AWS vs. Acquia for Secure Drupal Hosting: What the Numbers Really Say.
When a Drupal site needs to meet government-grade audits like FedRAMP, FISMA, HIPAA, or PCI, the first decision is straightforward:
- Do everything in-house on AWS, or
- Let Acquia run the platform for you.
Both options run on AWS data centers, so base-level security is equivalent. The difference lies in who handles compliance, how long it takes, and what it costs.
1. DIY on AWS: Safe, but every control is your job
AWS provides more than 140 global certifications, including FedRAMP High. But under the shared-responsibility model, you are on the hook for everything above the hypervisor:
- Harden AMIs, patch the OS, lock down IAM, configure GuardDuty, and maintain a SIEM feed.
- Draft every System Security Plan and be ready to show evidence to auditors.
- Pay for 3PAO assessments and agency reviews if you want FedRAMP or FISMA.
Even if you get certified, your team must stay audit-ready every day.
2. Acquia: Compliance that comes pre-installed
Acquia Cloud Platform adds a managed PaaS layer to AWS and brings a long list of compliance credentials: FedRAMP Moderate, SOC 1/2/3, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI, and StateRAMP. You inherit these certifications on Day 1. The Acquia team also:
- Automatically patches the OS, PHP, MySQL, and Drupal core.
- Delivers 24/7 monitoring, WAF, DDoS and intrusion detection, daily backups, and audited access controls.
- Offers DevOps tools like Cloud IDE and Pipelines.
Your developers still need to follow security best practices, but Acquia takes care of the infrastructure-level compliance.
3. The hidden price of doing it yourself
Recent quotes from third-party assessors show how quickly DIY compliance costs can climb:
FedRAMP Moderate
$220,000–$460,000
9–18 months
SOC 2 Type II
$45,000–$115,000
6-12 months
ISO 27001
$50,000–$100,000
6–9 months
*Includes professional services, remediation, documentation, and 3PAO audits. These numbers don’t include the internal time your team will spend writing policies, integrating tools, and preparing for continuous monitoring.
4. Total cost of Drupal hosting, in one sentence
Acquia may have higher subscription costs, but it includes the people, tools, audits, and 24/7 support that a DIY AWS build requires you to manage and fund separately.
5. Decision checklist, If this is you…
Lean security team, tight deadline, must show FedRAMP evidence next quarter
Choose Acquia
Why: Turnkey compliance, fastest path to ATO
Robust DevOps staff, need to mix Drupal with micro-services and AI workloads
Choose AWS
Why: Maximum architectural freedom
Cost measured over three years—including staff, audits, and downtime risk
Choose Acquia Often
Why: Subscription offsets internal headcount and 3PAO fees
Must run only one public-facing Drupal site with low sensitivity data
Choose Either
Why: Basic AWS setup can work if SOC 2 is sufficient
*Includes professional services, remediation, documentation, and 3PAO audits. These numbers don’t include the internal time your team will spend writing policies, integrating tools, and preparing for continuous monitoring.
6. Final take-away
Security is equal at the data center level. From there, it becomes a build versus buy decision:
- Buy Acquia if you value compliance, speed, and support over bare-metal cloud savings.
- Build on AWS if you're ready to manage every patch, policy, and 2 a.m. alerts yourself.
Tactis has helped many of our clients evaluate both options and implement secure, scalable Drupal sites using Acquia Drupal Cloud. Let us help you map the real costs and choose the path that works best for your team.