Basecamp Founder DHH: Company Cloud Costs Decreased by 70% Over Three Years, Achieving Stable Savings and Higher Availability
Basecamp founder DHH revealed that the company's spending on AWS and other cloud hosting in 2023 was $3,934,099, and by 2026, cloud hosting and support costs are expected to drop to about $1 million per year. The overall "cloud exit" project is projected to save approximately $4 million cumulatively by 2026. Even accounting for all new hardware purchases, the company will still maintain savings of about $3 million per year in the future.
DHH emphasized that the company did not expand its team size; the same team is now fully responsible for local deployment operations and has abandoned Kubernetes in favor of its self-developed deployment tool Kamal to deliver all services. Additionally, after switching to local deployment, the overall service capability availability has actually improved.
Source: Public Information
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DHH的案例揭示了“云成本—组织复杂性—长期算力选择”的结构性关系。早期云化看似降低运维门槛，但随着规模增长，账单和工具复杂度反成隐性税负，使企业重新评估公有云与本地基础设施的长期成本结构。
Basecamp的路径代表一种“有限规模下的反向架构潮流”：在不依赖超大规模弹性、也不追求全球化部署的前提下，自建数据中心与专用工具成为更经济的选项。这与AWS创始期的“从自建机房转向云”形成对称周期，但选择方向相反。
从更广泛角度看，Basecamp的“云退出”映射了产业两极分化：少数巨头仍依赖超大规模云，而大量中等规模企业开始寻求混合或本地化算力，以对冲长期云成本与厂商锁定。这种再分布将重塑云计算收入结构，并推动自建基础设施工具的复兴。