TensorDock vs AWS EC2
A detailed comparison to help you choose between TensorDock and AWS EC2.
Quick Verdict
3.8/5
TensorDock
0 reviews
3.9/5
AWS EC2
0 reviews
AWS EC2 is rated higher (3.9 vs 3.8). TensorDock is a GPU compute marketplace with per-second billing — H100 SXM5 from $2.80/hour and A100 from $1.50/hour (A100 PCIe 80GB) on its published rate card. 100+ locations in 20+ countries, on-demand provisioning. 124 Availability Zones in 39 geographic regions
TensorDock Affordable GPU cloud compute without long-term contracts |  AWS EC2 The original cloud — 750+ instance types | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.8 (0 reviews) | 3.9 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | usage-based | usage-based (per-second On-Demand, Spot, Savings Plans; free tier credits for new accounts) |
| Starting price | From $0.1/mo | From $0.0042/mo✓ |
| Best for | Cost-conscious ML engineers, researchers and studios running training with checkpointing, batch inference or rendering, especially where consumer GPUs like the RTX 4090 fit the workload | Teams with AWS expertise needing the broadest instance selection, global regions, GPU/bare metal options, and commitment-based discounts for steady production workloads |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 2 vCPU | — |
| RAM | 4 GB✓ | 0.5 GB |
| Storage | 20 GB | — |
| Bandwidth | — | — |
| SLA uptime | 99.99% | 99.99% |
| Data-center count | 100 | — |
| €/vCPU/mo | €0.05 | — |
| €/GB RAM/mo | €0.03 | €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 | 100+ marketplace locations in over 20 countries (US, EU, Asia-Pacific); tier 3/4 data centers plus community hosts | 39 AWS regions / 124 AZs plus Local Zones and Wavelength |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | hourly billinggpu availableeu datacenterus datacenter | free tierhourly billingipv6ddos protectionbackups includedmanaged optionbare metalgpu availables3 compatibleeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi accessterraform providerkubernetes support |
| Visit TensorDock → | Visit AWS EC2 → | |
TensorDock
Pros
- + Among the lowest published GPU rates anywhere: RTX 4090 at $0.35/hr, H100 SXM5 at $2.85/hr typical
- + A la carte, per-second billing for vCPU, RAM and NVMe — pay only for the configuration you need
- + Breadth: 45 GPU models across 100+ locations in 20+ countries, with an API for automation
- + Published rate card and transparent explanation of why the same GPU has multiple prices
- + Host vetting, host SSH access revoked, and a 99.99% uptime standard for listed hosts
Cons
- - Marketplace variance: host redundancy and quality differ, with cheaper listings often least redundant
- - Email-only support with multi-hour response windows; no contractual SLA with credits
- - Prepaid balance model deletes servers when the balance reaches zero
- - Published rate card is stamped July 2024 and carries a no-guarantee disclaimer
- - Fewer managed niceties (templates, serverless) than RunPod, Lambda or hyperscalers
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
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