
Easy Amazon EC2 Instance Comparison - obi1kenobi
http://www.ec2instances.info/
======
mattbillenstein
Use this all the time -- I kinda wish it could remember what columns I select
or turn off. I don't often care about windows pricing, and tend to think about
monthly cost vs hourly.

~~~
nodesocket
Up vote my issue.

[https://github.com/powdahound/ec2instances.info/issues/201](https://github.com/powdahound/ec2instances.info/issues/201)

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azurezyq
that's why I love Google's custom machine types, fully customizable.
[https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/creating-
ins...](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/creating-instance-
with-custom-machine-type) and all with fast networks.

~~~
barnacs
Yep, as much as I love to hate on google, I recently trialed their vms, aws
and azure and google offered the best experience by far.

I have no idea why people like aws so much. To spin up a simple vm, I had to
go to the correct web interface for the specific location, go through a wizard
full of weird nicknames for all services while browsing multiple pages of
documentation to figure out that I need "ec2" and "t1.micro" or "m2.macro",
how much they cost, what the hell an "ebs" is, then download the key they
generated (which was only valid for that one location as it turned out
later...)

At google, I just selected "vm", specified the location, cpu, ram, storage,
entered my own key into a text field, it immediately quoted a price and I was
done. 2 clicks and 5 input fields, no documentation needed, all made sense.

~~~
saryant
How much does the experience of your first 15 minutes really matter when
you're picking a platform for the next several years?

~~~
pacala
A lot. We're running a small <10 team on a tight budget, we don't have time
[or money] to waste.

Looking towards the next several years:

* [https://cloud.google.com/container-engine](https://cloud.google.com/container-engine) [docker in the cloud]

* [https://cloud.google.com/bigquery](https://cloud.google.com/bigquery) [sql for analytics]

* [https://cloud.google.com/ml](https://cloud.google.com/ml) [tensor flow]

* [https://cloud.google.com/dataflow](https://cloud.google.com/dataflow) [2nd gen map-reduce]

* [https://cloud.google.com/bigtable](https://cloud.google.com/bigtable) [large scale semi-structured storage]

* [https://cloud.google.com/preemptible-vms](https://cloud.google.com/preemptible-vms) [cheap VMs]

* [https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/networks-and-firewalls](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/networks-and-firewalls) [fast networks]

Quite a lot of Google's infrastructure crown jewels have become part of their
Cloud offering. Not sure where to start looking for competing AWS services,
forget about looking closer at design / docs / scale / reliability.

[xGoogler here, used to work on GCP]

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robertleon
This is pretty amazing. Navigating the EC2 pricing documentation is such a
hassle.

I tend to think of costs in terms of monthly, as well, and this is valuable
when working out cost-proposal estimates for projects I'm pitching to
potential clients.

~~~
jandrese
It is missing is storage and bandwidth costs, which can be a nontrivial chunk
of an EC2 bill.

And yes, it is hair pullingly frustrating experience trying to figure out how
much an EC2 instance is going to cost you using Amazon's tools.

~~~
ckozlowski
Can you elaborate a bit? Is it the cost calculator?
([https://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html](https://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html))

What do you find frustrating? What can we improve? Let us know!

(Disclaimer: I work for AWS.)

~~~
boundlessdreamz
Not OP. But Amazon's pricing is very complex compared to Google's and also
more expensive when it comes to VMs.

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silversmith
Huh. Apparently, running Postgres on RDS is tad bit more expensive than MySQL.
Why is that?

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stingraycharles
The RDS FAQ reveals this:

 _Q: Why is the pricing for each RDS database engine different?

The pricing for each database engine of RDS varies because our costs are
different for each. These costs include many operational components in
addition to software licensing. We will continue to work hard to reduce costs
and pass on those savings to our customers. _

My guess is that Postgresql required them to write much more internal tooling
to "get right", and the costs reflect that.

See also: [https://aws.amazon.com/rds/faqs/](https://aws.amazon.com/rds/faqs/)

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mp3geek
Always see Amazon price reductions being promoted on HN, I didn't relise it's
still so expensive, compared to my hetzner dedi.

~~~
eloff
Yes, it's not apples to apples at all, but AWS runs about 5x the cost without
considering bandwidth. If you use a lot of transfer, even between AZs (same
price as between regions!), it will dwarf the hardware costs. Compare e.g. the
Skylake EX51-SSD at $63 USD / month amortized for one year vs R3 High-Memory
Double Extra Large at $300/month 1-year no-upfront. Both have 8 hyperthreads,
AWS has ECC memory (good) and hypervisor overhead (bad), Hetzner has a newer
processor and higher clock speeds.

Depending on your needs, dedicated hardware can run a lot cheaper. You can
over-provision by 4x and you're still saving money. There are a lot of other
benefits to AWS though, it's a huge ecosystem, and it's much more flexible.

~~~
ddorian43
I'm all for dedicated servers but please don't compare against non-ecc ram.

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markwillis82
I've been using this site for the past few weeks whilst migrating, is an
invaluable resource given the ec2 pricing isn't particularly easy to work out
in the docs.

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Jgrubb
So funny, I just left that page to come here. Thank you, unsung hero/creator!

~~~
jkodumal
Fun fact-- it was started by one the founders of HipChat.

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Detect
Some Postgres RDS reserved instances (1yr no upfront) are more expensive than
on demand. Is this correct? m4.large, m3.large

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nodesocket
Would be awesome if it stored your columns, cost, and preference settings in
local storage/cookie.

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Jgrubb
I think it does, I just opened the page up in a new tab and my previous search
was still there.

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lithos
Why doesn't amazon make it this easy to compare? Right now looking at the
comments a lot of people in charge of server decisions are referencing a
random internet person instead of their docs.

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robertelder
It's worth noting that the performance of a given EC2 instance type can vary
depending on what hardware you end up with, and that this is not consistent
with the 'instance type'. One 'instance type' can be associated with multiple
underlying CPUs that have different performance:

[http://blog.robertelder.org/a-weird-old-tip-about-
ec2-instan...](http://blog.robertelder.org/a-weird-old-tip-about-
ec2-instances/)

~~~
ckozlowski
It can vary, though it should be predictable. M3s, for instance, can launch as
either Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge, depending. Same with the older M1s. But
unless listed, you should get the processor expected.

[https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-
types/](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/)

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dmourati
Been using this site for years.

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ppod
Really nice, is it a shiny app? They are ridiculously easy to set up.

