Reviewer name and names of any other individual's who aided in reviewer	Geert van Geest
Do you understand and agree to our policy of having open and named reviews, and having your review included with the published manuscript. (If no, please inform the editor that you cannot review this manuscript.)	Yes
Is the language of sufficient quality?	Yes
Please add additional comments on language quality to clarify if needed
Is there a clear statement of need explaining what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?	Yes
Additional Comments	The authors could stress the strengths of using cloud services for teaching a bit more, e.g.: low costs, self-managed, flexibility.
Is the source code available, and has an appropriate Open Source Initiative license <a href="https://opensource.org/licenses" target="_blank">(https://opensource.org/licenses)</a> been assigned to the code?	Yes
Additional Comments	Yes. However, in the manuscript text it is mentioned a CC-BY 4 license is used (which would not be very appropriate for software), while in the github repository there is an MIT license (https://github.com/Cloud-SPAN/aws-instances). I would suggest the authors to use the MIT license for the code and a CC-BY for the tutorial.
As Open Source Software are there guidelines on how to contribute, report issues or seek support on the code?	No
Additional Comments	The repository would benefit from instructions on how to contribute, e.g. in a CONTRIBUTING.md file.
Is the code executable?	Unable to test
Additional Comments	The software requires a domain (as far as I understood). At time of review I wasn't in the capacity to register one. It would help if the authors would provide a quick 'getting started' that can all be performed with an AWS free tier.
Is installation/deployment sufficiently outlined in the paper and documentation, and does it proceed as outlined?	Unable to test
Additional Comments	See above. However, the paper gives a broad overview, and there is a detailed tutorial on how to perform all the steps.
Is the documentation provided clear and user friendly?	No
Additional Comments	The tutorial is very detailed. However: - There is no link in the repository to the tutorial - The script works with configuration files as input. I found it hard to find out which options in e.g. resourcesIDs.txt were required. - The documentation page (now README.md?) could use some structure and detail
Is there enough clear information in the documentation to install, run and test this tool, including information on where to seek help if required?	No
Additional Comments	Almost everything is there, however things are partly found in the tutorial.
Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies, and is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level?	No
Additional Comments	I think aws-cli is the only dependency, and that is probably stated in the tutorial, but there's e.g. no 'installation' header in README.md
Have any claims of performance been sufficiently tested and compared to other commonly-used packages?	Not applicable
Additional Comments
Is test data available, either included with the submission or openly available via cited third party sources (e.g. accession numbers, data DOIs)?	No
Additional Comments	But not really applicable. There is an example for inputs in the repository.
Are there (ideally real world) examples demonstrating use of the software?	Yes
Additional Comments
Is automated testing used or are there manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?	No
Additional Comments	Some basic tests without having to interact with a personal account would be possible.
Any Additional Overall Comments to the Author	- As far as I could tell most (if not all) steps could be done with infrastructure as code (e.g. Terraform/Ansible). This is a general format that is used by many people. Can the authors state what the advantages of using only bash are over iac? - The configuration files in the input directory are plain text files. Consider to use one file with markup language like json or yaml. - A schematic overview of the resulting infrastructure including instances, network, keys/users/ and disks would be helpful for the reader - The 'Statement of need' hardly contains references to peer-reviewed literature. Although I don't think this should be a hard requirement, I do think it would make the manuscript stronger. Use e.g. existing literature on (bioinformatics) education, e.g. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=nl&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=bioinformatics+teaching&btnG=&oq=bioinformatics+teaching - Make sure the user finds all documentation/tutorials. Cross reference between the repository and the tutorial. - Suggestion: allow for mounting a shared disk. This enables learners to share files in e.g. group work. - Suggestion: make as many options as possible optional, e.g. the domain, so all steps can be done with an AWS free tier.
Recommendation	Minor Revisions