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Amazon AWS vs Google Compute Engine comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon AWS
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
253
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (2nd)
Google Compute Engine
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
10th
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon AWS is 20.6%, down from 25.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Compute Engine is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Arun Srivastav - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 20, 2024
Allows for automatic scaling of resources and provides built-in firewalls and security features, eliminating the need for external security solutions
One thing that's a bit different is that we're still accustomed to speaking to someone directly. AWS doesn't offer that kind of support. It's only through bots. You're speaking to chatbots, and that can sometimes be frustrating because there's no person on the other side. AI is not a substitute for a person. AWS marketplace is very strong, but somehow AWS doesn't promote it much. They have a huge customer base across the globe, and if products were launched in their marketplace, they could sell like hotcakes. They should improve their marketplace and promote the same product across the globe. They can take a cut, but they should promote it. That's something they don't do very much. So, AWS should promote its marketplace software. The company should promote it aggressively. Currently, they keep it very subtle. If you ask for it, they'll help you out. But they don't seem to advertise, "You're building a product on our platform? Why don't you sell it in our marketplace?" Improvement in AI: AWS is a little behind Microsoft Azure in terms of AI. AWS is still getting there, but the kind of examples and help files available in Azure for AI are much better. So AWS still needs to work on its AI functionality.
Ivy W. - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 31, 2023
A cost-effective and quite an elastic solution
I would say that Google Compute Engine is easy to use for skilled people and people with a tech background. For regular users who do not have experience with the cloud platform, it is not very user-friendly. If you wish to use Compute Engine, you must know a lot of technical terms such as availability, instance, and scalability. You also need to choose the proper instance for you. In my experience, there is a standard option, an advanced option, and a customized option for Google Compute Engine. You can choose the Compute Engine with high speed or with memory speed. All of this is too much for a person who is not tech-savvy. I am not sure whether they designed it like that on purpose or if they plan on improving it. I cannot think of any features that need to be upgraded.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Since AWS came a bit later to the market, they are always improving and upgrading their platform."
"Machine learning is a valuable feature."
"We write a lot of Lambda functions for various services, as well as serverless functions."
"One of the most valuable things about it, besides the stability, is that you can forget about infrastructure because you're just doing it on AWS. I remember the times before AWS and other cloud solutions existed, and it was a huge pain to get real hardware, put it inside, configure everything, report everything, and do a scale. It was very, very difficult compared to how it is now. Not even just AWS, but what all these cloud providers are doing, I would say, is a huge advancement in technology."
"In general, Amazon's performance is good."
"Works very quickly and is well managed."
"This solution is a good option if you are looking for cloud-based storage. Using a cloud-based solution, it is not required to accommodate a full workload. You can start with a basic version and scale up as needed."
"Technical support is quite helpful."
"The initial setup is reasonably straightforward. It's a handful of networks and a handful of computers."
"The solution is readily available, and software engineers can provision it. It is scalable and allows self-service."
"The most valuable feature is auto-scaling."
"Everything is simple and useful. The initial setup is not challenging."
"Google Compute is highly scalable."
"The solution helps to direct SSH into the machine at the click of a button. It also helps to deploy container images right from the UI. There is no need to manage the containers on the machine. I also like the tool’s Spot provision model."
"The main motive for choosing Google Compute Engine is pricing."
"The support for ephemeral instances has been particularly valuable for me. It allows me to significantly reduce costs for temporary virtual machines by automatically destroying them once they are no longer needed, which can result in cost savings of up to 90 percent. Additionally, the solution is easy to use."
 

Cons

"Not all of the functionality is available in Europe and our customers in France want to be able to use features that are only available in the US."
"They should have a better big data stack."
"Could be more user friendly and include additional applications."
"They're really good on the business computing side, but there are other services where they can do really well. They can improve the data analytics platform and the data warehousing platform."
"Some extensions are better than others."
"They have a low code platform, but it is for intervention."
"There was some new learning in terms of IOPS on the EBS storage. The concept of burstable IOPS was new and we did have a few outages when we ran out of IOPS."
"We would like the system documentation for configuring this solution to be improved, in order to provide better process clarity."
"I rate the product's stability around five to six out of ten."
"It has some limitations. For example, you don't get through layer two connectivity. So I've had some difficulty deploying custom VMs. For example, you can't deploy a KVM file to file directly on GCP."
"There have been instances when a customer has tried to deploy a certain number of VMs inside a project, and they come across quota issues."
"The biggest problem is that it's got a very archaean and complex security environment that has to be very carefully set up and is easy to break."
"I would like to improve the solution’s UI while deploying a container. It is sometimes hard to figure out the container’s details and format that you want to deploy. The tool does not give you a guide to find out the error and why the container is not starting up which could be because you have configured it wrong. This is always a hit on the setup."
"Google Compute Engine does not have many options at a lower tier level. If they had more options it will be better. For example, Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure, have more options and different types of instances, of VMs we can select."
"It is not very user-friendly for non-experienced users"
"Google has a lack of focus on their products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license for Amazon AWS is expensive. I am currently using the free version."
"The tool’s pricing is reasonable."
"Amazon AWS is a bit more expensive than Oracle."
"The price is quite good; it is a pay-as-you-go option."
"The licensing cost varies with the project involved."
"It's not very pricey, but it could be cheaper."
"It can get quite pricey at times."
"The pricing is reasonable. It's not expensive, nor will it be cheap, but the free credits initially given provide leverage for new companies to start their businesses."
"Google Compute Engine is not the least expensive solution. Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft One, are offering a less expensive solution. The price is based on usage. Whenever we use it, we have to pay for only usage. It is a pay-as-you-go model."
"Google Compute Engine's pricing is flexible and the best of all other alternatives."
"In terms of improvement, one is definitely the licensing piece. So there is a feature, the BYOL (Bring Your Own License) licensing piece, to bring your own license. It is not that straightforward. It requires some support from Google to get it sorted, access those licenses, and configure those licenses."
"I rate GCE's pricing a five out of ten since it's affordable."
"Google is providing money for learning Google Compute Engine. They offer a $300 free trial to new customers. Any beginner can easily get started."
"It's $60,000 to $70,000 a month to replace about $10,000 a month in data center costs."
"The tool is reasonably priced, considering its scalability features. If we want to extend the server's capacity, we can do it, and I think it's reasonable."
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 14, 2013
Amazon vs Rackspace vs Microsoft vs Google: Cloud Hosting Services Comparison
Amazon Web Services, Rackspace OpenStack, Microsoft Windows Azure and Google are the major cloud hosting and storage service providers. Athough Amazon is top of them and is oldest in cloud market, Rackspace, Microsoft and Google are giving tough competition to each other and to Amazon also for…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Google Compute Engine?
Everything is simple and useful. The initial setup is not challenging.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Compute Engine?
Google resources are cheaper compared to AWS and Microsoft Azure. Among the three, Google is the cheapest option.
What needs improvement with Google Compute Engine?
Google has a lack of focus on their products. They have many products in various areas of the market, but they do not productize or appeal to the market effectively. They should concentrate on prod...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Amazon Web Services, AWS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pinterest, General Electric, Pfizer, Netflix, and Nasdaq.
Allthecooks, BetterCloud, Bluecore, Cosentry, Evite, Ezakus, HTC, Infectious Media, iStreamPlanet, Mendelics, SageMathCloud, Sedex, Treeptik, Wibigoo, Wix, zulily, Zync
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon AWS vs. Google Compute Engine and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.