
A Tale of Two Clouds: Amazon vs. Google - raboukhalil
https://medium.com/@robaboukhalil/a-tale-of-two-clouds-amazon-vs-google-4f2520516a38
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raboukhalil
Hi everyone, author here. I wrote this article to summarize my thoughts on
using the Google Cloud vs Amazon.

TL;DR: Although AWS has a lot more cloud products, unless you need the
additional options, IMHO the Google Cloud is more intuitive, cheaper and
offers better cost structure (e.g. by-the-minute pricing instead of by-the-
hour).

So if you’re starting a new project, I would highly recommend that you give
the Google Cloud a try.

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saurik
Yo! Totally legitimate question, as I don't know the answer to this, and I'm
extremely curious: I see a lot of people say that Google is cheaper than
Amazon, but I also see a lot of people bemoaning reserved instances and buried
in every comment thread about Google vs. Amazon someone points out "wait, this
comparison isn't taking into account reserved instances". I thereby don't feel
like I actually know which offering is cheaper (though I'm betting it is
Google, mostly for the same reasons I don't really want to use their offering,
which is maybe unfortunate: that I hate free tiers and artificially low
prices, as they either turn into a tax somewhere else or a reason to later
scrap a product line). Can you verify that your comparison with 25% cheaper is
based on actually paying attention to the pricing structure of the two
products? What I'd like to see is "assuming you are going to use a computer
for two or three years, and are willing to spend the twenty minutes to save
potentially thousands of dollars (as if you aren't, something is wrong with
your priorities ;P <\- note that I'm willing to admit my priorities are also
broken :/...), here is the cost difference between these two offerings".

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raboukhalil
Great question!

Until recently, Google Cloud didn't have reserved instances. Interestingly
enough, last week they introduced their version of it called "Committed Use"
pricing.

Here's what it looks like for 2 CPUs/8GB RAM (numbers below according to their
documentation page):

    
    
      AWS
      On-demand = $69/month
      1-year    = $53/month
      3-year    = $47/month
    
      GCP
      On-demand = $52/month
      1-year    = $31/month
      3-year    = $22/month
    

So GCP is cheaper even considering the reserved instances!

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brooklynmarket
We actually use Google's Firebase to manage our Alexa skill, delivering
content from S3, best of both worlds.

~~~
raboukhalil
That's a really interesting approach, thanks for sharing!

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advisedwang
This blog post really just compares EC2 vs GCE. That's a valuable comparison
to make, but covers a fairly narrow use case. I'd love to see comparisons that
that say "for EDW X wins over Y", "for high volume message passing Z is best",
"for data archival Q wins" etc

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gnrlist
If price is your thing, Linode for compute and Backblaze for storage; 4 CPU
and 8GB RAM for $40 a month and 1/2 cent per month per gig. For full feature
cloud I find Azure a better competitor to AWS as far as
features/price/interface and per minute billing.

~~~
msh
well only linode if security is not your thing... They have a history of
security issues.

I think this is the latest in a long line:
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/09/linode_ssh_security...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/09/linode_ssh_security/)

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marianattestad
Nice article. Good explanation of what some of the major numbers and features
mean in a practical sense.

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emveeoh
Basically, an advertisement for Google barely disguised as an 'article'.

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raboukhalil
Sorry you feel that way, are there any points you disagree with?

I'm in no way affiliated with or remunerated by Google. I've just spent a lot
of time in the past comparing both and wanted to share that with the
community.

