EC2 vs Azure VM vs Google Compute Engine: Virtual Machine Pricing Comparison (2026)
Direct compute pricing comparison of Amazon EC2, Azure Virtual Machines, and Google Compute Engine across general-purpose, compute-optimized, and memory-optimized instance families with On-Demand, Reserved, and Spot pricing models.
Cost Comparison Matrix
Side-by-Side Cost Matrix Monthly & Annual TCO
Comparing line-item equivalents across AWS us-east-1 (N. Virginia), Azure East US, GCP us-east1 (South Carolina).
Amazon Web Services
us-east-1 (N. Virginia)💡 Graviton3/4 arm64 processors offer up to 20% lower price/performance.
| Provider | Compute | Storage | Database | Network | Monthly TCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AWS us-east-1 (N. Virginia) | $49/mo t4g.medium | $12/mo Amazon S3 (HOT) | $61/mo RDS/Aurora db.t4g.medium | $155/mo AWS Data Transfer & ELB | $277 $3,322/yr |
Azure East US | $126/mo Standard_D2as_v5 | $11/mo Azure Blob Storage (HOT) | $112/mo Azure Database Flexible Server D2ds_v5 | $152/mo Azure Data Transfer & Load Balancer | $399 $4,794/yr |
GCP us-east1 (South Carolina) | $98/mo e2-standard-2 | $10/mo Google Cloud Storage (HOT) | $93/mo Cloud SQL db-custom-2-7680 | $201/mo Google Cloud Data Transfer & Load Balancer | $402 $4,823/yr |
Cost Comparison Visualizer
Visual TCO breakdown across 3 selected providers.
Cloud Optimization Insights
Actionable techniques to decrease your infrastructure bill, per selected provider.
Migrate general-purpose workloads to AWS Graviton3/4 processors for up to 20% better price/performance compared to standard x86 instances.
If your organization owns on-premises Windows Server or SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance, apply them to Azure VMs for up to 40% savings.
Avoid paying for predefined instance shapes. Google Cloud allows custom vCPU & memory ratios tailored specifically to your exact application footprint.
Infrastructure Spec Configurator
Customize workload specs to update the matrix dynamically.
Workload Growth & Traffic Scale Simulator
Project non-linear cost curves at 2x, 5x, or 10x production capacity.
FinOps Commitment & Cash-Flow Advisor
EC2 vs Azure VM vs Compute Engine — Frequently Asked Questions
Which cloud provider offers the cheapest virtual machines?
For general-purpose Linux instances with 4 vCPU and 16 GB RAM, on-demand pricing is roughly: AWS EC2 t4g.xlarge at $0.134/hr, Azure Standard_D4as_v5 at $0.192/hr, and GCP e2-standard-4 at $0.134/hr. AWS Graviton and GCP E2 instances tend to be the cheapest for ARM/standard workloads. Azure excels when Windows licensing is factored in via Hybrid Benefit.
How do spot instance prices compare across EC2, Azure, and GCP?
Spot/Preemptible instance savings range from 60-90% off on-demand across all three providers. GCP Spot VMs often offer the deepest discounts but with potentially shorter interruption notice. AWS Spot Instances provide a 2-minute warning before termination, while Azure Spot VMs offer a 30-second eviction notice. Availability varies significantly by instance type and region.