So, compared to a service like AppHarbor [1], what advantages does this offer? AppHarbor is free for a micro instance, comes with tons of add-ons, and has excellent git integration.

[1] http://appharbor.com

What makes this any different from me just spinning up my own aws windows server. They must have to mark up prices to make a profit so why not just do it myself? Its an honest question, not a critism.

Also puzzled about this too, since the pricing scheme differs from a per/usage AWS fee. Maybe they're going the way of traditional shared hosting companies by banking on a very small percentage of their users actually ever achieving high traffic?

Following up here... "starting at 19 /mo" ... and then the lowest cost plan is $29/mo. Just sayin'.

They're pulling the same skeezy trick that one of my local web/email hosting competitors pulls -- and for which I teased them publicly in our latest advertising.

You only get the advertised rate if you pay the full year in advance. This allows them to advertise a "monthly" rate that is actually "$holycow/12" while also advertising "no commitments!"

edit: and, at 613M of RAM ... I'm not sure exactly what someone would plan to do with such an instance of Windows, but it won't be much.

The pricing and specs compared with a dedicated server from Hetzner.de running windows server 2008 web are absolutely mad

I thought the same thing when I went to the website, though it looks like it simplifies things a bit, particularly in regards to billing. Might be good to have the advantages on an FAQ page somewhere.

I spun up my own SQL Express / Server 2008 instance using the Amazon provided AMI and had my site deployed in about 10 minutes. What exactly is this service doing to make that easier?

I've always had the vision that the Windows hosting community were the more serious type of developer. Since they need to invest upfront in additional costs theirs likely funding involved and the 'hacker' attitude fits in less.

I'm not sure a company with a name 'Epic Win Hosting' serves the intended community at all, and especially without enterprise-grade services -- who are the intended customers?

What value is this for anyone who wants to dive into AWS for more than a few hours? Honest Question.