Lithus vs. Public Cloud
Side-by-side comparison on the metrics that matter.
If you are evaluating whether to move off AWS, GCP, or Azure, here is an honest comparison. We include the areas where public cloud is the better choice, because knowing when something is not the right fit saves everyone time.
At a glance
| Public Cloud (AWS/GCP/Azure) | Lithus | |
|---|---|---|
| Billing Model | Per-resource, per-hour + egress + managed service fees | Flat monthly rate, all-inclusive |
| Performance | Shared tenancy, variable IOPS | Dedicated bare metal, consistent throughput |
| Support | Ticket queue, tiered response times | Embedded SRE, direct chat, 2-hour response |
| DevOps Labour | You hire or outsource separately | Included: 2 days per €5k/month |
| Billing Start | Immediately on provisioning | When workloads are running |
| Relative Cost | Baseline (1x) | ~0.5x for equivalent hardware |
| Scale-to-Zero | Native support for serverless and scale-to-zero | Not available. Dedicated hardware runs 24/7 |
| Global Presence | 60+ regions worldwide, edge network | Primarily Germany (Hetzner). Other providers available on request |
| Managed Service Breadth | 100+ managed services (ML, analytics, IoT, etc.) | Standard stack: Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, Kafka, object storage, observability |
What the table doesn't tell you
Billing: flat rate, no surprises
The biggest problem with cloud billing is not the total. It is the surprises.
With a flat monthly rate, your CFO can forecast infrastructure cost 12 months out in a spreadsheet. No usage metering, no egress fees, no managed service surcharges. Use our pricing calculator to see what your budget buys.
Performance: dedicated hardware, no noisy neighbours
Cloud instances share physical hardware with other tenants. Your IOPS and throughput vary depending on what your neighbours are doing. On dedicated bare metal, inter-node latency is ~0.2ms across a private fibre network. Public cloud instance-to-instance is typically 1-3ms with jitter. For database replication, distributed caches, and service-to-service calls, that difference compounds across every request in every transaction.
Your NVMe drives, CPU cores, and network interfaces are not shared. Consistent IOPS at 3 PM and 3 AM, regardless of what anyone else is running.
Support: engineers in your Slack, not tickets in a queue
Cloud provider support means a ticket portal with tiered response times. Even on Business or Enterprise plans, you talk to a support agent who manages hundreds of accounts. With Lithus, you get a shared Slack channel with the same engineers who built your cluster. No handoffs, no runbooks, no "let me escalate this."
One client was paying $2,000/month for Supabase when a database lock lasted 72 hours and support could not explain what happened. After moving that workload to us, their CTO said: "Thank you for being so responsive. It is awesome." The difference is not the SLA number. It is whether someone who understands your setup is actually looking at the problem.
DevOps labour: included, not outsourced
On public cloud, you still need someone to manage Kubernetes upgrades, configure alerting, debug networking, optimise database performance, and handle incidents. That is a full-time hire or an expensive consulting engagement.
With Lithus, SRE capacity is built into the price: 2 engineering days per €5,000/month. These are staff-level infrastructure engineers, not junior support agents. For one client, that included building a custom Kubernetes operator in Rust, deploying a private mesh network, and setting up compliance monitoring. See what the full stack looks like.
Migration risk: we carry it, not you
On AWS, billing starts the moment you provision a resource. With Lithus, billing starts when your workloads are running on our infrastructure. No setup fee. We handle the migration: cluster design, hardware provisioning, workload migration, and cutover. Your existing infrastructure stays live until you are confident. See our FAQ for typical migration timelines.
Cost: ~50% less for equivalent hardware
For steady-state workloads, dedicated bare metal costs roughly half of equivalent on-demand cloud infrastructure.
Where public cloud wins
We are not the right fit for every workload. Here is where AWS, GCP, and Azure are genuinely better.
Scale-to-zero and spiky workloads
Dedicated hardware runs 24/7. If your workload is highly variable, drops to zero for hours, or you need serverless functions, public cloud is the right answer. Lithus is built for steady-state workloads that run continuously: SaaS platforms, data pipelines, APIs with predictable traffic, databases.
Global edge presence
Our infrastructure is primarily in Germany, with other providers available on request. If you need 60+ regions, a global CDN, or sub-10ms latency to users in Asia-Pacific, public cloud has infrastructure we cannot match. For most European and transatlantic workloads, a single well-connected location is sufficient.
Niche managed services
AWS has 200+ managed services. We run a standard open-source stack: Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, Kafka, Redis, object storage, observability. If your workload depends on a service with no open-source equivalent (SageMaker endpoints, BigQuery, DynamoDB Streams), public cloud is harder to leave. For most workloads, the open-source equivalent works the same or better on dedicated hardware.
Not sure which model fits? Our infrastructure spectrum page compares all four options with honest trade-offs.