AWS EC2 vs Google Cloud (GCP)
A detailed comparison to help you choose between AWS EC2 and Google Cloud (GCP).
Quick Verdict
3.9/5
AWS EC2
0 reviews
3.9/5
Google Cloud (GCP)
0 reviews
Both AWS EC2 and Google Cloud (GCP) are equally rated at 3.9/5. 124 Availability Zones in 39 geographic regions Known for its data analytics and AI tooling (BigQuery, Vertex AI).
 AWS EC2 The original cloud — 750+ instance types | Google Cloud (GCP) Google's cloud — AI/ML and data analytics focus | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.9 (0 reviews) | 3.9 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | usage-based (per-second On-Demand, Spot, Savings Plans; free tier credits for new accounts) | pay-as-you-go |
| Starting price | From $0.0042/mo | Free tier available✓ |
| Best for | Teams with AWS expertise needing the broadest instance selection, global regions, GPU/bare metal options, and commitment-based discounts for steady production workloads | Data- and ML-centric teams already building on BigQuery, GKE, or Vertex AI, and workloads that need a published multi-zone SLA or data residency in one of 43 regions. |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | — |
| RAM | 0.5 GB | — |
| Storage | — | — |
| Bandwidth | — | — |
| SLA uptime | 99.99%✓ | 99.9% |
| Data-center count | — | 43 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | €0.01 | — |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | 39 AWS regions / 124 AZs plus Local Zones and Wavelength | — |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierhourly billingipv6ddos protectionbackups includedmanaged optionbare metalgpu availables3 compatibleeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi accessterraform providerkubernetes support | free tierhourly billingipv6gpu availables3 compatibleeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi accessterraform providerkubernetes supportarm processors |
| Visit AWS EC2 → | Visit Google Cloud (GCP) → | |
AWS EC2
Pros
- + Widest hardware catalog in the market — 1,000+ instance types including Arm, bare metal and GPU families
- + Per-second billing with real cost levers: Spot up to 90% off, Savings Plans up to 72% off
- + 99.99% region-level SLA across 124 AZs in 39 regions with explicit service credits
- + Mature ecosystem: AMIs, Marketplace, Terraform, Systems Manager, and deep service integration
Cons
- - Total cost is a system of meters — EBS, snapshots, elastic IPv4, data transfer and add-ons dwarf the instance price
- - Requires real AWS expertise: VPC design, security groups, IAM and patching are all self-managed
- - Single-instance SLA is only 99.5%; the 99.99% commitment requires multi-AZ architecture
- - Data transfer out is expensive enough to shape architecture decisions
Google Cloud (GCP)
Pros
- + Best published SLA set in the comparison: 99.99% multi-zone, 99.9% single-instance
- + 43 regions and 130 zones with per-region price variance you can trade against latency
- + Per-second billing and three discount levers — Spot up to 91% off, commitments up to 55–70%
- + Live migration through host maintenance; deep integration with GKE, BigQuery, Vertex AI
- + Real free entry: $300 trial credit that never auto-charges, plus an Always Free e2-micro VM
Cons
- - Poor price-performance for plain VMs versus European VPS specialists; no bundled transfer
- - Egress is expensive ($0.12/GiB Premium) and billed as a separate line item
- - Sustained use discounts don't apply to E2 and N4 — the families entry buyers choose
- - Budgets alert but don't cap Compute Engine spend; human support costs from $29/month
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