I agree, the AWS free tier is incredible for getting a project off the ground. For a side project of mine, I'm spending a little over $10/mo on AWS:

- 2x 1GB instances (one free, one $10/mo)

- Free ELB to load-balance between them

- Free 1GB Postgres RDS

Then I spend less than a buck or two a month when I spin up a c4.large for a few minutes to compile a new AMI periodically. This would all cost at least 3-4x on something like Linode or Digital Ocean.