7 ms·

Easy Amazon EC2 Instance Comparison

285 points by obi1kenobi 10y ago

markwillis82 10y ago
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.
mattbillenstein 10y ago
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 10y ago
  Up vote my issue. https://github.com/powdahound/ec2instances.info/issues/201 https://github.com/powdahound/ec2instances.info/issues/201
robertleon 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      Not OP. But Amazon's pricing is very complex compared to Google's and also more expensive when it comes to VMs.
Jgrubb 10y ago
So funny, I just left that page to come here. Thank you, unsung hero/creator!
- jkodumal 10y ago
  Fun fact-- it was started by one the founders of HipChat.
- web007 10y ago
  FYI https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=powdahound https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=powdahound is the same person on GitHub and HN.
silversmith 10y ago
Huh. Apparently, running Postgres on RDS is tad bit more expensive than MySQL. Why is that?
- stingraycharles 10y ago
  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/
nodesocket 10y ago
Would be awesome if it stored your columns, cost, and preference settings in local storage/cookie.
- Jgrubb 10y ago
  I think it does, I just opened the page up in a new tab and my previous search was still there.
- STRML 10y ago
  It stores some data in the url, but not all. I opened up a PR (https://github.com/powdahound/ec2instances.info/pull/202 https://github.com/powdahound/ec2instances.info/pull/202) to store the rest.
Detect 10y ago
Some Postgres RDS reserved instances (1yr no upfront) are more expensive than on demand. Is this correct? m4.large, m3.large
mp3geek 10y ago
Always see Amazon price reductions being promoted on HN, I didn't relise it's still so expensive, compared to my hetzner dedi.
- eloff 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    I'm all for dedicated servers but please don't compare against non-ecc ram.
ppod 10y ago
Really nice, is it a shiny app? They are ridiculously easy to set up.
azurezyq 10y ago
that's why I love Google's custom machine types, fully customizable. https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/creating-instance-with-custom-machine-type https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/creating-ins... and all with fast networks.
- barnacs 10y ago
  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.
  - hrez 10y ago
    Not to take from noob experience but google just has less features and services. When/if they have as many it will be similar mess. It's already getting there. Also, you could import your own key in aws. Though I agree that aws could benefit from global settings across regions like keys, cloutrails, config and so on. With more regions coming up it becomes unnecessary noise to manage each region separately.
    - cobookman 10y ago
      What features is google cloud missing that's stopping you from switching today. A lot of Googlers lurk these forms and I'm sure they'd love the feedback.
      - hrez 10y ago
        It does not answer your question straight but here are some things that stared at me in the first week though perhaps there is a way I don't know about: 1. No tag based billing ala aws. The only way to separate bills seems to be using projects. Which means separate networks. Which means more vpn needed to tie it all together to corp network? 2. Need more granular IAM scopes. I.e. I want a user that gets readonly for compute, disks and snapshots and create/delete for snapshots. 3. Tags are labels are tags? For me that was a bit of wtf moment. It might have its reasons but I want to add labels without possibility to trigger firewall rules. For that matter why labels are alpha feature? It's not like it's a new service.
robertelder 10y ago
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-instances/ http://blog.robertelder.org/a-weird-old-tip-about-ec2-instan...
- ckozlowski 10y ago
  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/
dmourati 10y ago
Been using this site for years.
lithos 10y ago
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.
darkwebsss_111 10y ago
If you ever need the services of a professional for all your cyber/identity issues, then darkwebssolutions on gmail is the one you should consult. Or text +19193076946...

285 points by obi1kenobi 10y ago

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.

mattbillenstein 10y ago

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 10y ago
Up vote my issue. https://github.com/powdahound/ec2instances.info/issues/201 https://github.com/powdahound/ec2instances.info/issues/201

robertleon 10y ago

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 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    Not OP. But Amazon's pricing is very complex compared to Google's and also more expensive when it comes to VMs.

Jgrubb 10y ago

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

jkodumal 10y ago
Fun fact-- it was started by one the founders of HipChat.
web007 10y ago
FYI https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=powdahound https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=powdahound is the same person on GitHub and HN.

silversmith 10y ago

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

stingraycharles 10y ago
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/

nodesocket 10y ago

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

Jgrubb 10y ago
I think it does, I just opened the page up in a new tab and my previous search was still there.
STRML 10y ago
It stores some data in the url, but not all. I opened up a PR (https://github.com/powdahound/ec2instances.info/pull/202 https://github.com/powdahound/ec2instances.info/pull/202) to store the rest.

Detect 10y ago

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

mp3geek 10y ago

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

eloff 10y ago
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 10y ago
  I'm all for dedicated servers but please don't compare against non-ecc ram.

ppod 10y ago

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

azurezyq 10y ago

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

barnacs 10y ago
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.
- hrez 10y ago
  Not to take from noob experience but google just has less features and services. When/if they have as many it will be similar mess. It's already getting there. Also, you could import your own key in aws. Though I agree that aws could benefit from global settings across regions like keys, cloutrails, config and so on. With more regions coming up it becomes unnecessary noise to manage each region separately.
  - cobookman 10y ago
    What features is google cloud missing that's stopping you from switching today. A lot of Googlers lurk these forms and I'm sure they'd love the feedback.
    - hrez 10y ago
      It does not answer your question straight but here are some things that stared at me in the first week though perhaps there is a way I don't know about: 1. No tag based billing ala aws. The only way to separate bills seems to be using projects. Which means separate networks. Which means more vpn needed to tie it all together to corp network? 2. Need more granular IAM scopes. I.e. I want a user that gets readonly for compute, disks and snapshots and create/delete for snapshots. 3. Tags are labels are tags? For me that was a bit of wtf moment. It might have its reasons but I want to add labels without possibility to trigger firewall rules. For that matter why labels are alpha feature? It's not like it's a new service.

robertelder 10y ago

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

ckozlowski 10y ago
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/

dmourati 10y ago

Been using this site for years.

lithos 10y ago

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.

darkwebsss_111 10y ago

If you ever need the services of a professional for all your cyber/identity issues, then darkwebssolutions on gmail is the one you should consult. Or text +19193076946...