What makes Connhex a great AWS IoT alternative

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the leading providers of cloud services. The offering of IoT services, plus Amazon's scale, make it a very popular choice for companies looking to bring their products online.

This page describes how Connhex is different and when you should choose it over AWS.

Connhex vs AWS IoT: what are the differences?​

Designed for IoT manufacturers​

AWS services need to cover every imaginable use case across virtually every industry. While this is a big win for Amazon's balance sheet, it also means that these services need to be generic¹. Connhex is only focused on being the best solution for device manufacturers, looking to expand their commercial offering through their own IoT platform.

You can see this pattern across Connhex: from how data is stored to preserving compatibility with any legacy device, every aspect of Connhex is optimized for IoT applications.

Complete suite vs infrastructure​

Connhex is a complete industrial IoT suite, whereas AWS offers infrastructural services. These are opposite approaches: while AWS only provides the underlying technology, Connhex goes out a long way to give you all you need even by stepping outside the typical IoT domain: for example, we took care of providing a detailed GDPR compliance assessment, we integrated a way for you to accept payments and provide complete user profiles.

To put it differently, creating a basic Connhex clone through AWS services means paying someone to create a solution based on these services:

• IoT Core
• IoT Remote Device Management
• AWS Lambda
• DynamoDB
• S3 - Glacier Deep Archive
• Amazon CloudWatch
• AWS Key Management Service
• Amazon SNS
• Amazon API Gateway

That's just the start: you then need to think of an efficient messaging strategy, bringing devices into an operational state², upgrading your manufacturing process, ...

And you'd still be missing many of the features that make Connhex unique, plus need to go through extensive testing and validation.

Time to market​

Creating, testing and validating your IoT platform using AWS services is a project typically measured in months, whereas installing Connhex on a server takes minutes.

Time to market is sharply reduced when it comes to creating user facing apps too. Attributes and relationships, historicization, rules editing, authentication and user profiles are all things you won't need to care about.

Costs​

Connhex and AWS have opposite pricing models. While a pricing calculator is essential even to get a rough estimate of AWS's costs, Connhex is priced in a simple and transparent way.

Moreover, remember you should add support and maintenance fees to the calculated estimate: all Connhex plans include support, security fixes and feature updates ³.

As soon as you need 1 year of data availability, Connhex is 4x to 9x cheaper than AWS⁴. And this is assuming you don't need to recreate any of the more advanced Connhex services - otherwise the difference quickly becomes staggering.

As with time to market, costs for user facing apps are slashed too: you can leverage all of Connhex's services, built especially for device manufacturers looking to build their own IoT platform.

If you want to go deeper into analyzing AWS costs for building an IoT platform, take a look here.

Data ownership and provider lock-in​

By using Connhex, you keep 100% ownership of your data. Connhex instances can be deployed on any provider of your choice. Since Connhex is a self-contained suite, migrating from one provider to another is also possible: you won't have to worry about external dependencies.

You also have the freedom to install Connhex on a dedicated server, like a VPS, or any cloud environment offering a managed Kubernetes service⁵.

Using AWS services, on the other hand, is like marrying someone: you won't be able to change, unless you're willing to write off your investment and start over after a painful migration period. And if you think you're safe by simply sticking with one of the big providers, think again.

Support and maintenance​

Unless you have a dedicated in-house cloud team, you'll need to outsource the construction of an IoT solution using AWS services. Amazon has a long list of partners you can choose from: beware of the fact they will only sell you the implementation of as many AWS services as possible, so make sure you also hear a third party to avoid paying for what you don't need.

The same company will typically also be responsible for supporting and maintaining the solution - the public secret is this is where their margins lie. How much does this cost? It varies greatly, but a good ballpark guess is in the tens of thousands of euros per year.

Connhex, on the other hand, already includes support and maintenance for every plan.

Customization​

Connhex has been built relying on the experience of building IoT platforms for many different use cases: we're confident it will suit your needs.

Should you have specific requirements, we're definitely available to provide a tailored version of Connhex: just get in touch, and we'll figure it out together. Conversely, if you're using AWS you need to rely on every service as it is, building yourself additional functionalities from scratch.

The other way around is possible too: you can usually integrate in an existing IoT platform only parts of Connhex - take a look at this customer story.

When is AWS IoT better than Connhex?​

There are situations where AWS compares favourably over Connhex, of course. Its pay-per-use pricing model will be the best solution for your needs if:

• only you plan to connect tens of devices
• you're not interested in storing data for more than a few months
• your company is already using many AWS services, and you want to integrate your IoT platform too

If you want to take advantage of AWS's reliability, scale and compliance without using its proprietary services, keep in mind that Connhex can be easily deployed on AWS EC2 ⁶.

Why you should choose Connhex over AWS IoT​

Connhex is a complete industrial IoT suite, whereas AWS services only cover infrastructural aspects. Connhex is a better solution than AWS for your needs if you:

• are a device manufacturer, looking to connect at least 1000 devices to your own IoT platform
• are looking for a plug-and-play suite, not only services that will allow you to build one
• want to start providing additional functionalities and opening new revenue streams really quickly
• are looking to build an infrastructure with low per-device operating costs, to offer your customers a free tier
• want to use a solution that has already been tested and validated
• value data ownership and want to preserve the flexibility of switching providers at any time

Ready to start connecting your devices? Go here to explore Connhex configurations. Still unsure? You can always reach out for any additional information: we'll be glad to hear from you!