# AWS SES

8 Hacker News commenters recommended AWS SES and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend AWS SES as a reliable, low-cost way to send email with strong deliverability, often a few dollars a month. The common caveat is that getting production access approved can take weeks and feels like a hassle.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong deliverability and anti-spam reputation (2 comments): "AWS SES (one of AWS's flagship products, and probably the biggest email sender in the world) is a pretty responsible anti-spam citizen." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47794778)) "AWS SES is the gold standard of deliverability" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47795377))
- Very cheap to run (2 comments): "If you're willing to do a bit of work to use AWS SES, that would be $2-$5 a month." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46073251)) "With AWS SES for sending mail, this Cloudflare + Gmail setup would be ~free" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49961572))

## What people warn about

- Production approval slow and opaque (3 comments): "It can take weeks to get AWS SES (Simple Email Service) approved for production on a small account" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50310850)) "I had more trouble onboarding AWS SES, with a process that felt more like me begging" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46129080)) "being told nope and we can't tell you why" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47794802))
- Setup takes too much work (2 comments): "I had more trouble onboarding AWS SES, with a process that felt more like me begging" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46129080)) "AWS SES is just too much work." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46149785))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Cloudflare Email Service](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cloudflare-email-service.md): 27 recommend
- [Amazon SES](https://hackerapproved.com/p/amazon-ses.md): 19 recommend
- [Postmark](https://hackerapproved.com/p/postmark.md): 9 recommend
- [SMTP2GO](https://hackerapproved.com/p/smtp2go.md): 7 recommend
- [Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/amazon-simple-email-service.md): 6 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://aws.amazon.com/ses/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "AWS SES", https://hackerapproved.com/p/aws-ses/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).