AWS vs Azure vs Google vs IBM vs Oracle - VMs Q1 2021 - Pricing

Go back to list

Display:


Compute

While hyperscalers all offer high hardware standard, the performance across identical machines appear to be pretty equal. Thus, the factor allowing us to differentiate the value of each product is the pricing. This study clearly defines Oracle Cloud as a price breaker in the x86 VM segment, their E3.Flex series proposes costs up to 2.5x cheaper for equal compute performance.

{ "configuration": { "chart": { "type": "spline", "polar": false, "zoomType": "xy", "options3d": {}, "height": 600, "width": null, "margin": null, "inverted": false, "zooming": {} }, "credits": { "enabled": false }, "title": { "text": "" }, "colorAxis": null, "subtitle": { "text": "" }, "xAxis": { "title": { "text": "Monthly price<br>Lower is better", "useHTML": false, "style": { "color": "#666666" } }, "categories": [ "provider__name", "flavor__name" ], "lineWidth": 1, "tickInterval": 50, "tickWidth": 0, "tickLength": 10, "tickPixelInterval": null, "plotLines": null, "labels": { "enabled": true, "format": null, "formatter": "", "style": { "color": "#666666", "cursor": "default", "fontSize": "11px" }, "useHTML": false, "step": 0 }, "plotBands": null, "visible": true, "floor": null, "ceiling": null, "type": "linear", "min": null, "gridLineWidth": 1, "gridLineColor": "#CCC", "minorTickInterval": null, "minorTickWidth": 0, "minTickInterval": null, "startOnTick": true, "endOnTick": null, "tickmarkPlacement": null, "units": null, "minRange": null }, "yAxis": { "title": { "text": [ "Multi-core performance<br>Higher is better" ], "useHTML": false, "style": { "color": "#666666" } }, "categories": null, "plotLines": null, "plotBands": null, "lineWidth": null, "tickInterval": 1000, "tickLength": 10, "floor": null, "ceiling": null, "gridLineInterpolation": null, "gridLineWidth": 1, "gridLineColor": "#CCC", "min": null, "max": null, "minorTickInterval": null, "minorTickWidth": 0, "minTickInterval": null, "startOnTick": true, "endOnTick": null, "minRange": null, "type": "linear", "tickmarkPlacement": null, "labels": { "enabled": true, "formatter": null, "style": { "color": "#666666", "cursor": "default", "fontSize": "11px" }, "useHTML": false } }, "zAxis": { "title": { "text": "Multi-core performance<br>Higher is better" } }, "plotOptions": { "series": { "dataLabels": { "enabled": false, "format": "{series.name}", "distance": 30, "align": "left", "inside": true, "allowOverlap": true, "style": { "fontSize": "17px" } }, "showInLegend": null, "turboThreshold": 10000, "stacking": "", "groupPadding": 0, "centerInCategory": false, "findNearestPointBy": "x" } }, "navigator": { "enabled": false }, "scrollbar": { "enabled": false }, "rangeSelector": { "enabled": false, "inputEnabled": false }, "legend": { "enabled": true, "maxHeight": null, "align": "center", "verticalAlign": "bottom", "layout": "horizontal", "width": null, "margin": 12, "reversed": false }, "series": [ { "name": [ "Amazon Web Services" ], "data": [ { "x": 56.21, "y": 1196.6084623458114, "perf": 1196.6084623458114, "price": 56.21, "base_price": 56.21, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Amazon Web Services" ], "short_name": "Services", "name_0": "Amazon Web Services", "name_1": "US East (N. Virginia)", "name_2": 2, "name_3": "c5a.large" }, { "x": 112.42, "y": 2326.3931253072683, "perf": 2326.3931253072683, "price": 112.42, "base_price": 112.42, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Amazon Web Services" ], "short_name": "Services", "name_0": "Amazon Web Services", "name_1": "US East (N. Virginia)", "name_2": 4, "name_3": "c5a.xlarge" }, { "x": 224.84, "y": 4430.396567930451, "perf": 4430.396567930451, "price": 224.84, "base_price": 224.84, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Amazon Web Services" ], "short_name": "Services", "name_0": "Amazon Web Services", "name_1": "US East (N. Virginia)", "name_2": 8, "name_3": "c5a.2xlarge" }, { "x": 449.68, "y": 7880.376959152834, "perf": 7880.376959152834, "price": 449.68, "base_price": 449.68, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Amazon Web Services" ], "short_name": "Services", "name_0": "Amazon Web Services", "name_1": "US East (N. Virginia)", "name_2": 16, "name_3": "c5a.4xlarge" } ], "color": "#f7981d", "grouping": false, "lineWidth": 6, "marker": { "radius": 6, "symbol": "circle" } }, { "name": [ "Google Cloud" ], "data": [ { "x": 55.48, "y": 1097.8817552465973, "perf": 1097.8817552465973, "price": 55.48, "base_price": 55.48, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Google Cloud" ], "short_name": "Cloud", "name_0": "Google Cloud", "name_1": "Northern Virginia", "name_2": 2, "name_3": "Custom N2 2 vCPU 4GB Intel Cascade Lake" }, { "x": 110.96, "y": 2194.3830488344593, "perf": 2194.3830488344593, "price": 110.96, "base_price": 110.96, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Google Cloud" ], "short_name": "Cloud", "name_0": "Google Cloud", "name_1": "Northern Virginia", "name_2": 4, "name_3": "Custom N2 4 vCPU 8GB Intel Cascade Lake" }, { "x": 221.336, "y": 4304.335415586793, "perf": 4304.335415586793, "price": 221.336, "base_price": 221.336, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Google Cloud" ], "short_name": "Cloud", "name_0": "Google Cloud", "name_1": "Northern Virginia", "name_2": 8, "name_3": "Custom N2 8 vCPU 16GB Intel Cascade Lake" }, { "x": 442.672, "y": 8180.690170182931, "perf": 8180.690170182931, "price": 442.672, "base_price": 442.672, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Google Cloud" ], "short_name": "Cloud", "name_0": "Google Cloud", "name_1": "Northern Virginia", "name_2": 16, "name_3": "Custom N2 16 vCPU 32GB Intel Cascade Lake" } ], "color": "#55b400", "grouping": false, "lineWidth": 6, "marker": { "radius": 6, "symbol": "circle" } }, { "name": [ "IBM Cloud" ], "data": [ { "x": 57.159, "y": 965.1806693776201, "perf": 965.1806693776201, "price": 57.159, "base_price": 57.159, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "IBM Cloud" ], "short_name": "Cloud", "name_0": "IBM Cloud", "name_1": "Washington DC", "name_2": 2, "name_3": "cx2-2x4" }, { "x": 114.318, "y": 2190.556545328108, "perf": 2190.556545328108, "price": 114.318, "base_price": 114.318, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "IBM Cloud" ], "short_name": "Cloud", "name_0": "IBM Cloud", "name_1": "Washington DC", "name_2": 4, "name_3": "cx2-4x8" }, { "x": 228.636, "y": 4254.619154047624, "perf": 4254.619154047624, "price": 228.636, "base_price": 228.636, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "IBM Cloud" ], "short_name": "Cloud", "name_0": "IBM Cloud", "name_1": "Washington DC", "name_2": 8, "name_3": "cx2-8x16" }, { "x": 456.615, "y": 7106.860112516949, "perf": 7106.860112516949, "price": 456.615, "base_price": 456.615, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "IBM Cloud" ], "short_name": "Cloud", "name_0": "IBM Cloud", "name_1": "Washington DC", "name_2": 16, "name_3": "cx2-16x32" } ], "color": "#152935", "grouping": false, "lineWidth": 6, "marker": { "radius": 6, "symbol": "circle" } }, { "name": [ "Microsoft Azure" ], "data": [ { "x": 118.99, "y": 1119.3606774613781, "perf": 1119.3606774613781, "price": 118.99, "base_price": 118.99, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Microsoft Azure" ], "short_name": "Azure", "name_0": "Microsoft Azure", "name_1": "East US", "name_2": 2, "name_3": "Standard_F2s_v2" }, { "x": 237.98, "y": 2220.848515685287, "perf": 2220.848515685287, "price": 237.98, "base_price": 237.98, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Microsoft Azure" ], "short_name": "Azure", "name_0": "Microsoft Azure", "name_1": "East US", "name_2": 4, "name_3": "Standard_F4s_v2" }, { "x": 475.23, "y": 4308.40892162618, "perf": 4308.40892162618, "price": 475.23, "base_price": 475.23, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Microsoft Azure" ], "short_name": "Azure", "name_0": "Microsoft Azure", "name_1": "East US", "name_2": 8, "name_3": "Standard_F8s_v2" }, { "x": 950.46, "y": 8263.16277649152, "perf": 8263.16277649152, "price": 950.46, "base_price": 950.46, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Microsoft Azure" ], "short_name": "Azure", "name_0": "Microsoft Azure", "name_1": "East US", "name_2": 16, "name_3": "Standard_F16s_v2" } ], "color": "#55b3ff", "grouping": false, "lineWidth": 6, "marker": { "radius": 6, "symbol": "circle" } }, { "name": [ "Oracle Cloud" ], "data": [ { "x": 22.0, "y": 1235.879735729028, "perf": 1235.879735729028, "price": 22.0, "base_price": 22.0, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Oracle Cloud" ], "short_name": "Cloud", "name_0": "Oracle Cloud", "name_1": "eu-frankfurt-1", "name_2": 2, "name_3": "VM.Standard.E3.Flex.1-4" }, { "x": 44.0, "y": 1932.9469612312992, "perf": 1932.9469612312992, "price": 44.0, "base_price": 44.0, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Oracle Cloud" ], "short_name": "Cloud", "name_0": "Oracle Cloud", "name_1": "eu-frankfurt-1", "name_2": 4, "name_3": "VM.Standard.E3.Flex.2-8" }, { "x": 88.0, "y": 4458.396906408237, "perf": 4458.396906408237, "price": 88.0, "base_price": 88.0, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Oracle Cloud" ], "short_name": "Cloud", "name_0": "Oracle Cloud", "name_1": "eu-frankfurt-1", "name_2": 8, "name_3": "VM.Standard.E3.Flex.4-16" }, { "x": 176.0, "y": 7753.387825971685, "perf": 7753.387825971685, "price": 176.0, "base_price": 176.0, "rate": 1.0, "currency": "USD", "name": [ "Oracle Cloud" ], "short_name": "Cloud", "name_0": "Oracle Cloud", "name_1": "eu-frankfurt-1", "name_2": 16, "name_3": "VM.Standard.E3.Flex.8-32" } ], "color": "#FF0000", "grouping": false, "lineWidth": 6, "marker": { "radius": 6, "symbol": "circle" } } ], "drilldown": {}, "tooltip": { "enabled": true, "useHTML": false, "headerFormat": "", "pointFormat": "<span style=\"color:{series.color}\">{point.name}</span>:<br><b>Performance</b>: {point.perf:.2f}<br><b>Price</b>: {point.x:.4f} USD", "footerFormat": "", "shared": false, "outside": false, "valueDecimals": null, "split": false }, "annotations": null }, "hc_type": "chart", "id": "257666175796483113956171852150032586567" }

Feel free to compare pricing with different billing options. Also, please notice that IBM reserved aren't the same kind neither location than their Gen 2 VPC, so advantageous yearly pricing isn't available for the selected service.

Outbound traffic

Again, Oracle is located on another scale of pricing. Hyperscalers are knew for their high traffic cost and we can see on the table below a common pattern around $0.08/GB/month after 10TB of traffic. At Oracle, firstly the traffic is free under this threshold, then they divide this price by 10 for $0.0085/GB.

First GB 1GB 1TB 10TB 100TB 150TB
Amazon Web Services Free 0.09 - 0.085 0.070 0.050
Google Cloud 0.12 - 0.11 0.08 - -
IBM Cloud Free - - 0.083 - -
Microsoft Azure Free - - 0.083 - 0.05
Oracle Cloud Free - - 0.0085 - -

Block Storage

For SSD Block Storage, the market average price is around $0.10/GB/month, this is maybe related to AWS' GP2, one of the market model. The other hyperscalers apply a more expensive rate, except Oracle which cuts the Block storage pricing with only $0.027/GB.

Despite Google's Persistent SSD delivers performance close to Oracle's Block volume, the last one, by its low price, proposes the best value in the Hyperscaler market.

{ "configuration": { "chart": { "type": "column", "polar": false, "zoomType": "", "options3d": {}, "height": 300, "width": null, "margin": null, "inverted": false }, "credits": { "enabled": false }, "title": { "text": "" }, "colorAxis": null, "subtitle": { "text": "" }, "xAxis": { "title": { "text": "", "useHTML": false, "style": { "color": "#666666" } }, "categories": [ "provider__short_name", "flavor__name" ], "lineWidth": 1, "tickInterval": null, "tickWidth": 0, "tickLength": 10, "tickPixelInterval": null, "plotLines": null, "labels": { "enabled": false, "formatter": "", "style": { "color": "#666666", "cursor": "default", "fontSize": "11px" } }, "plotBands": null, "visible": true, "floor": null, "ceiling": null, "type": "linear", "min": null, "gridLineWidth": null, "gridLineColor": null, "minorTickInterval": null, "minorTickWidth": 0, "minTickInterval": null, "startOnTick": true, "endOnTick": null }, "yAxis": { "title": { "text": "Price<br>Lower is better", "useHTML": false, "style": { "fontSize": "12px" } }, "categories": null, "plotLines": null, "plotBands": null, "lineWidth": null, "tickInterval": null, "tickLength": 10, "floor": null, "ceiling": null, "gridLineInterpolation": null, "gridLineWidth": 1, "gridLineColor": "#CCC", "min": null, "max": null, "minorTickInterval": null, "minorTickWidth": 0, "minTickInterval": null, "startOnTick": true, "endOnTick": null, "minRange": null, "type": "linear", "labels": { "enabled": true, "formatter": null, "style": { "fontSize": "14px" } } }, "zAxis": { "title": { "text": "Number per seconds<br>Higher is better" } }, "plotOptions": { "series": { "dataLabels": { "enabled": false, "format": "{series.name}", "distance": 30, "align": "left", "inside": true, "style": { "fontSize": "15px" } }, "showInLegend": null, "turboThreshold": 1000, "stacking": "", "groupPadding": 0, "centerInCategory": false } }, "rangeSelector": { "enabled": false }, "legend": { "enabled": true, "align": "center", "verticalAlign": "bottom", "layout": "horizontal", "width": null, "margin": 12, "reversed": false }, "series": [ { "name": "Amazon Web Services", "data": [ [ 0, 111.85 ] ], "color": "#f7981d", "grouping": false }, { "name": "Microsoft Azure", "data": [ [ 1, 210.00 ] ], "color": "#55b3ff", "grouping": false }, { "name": "Google Cloud", "data": [ [ 2, 187.00 ] ], "color": "#55b400", "grouping": false }, { "name": "IBM Cloud", "data": [ [ 3, 120 ] ], "color": "#152935", "grouping": false }, { "name": "Oracle", "data": [ [ 4, 28.05 ] ], "color": "#FF0000", "grouping": false } ], "tooltip": { "enabled": true, "useHTML": false, "headerFormat": "", "pointFormat": "<span style=\"color:{series.color}\">{series.name}</span>: <b>{point.y:.2f} USD</b><br/>", "footerFormat": "", "shared": false, "outside": false, "valueDecimals": null, "split": false } }, "hc_type": "chart", "id": "140193420783400" }

Pricing for 1TB of SSD Block Storage