Storing static files on a micro ec2 instance saves me money versus storing the images using s3. s3 charges by the GET requests and PUT requests. So if you're storing a lot of static files, like images, then you'll go through that free tier very quickly and start racking up the charges. But if you store those images on your ec2 instance and serve them with apache/http/whatever, then you don't pay for any of the requests, just the bandwidth. and if you have low traffic and optimize your images, its easy to stay within that free tier and pay absolutely nothing.