I upvoted for the details, and I agree that if you try to buy comparable capacity in AWS, it's going to be more expensive. Scaling up in AWS is definitely going to cost more over time too. I don't want to hide these facts.

But you don't need comparable capacity, at least not at first. And when you do, you click some buttons or run terraform plan/apply. Absolutely it's going to cost more measured only by tech specs. But you're not paying primarily for tech specs, you're paying for somebody else to do the work. That's where the cost comparability really needs to be assessed.

Security in AWS is a thorny topic, I'll agree, but the risks are a little different. You need to secure your accounts and users, and lock out unneeded services while monitoring for unexpected service utilization. Honestly, I think for what you're paying, AWS should be doing more for you here (and they are improving albeit slowly). Hence maybe the real point of comparison ought to be against PaaS because then all of that is out of scope too, and I think such offerings are already putting pressure on AWS to offer more value.