ease SSO and CLI access to AWS?
Yes; the article mentions the AWS SSO CLI and an open-source project called granted.dev as options to simplify SSO-based local access.
Is Vercel actually built on AWS?
The piece states that Vercel is built atop AWS and uses that to argue the differing experiences come from product design, not infrastructure.
Is AWS CodeCatalyst still available?
The article reports that CodeCatalyst was deprecated recently.
DEVOPS 52 Deploying to Amazon's cloud is a pain in the AWS younger devs won't tolerate They have no need to prove their bonafides Corey Quinn, special to El Reg…
Sources
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