Deploy ASP.NET Core to AWS EC2
Amazon EC2 -- the broadest region and instance-type selection.
AWS is the right pick if your company already standardizes on it, or needs whatever compliance program comes with an AWS account. DotDeployer provisions a plain EC2 instance and manages it over SSH — nothing about your setup is AWS-specific beyond the instance itself.
1. Create the account
Go to aws.amazon.com/free and create an account — this needs a card for identity verification, a Business contact type, and phone verification. Choose the Free plan, which gives you $100 up front and up to $100 more in earned credit, for 6 months.
2. Create the API key
Sign in to the AWS Console as the root user and open IAM →
Users → Create user, name it, leave console access unchecked, and attach the
AmazonEC2FullAccess policy directly. Click the new user, open Security credentials → Create
access key, choose Application running outside AWS, and copy the Access key and
Secret access key — AWS only shows the secret once.
3. Connect it in DotDeployer
In DotDeployer, go to Settings → Providers → Connect a provider → AWS, enter a name, the
access key ID, the secret access key, and a region (us-east-1 is a reasonable default). Click
Test connection, then Connect. The secret is encrypted at rest, and DotDeployer only calls
the EC2 endpoints that policy allows.
4. Point your domain at the server
DotDeployer provisions your EC2 instance with an Elastic IP, so the address survives a reprovision — point your DNS once and you never have to edit it again after a rebuild. Once DotDeployer shows that IP, go to your DNS provider — Cloudflare DNS if that’s where your domain lives — and add an A record for your site’s hostname pointing at it. If you’re on Cloudflare, leave the record’s proxy status DNS only (the cloud icon grey, not orange): the Let’s Encrypt certificate request needs to reach your instance directly. On another DNS host, add the same plain A record. Then add the domain under the site’s Settings tab in DotDeployer, which requests and renews the certificate automatically.
What it costs
A t3.micro On-Demand instance (2 vCPU, 1 GB RAM) runs about $7.30/month in US East (N. Virginia), Linux pricing.
Billed by AWS directly to your own account — DotDeployer's fee is separate and flat. Source: AWS's EC2 On-Demand pricing page .
Runs PostgreSQL or SQL Server on the same server — see Databases — and DotDeployer itself is $12–$39/month, separate from what AWS costs.
Regions: us-east-1 (N. Virginia), us-west-2 (Oregon), eu-west-1 (Ireland), ap-southeast-1 (Singapore).
Want the full walkthrough with screenshots? Read the step-by-step AWS tutorial.