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Pros & Cons summary

Buyer's Guide

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Auto-scaling and ephemeral instances provide significant cost savings and efficiency.
Google Compute Engine allows seamless integration, automation, and features like preemptive and Spot instances.
Managed instance groups and custom configurations are highlights, setting it apart from AWS and Azure.
Google Compute Engine offers high scalability and stability, making it highly recommended for engineers.
Pricing and ease of use make Google Compute Engine a preferred choice over competitors.

CONS

Google Compute Engine's security environment is archaean and complex, requiring careful setup and being prone to breaking.
Limited lower-tier options compared to competitors like Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure, which offer more instance types and VM selections.
Not user-friendly for non-experienced users, lacking in multi-region support, and missing a tracking mechanism.
The licensing process is cumbersome and not straightforward, presenting challenges for users.
Quota issues when deploying a certain number of VMs within a project can occur, causing deployment challenges.
 

Google Compute Engine Pros review quotes

AS
IT Support at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Oct 1, 2019
The initial setup is reasonably straightforward. It's a handful of networks and a handful of computers.
JB
Engineer at SLT Visioncom Pvt Ltd
Jan 17, 2023
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.
Leonard Niehaus - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at CGI
Feb 22, 2023
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.
Learn what your peers think about Google Compute Engine. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
879,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Ivy W. - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Scientist at Breuninger
Aug 31, 2023
Google is managing all hardware. You don't need to provision or pre-provision your computer engine.
Ethan Lo - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructuer Security at Premise Data
Sep 5, 2023
The solution is readily available, and software engineers can provision it. It is scalable and allows self-service.
DV
Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Sep 8, 2023
From a feature perspective, I find API integration, automation capabilities, and features like preemptive and Spot instances valuable. Migration tools have also been useful.
SS
Associate Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Sep 14, 2023
The main motive for choosing Google Compute Engine is pricing.
Arundeep Veerabhadraiah - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Director - Cloud Infrastructure at Kyndryl
Oct 4, 2023
One of GCE's best features is the managed instance groups.
SL
Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Sep 20, 2023
It's the most engineer-friendly product compared to Amazon AWS or Azure.
RM
Cloud Engineer at Freelancer
Oct 9, 2023
Everything is simple and useful. The initial setup is not challenging.
 

Google Compute Engine Cons review quotes

AS
IT Support at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Oct 1, 2019
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.
JB
Engineer at SLT Visioncom Pvt Ltd
Jan 17, 2023
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.
Leonard Niehaus - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at CGI
Feb 22, 2023
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.
Learn what your peers think about Google Compute Engine. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
879,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Ivy W. - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Scientist at Breuninger
Aug 31, 2023
It is not very user-friendly for non-experienced users
Ethan Lo - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructuer Security at Premise Data
Sep 5, 2023
Google Compute Engine needs to have multi-region support. It would also be nice to have a tracking mechanism.
DV
Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Sep 8, 2023
The licensing process is not a very straightforward process.
SS
Associate Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Sep 14, 2023
I rate the product's stability around five to six out of ten.
Arundeep Veerabhadraiah - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Director - Cloud Infrastructure at Kyndryl
Oct 4, 2023
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.
SL
Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Sep 20, 2023
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.
RM
Cloud Engineer at Freelancer
Oct 9, 2023
It would be better if there was an option to change the background. Like in Gmail, there's an option to change your theme.