{
 "id": 69796,
 "slug": "cutting-cloud-costs-by-66-through-software-optimisation",
 "url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/snippets/cutting-cloud-costs-by-66-through-software-optimisation/",
 "language": "en",
 "title": "Cutting cloud costs by 66% through software optimisation",
 "subtitle": "Do less, delete data and hand work to client devices.",
 "summary": "In 2023 I cut my cloud footprint by 66% while keeping about 80% of all features. Three strategies did the work: run resource-heavy tasks less often and cache results, delete unnecessary data, and shift work to client devices or specialists.",
 "topics": [
  "Amsterdam",
  "cloud",
  "data",
  "linux",
  "networking",
  "server",
  "web",
  "work"
 ],
 "date": "2023-04-05",
 "published": "2023-04-05T00:00:00+02:00",
 "created": "2026-08-30T07:13:32.130000+02:00",
 "updated": "2026-08-30T07:16:56.278000+02:00",
 "full_article_url": "https://willem.com/en/2023-04-05_cutting-cloud-costs/",
 "author": {
  "name": "Willem L. Middelkoop",
  "url": "https://willem.com"
 },
 "note": "A short distillation of a longer willem.com post. Not currently published on willem.com itself.",
 "answers_question": "How do you cut cloud costs?",
 "text": "Cloud providers charge for computing power, memory and storage, and rising energy prices were passed straight on to customers, which is why I started optimising.\nDoing less: check whether applications must run continuously or can scale down at night, perform a calculation once and serve everyone from a cache (webshop prices, for example), and make features opt-in instead of on by default.\nDeleting data: remove old log files or move them to another computer or an email inbox, compress photos and video (lossless compression can save up to 80% of storage), and be selective about what you store at all.\nDelegating: let client devices compress and resize images before uploading, run search entirely client-side with JavaScript and a JSON structure, and use the graphics chip of the visitor's device for animation.",
 "markdown_url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/snippets/cutting-cloud-costs-by-66-through-software-optimisation/snippet.md"
}