Google Cloud vs Google Compute Engine comparison

Google Cloud and Google Compute Engine are both solutions in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category. Google Cloud is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3, while Google Compute Engine is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.7. Google Cloud holds a 8.5% mindshare in ISI, compared to Google Compute Engine’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Google Cloud users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Google Compute Engine users who would recommend it.

Google Cloud

Read 73 Google Cloud reviews

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5,253 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Google Compute Engine

Read 16 Google Compute Engine reviews

361 Views
216 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Google Cloud

Google Compute Engine

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

Google Compute Engine and Google Cloud products compete in the cloud computing market. While Google Compute Engine is praised for efficient scaling and cost-effective customization of virtual machines, Google Cloud is favored for robust integration and ease of use with other Google services.

Features: Google Compute Engine offers customizable virtual machine configurations, efficient scaling with managed instance groups, and cost-effective Spot and preemptible instances. Google Cloud emphasizes product integration, simplified deployment, and enhanced data analysis capabilities through Google Cloud Datalab.

Room for Improvement: Google Compute Engine could improve its user interface, broaden region availability, and simplify licensing processes. Google Cloud may enhance analytics functionality, increase setup resources, and provide better cost transparency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Google Compute Engine requires technical expertise for optimal use, with noted areas for improvement in customer response. Google Cloud is recognized for user-friendly deployment, though continuous support improvements are desired.

Pricing and ROI: Google Compute Engine operates on a pay-as-you-go model, offering potential savings, especially for development environments. Google Cloud offers competitive pricing but faces challenges in expected versus actual costs, with users appreciating its pricing flexibility.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Cloud vs. Google Compute Engine Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud vs. Google Compute Engine

January 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Google Cloud

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

PaaS Clouds (5th)

Google Compute Engine

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

10th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud is 8.5%, up from 5.7% 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

Monirul Islam Khan

Data Specialist at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees

Great for big data with off-the-charts scalability for storage and databases

The solution should be more configurable for high-volume databases. The managed service does not allow flexible database configurations that are needed for better filter performance. We have a TPS first-grade, high-volume database using an ERC system. We are moving to Clarity for managed services and need more configurations to support it. The solution could improve its management services for MongoDB. The website's memory only allows one TB.

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Arundeep Veerabhadraiah

Associate Director - Cloud Infrastructure at Kyndryl

A highly scalable and seamless platform which is easily automated

One of GCE's best features is the managed instance groups. We typically use managed instance groups for high availability. You can set certain parameters for managed instance groups where if the load of the computer or server increases beyond 80%, for example, the solution will automatically spawn another instance, and the load will be automatically divided between two systems. If the load is 80% of one of the VMs or GCEs, once the load is divided, it comes down to 40%, so the availability of your systems goes up. However, that all depends on the parameters or configurations we put on the instance group. You also have regular health checks on these managed instance groups, which are configurable. If these health checks determine something wrong with the VM, they will automatically kick off or spawn a new GCE instance. This way, the outage time is less. Previously, on-premises, unless somebody reported the issue to the helpdesk saying that a particular service was unavailable, then a support team would need to troubleshoot what went wrong, which takes a long time. At least 30 minutes to one hour. But by using these managed instance groups, we can reduce the outage time, and second, we can configure them with minimal resources, bringing down our cost. And if the load increases, the managed instance groups automatically respond to new things. Subsequently, our costs decrease. We have a wide range of VMs. There are general-purpose VMs that can be used for hosting general-purpose applications. If some of our applications are memory intensive, then we have a lot of VMs in the M1 series. We can use a range of memory-optimized VMs for these things. We have C-series VMs for compute-intensive applications. If we use some mathematical formulas and require a very high throughput from that, there are GPU-optimized VMs used for machine learning or 3D visualizations in rendering software. GPU-enabled VMs are pretty powerful and responsive. Again, the best part is that we can spin them up when we need them, and once we're done with our work, we can shut them down, allowing tremendous cost savings for any customer. Previously, if we wanted a very high-configuration VM, we had to own the entire hardware and have it on our on-prem data center. And once we'd done with a particular activity, the system would just be lying there on our premises. That is not the case now. We use and decommission it, so we're only billed for the time we're using the product. One of the best things is the preemptible VMs or Spot VMs. These are the cheapest VMs in Google Cloud, but it has a string attached to it where Google can shut down these VMs whenever Google teams split. You only get about 90 seconds notice before they shut down this particular VM. There are scenarios where customers can use these preemptible VMs, for example, when running a batch job. Batch jobs are run once or twice daily, depending on the customer's requirement. Once we are done running these batches, we can decommission the VM. Even if, in the middle of this batch job, Google shuts down these VMs, we can pick up the processing from wherever the VM left off. These are some of the beautiful things we have on Google Cloud concerning the Compute Engine.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It didn't take long to get everything set up and understand what was going on. Things are pretty clear."

"The solution's features are very good and our staff loves using them."

"The most valuable feature of Google Cloud is its flexibility."

"Every cloud provider, such as Google Cloud, offers analytics capabilities through their dashboards. These dashboards can be configured to display the data you require. Some features are available by default, while others can be created according to your needs."

"I like that it is free. It's easy to use, and it's reliable."

"Google Cloud is very user-friendly."

"The most useful feature of Google Cloud is that it's basically completely managed or fully managed. There is no administration or maintenance needed from the user, and it's very simple to use."

"The stability is good with Google Cloud."

More Google Cloud pros

"In GCP, there's a custom configuration feature unlike AWS and Azure"

"The main motive for choosing Google Compute Engine is pricing."

"The overall product rating is nine out of ten."

"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."

"It's the most engineer-friendly product compared to Amazon AWS or Azure."

"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."

"One of GCE's best features is the managed instance groups."

"The initial setup is reasonably straightforward. It's a handful of networks and a handful of computers."

More Google Compute Engine pros

Cons

"It could have a reporting tool included."

"Current technologies keep on changing, so definitely those new changes need to be incorporated quickly. The competition is always out there to be one step ahead. How those open-source platforms can be easily integrated into the cloud, is going to be the key in the future."

"The cost of the solution has room for improvement."

"They need to improve the costing for predictive analytics, which is mainly related to the tools that come with AI. They also need to improve the BigQuery cost optimization and the visualization."

"I find it hard to download items, especially on their operating system."

"The UI is beautiful but not easy to use, and also a little slow. Anything that you click is slow to load. It is also not easy to find something. I do not find the left-hand side menu good. We have a lot of options mixed there and we need the best way to deploy cloud resources. I prefer Azure ARM templates since their JSON files are easy to manipulate and integrate with other tools."

"I would like to see more code generation features that enable you to take user input in simple English and automatically convert it to code."

"There are some areas where Google Cloud could be improved. Specifically, they are not well-aligned with right-to-left languages like Hebrew and Arabic. We encounter numerous issues when we use documents that mix right-to-left languages with left-to-right languages, such as Hebrew and English. This lack of alignment creates significant problems. Considering more than 400 million Arabic speakers, this is a central area where improvements would be beneficial."

More Google Cloud cons

"The high availability features in Google are only available in Google Compute Engine in different regions. If I have another server outside Google, the high availability features in Google cannot synchronize with such a server."

"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."

"Sometimes support takes time to reply."

"It would be better if there was an option to change the background. Like in Gmail, there's an option to change your theme."

"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."

"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."

"Sometimes support takes time to reply."

"The licensing process is not a very straightforward process."

More Google Compute Engine cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is high compared to other solutions."

"I am not familiar with the pricing, but I would guess that it is probably cheaper than Microsoft Suite"

"It has a monthly subscription. The customers pay based on the usage."

"We use the NGO version so the cloud reasonably priced at $2 to $3 per month."

"For commercial purposes, users need to pay for the products they use on a workload basis, not a license basis. There are two pricing models: fixed monthly and pay-as-you-go. In the pay-as-you-go model, users pay for the resources they use, while in the fixed monthly model, they have 24/7 access to resources for a set monthly fee."

"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the tool's price as an eight."

"I don't pay for the license. For me, it's completely free."

"This solution is worth the money we are paying. I would rate the pricing a three out of five."

More Google Cloud pricing and cost advice

"Google Compute Engine's pricing is flexible and the best of all other alternatives."

"Google is providing money for learning Google Compute Engine. They offer a $300 free trial to new customers. Any beginner can easily get started."

"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."

"I rate GCE's pricing a five out of ten since it's affordable."

"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."

"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."

"It's $60,000 to $70,000 a month to replace about $10,000 a month in data center costs."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

52%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

21%

Computer Software Company

15%

University

15%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Cloud?

Google Cloud is perceived as a cost-effective and user-friendly option, especially compared to AWS. The current affordability and ease of use make it suitable for medium-sized companies. While the ...

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What needs improvement with Google Cloud?

The performance after long-term use shows the storage is too full, and I cannot add more storage without paying for it. I want to migrate to another solution if I need to pay for additional storage...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Google Cloud?

For personal storage, Google Workspace, Google portal, Google video, Google file, and Google Cloud Shell for programming language.

See all answers

What do you like most about Google Compute Engine?

Everything is simple and useful. The initial setup is not challenging.

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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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 27% of the time

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Google Cloud

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Google Cloud

Compared 13% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Google Cloud

Compared 11% of the time

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Google Cloud

Compared 10% of the time

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Google App Engine vs Google Compute Engine

Compared 50% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud

January 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Google Compute Engine

January 2025

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Google

Overview

Google Cloud is an Infrastructure as a Service Cloud (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution that provides infrastructure tools and services for building applications on top of a public cloud computing platform. As one of the leading global infrastructures, this product allows users to securely manage enterprise data, receive valuable insights, and store documents. Google Cloud provides its various services through tools and services for data warehousing, security key enforcement, application programming interface (API) management, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML).

The use cases of Google Cloud can be divided into four main categories:

Big data
Compute
Services
Storage

The solution is utilized by organizations of all sizes and industries, as it is suitable for the following purposes:

Running and building applications: Google Cloud lets businesses run and build their applications anywhere because of its commitment to open-source, hybrid, and multi-cloud. This can accelerate development time as businesses avoid vendor lock-in.
Data insight: Google Cloud provides companies with advanced ML and analytics for their data. This can facilitate business decisions and improve work processes, as every team member can have access to data reports via this solution.
Security: Utilizing Google's technology, this solution helps users protect and defend their data and applications against threats and harmful activities.
Team collaboration: Google Cloud offers companies advanced collaboration features. They can integrate email, chat, video calling, and document collaboration all in one place when using this platform.

Google Cloud Features

Google Cloud offers multiple features for its clients. Some of these include:

Big data features: The solution offers full big data services through tools such as BigQuery and Google Cloud Dataflow. These tools allow users to process large data queries as well as create, monitor, and receive reports from data processing pipelines.
Containers: The solution offers containers, which allow users to speed up deployment and scale applications.
Cloud debugger: This feature allows users to debug code during the production process. In this way, businesses are able to locate issues early in the code and fix them before deploying the application.
Cloud save: This feature provides the ability to synchronize cloud-stored data across all devices an organization is supporting. Through it, users can save and retrieve information and maintain all data copies up to date.
Cloud trace: This Google Cloud feature allows users to detect the reasons for performance bottlenecks and fix the issues. It also provides users with information on the time their product takes to process certain requests, allowing them to follow performance more closely.
Hosting features: The solution offers two hosting options. App Engine is the PaaS of Google Cloud and Computes Engine is their IaaS.
Load balancing: This feature balances the traffic of multiple compute instances across various geographic regions.
Maintenance: Users receive frequent insight into the performance of their applications and through automations, Google Cloud lets them know of any issues that need to be fixed.

Google Cloud Benefits

Google Cloud brings various benefits to its users. Some of these include the following:

The pricing model of Google Cloud allows users to pay only for the selected features and tools they wish to use, which saves their organizations money.
Users can rely on accelerated content delivery through Google Cloud Content Delivery Network (CDN).
Google Cloud offers a wide variety of tools and libraries, which assist users in the development of cloud applications.
The tool has an advanced admin control that allows users to easily add or remove new users and maintain the security of business platforms.
Google Cloud offers consulting services whereby experts provide assistance with cloud strategy development.
The platform is updated on a frequent basis, which can increase companies' productivity through consistent innovations.
Google Cloud offers remote access from anywhere at all times via Google's web applications.
The solution reduces the risks of data breaches as it offers minimal storage of offline data.
Users can expect support not only from the platform but from the growing online community as well, where their questions can be answered in a timely manner.
The product provides detailed documentation for its clients, allowing them to benefit from tutorials and other samples, in order to learn to work with it in the most efficient way.

Reviews from Real Users

Isuru P., an assistant vice president at a tech services company, likes Google Cloud because it is easy to deploy next-generation applications using it.

An IT solutions consultant at a tech services company rates Google Cloud highly because they find the solution stable with a good user experience and a straightforward setup.

Google Compute Engine delivers virtual machines running in Google's innovative data centers and worldwide fiber network. Compute Engine's tooling and workflow support enable scaling from single instances to global, load-balanced cloud computing.

Compute Engine's VMs boot quickly, come with persistent disk storage, and deliver consistent performance. Our virtual servers are available in many configurations including predefined sizes or the option to create Custom Machine Types optimized for your specific needs. Flexible pricing and automatic sustained use discounts make Compute Engine the leader in price/performance.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Allthecooks, BetterCloud, Bluecore, Cosentry, Evite, Ezakus, HTC, Infectious Media, iStreamPlanet, Mendelics, SageMathCloud, Sedex, Treeptik, Wibigoo, Wix, zulily, Zync

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud vs. Google Compute Engine

January 2025

Free Report: Google Cloud vs. Google Compute Engine

Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud vs. Google Compute Engine and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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