AWS Vs Azure Vs GCP – Comparative Analysis
The top three brands that govern the market will be compared based on the most common cloud
services:
• Compute
• Storage
• Database
• Networking and Content Delivery
• Availability zone
Top Features AWS Azure GCP
Amazon EC2- 99.5%
annual uptime Amazon
SLA (Service Level
S3 – A monthly uptime 99.9% uptime 99.95% monthly uptime
Agreement) availability
of at least 99.9% for a
billing cycle
Max processors in Virtual
128 nos 128 nos 96 nos
Machines
Maximum Memory in
3904GiB 3800GiB 1433GiB
Virtual Machines
Marketplace AWS marketplace Azure marketplace G Suite Marketplace
Core OS, Windows,
SLES, Windows, CentOS, Windows, SLES, CoreOS,
Supported OS SLES, Cloud Linux,
Oracle Linux, etc FreeBSD, etc
Ubuntu, etc
Feature by Feature Comparison
Compute
This is one of the most fundamental roles in dealing with computing workloads. A cloud service
provider should be able to scale a considerable number of nodes in a fraction of minutes. On the
basis of computing, the top comparisons are:
Service AWS Azure GCP
Maintaining and
EC2 VM & VM scale sets Compute Engine
managing virtual servers
PaaS Elastic Beanstalk Cloud services Google App engine
Easing of virtual private Lightsail (Easy to use
Virtual Machine Image –
servers Cloud Platform)
Container Deployment – Container service Container Engine
Running backend &
Lambda Event Grid & Web Jobs Cloud Beta Functions
system integration
Container register EC2 registry Container registry Container registry
Storage
This is yet another important function and is related to data storage. Based on services, the
comparisons are enlisted below:
Storage service AWS
Azure GCP
Hybrid storage Storage gateway StorSimple Egnyte Sync
Snowball edge,
Data Box &
Bulk data transfers Import/Export disk & Storage transfer service
Import/Export
Snow Mobile
Cold Archive storage &
Back-up solutions Backup –
Storage gateway
Disaster recovery Disaster recovery Site recovery –
Database
A Database comparison is essential for database workloads. The below table provides the perfect
comparison of the database domain.
Database services AWS Azure Azure
Caching ElastiCache RedisCache CloudCDN
Object Storage S3 Blobs and files Cloud storage block
Block storage EBS Page Blobs Persistent disks
Indexed NoSQL DynamoDB Cosmos DB Datastore, Big table
Database migration Database migration
Database migration –
services services
Networking Service
Networking service AWS Azure GCP
Virtual Network Amazon VPC Virtual Networks Virtual Private cloud
Elastic load balancer Elastic load balancer Load balancer Cloud load balancing
DNS Amazon Route 53 Azure DNS Google Cloud DNS
Google cloud
Peering Direct Connect ExpressRoute
interconnect
Pricing
Machine Type AWS Azure GCP
Instance with 2 vCPUs 2 virtual CPUs and 8 GB
2 virtual CPUs and 8 GB
and 8 GB of RAM, in of RAM at a 25 percent
Smallest Instance of RAM will cost nearly
Azure, costing cheaper rate costing
US$69 per month
US$70/month US$52/month
3.84 TB of RAM and 128 3.89 TB of RAM and 128 3.75 TB of RAM and 160
Largest Instance vCPUs will cost around vCPUs. It costs around vCPUs. It will cost close
US$3.97/hour US$6.79/hour to US$5.32/hour
Very recently, AWS started offering pay-per-minute billing which Azure already is using while
Google charges with the Pay-per-second billing model letting users save more compared to AWS
and Azure.
Availablity Zones
AWS is the oldest hence it has had more time to expand its network. AWS is hosting in multiple
locations along with GCP and Azure but there is a difference in the availability zones:
• At present, AWS has 66 availability zones with 12 on the anvil.
• Azure caters to 54 regions worldwide and is available in 140 countries.
• GCP is available in 20 regions around the world with 3 more on their way.
Key Takeaways
What’s best for you:
It’s time to now wrap up this comparison journey by taking a look at the most important points
that will help you get the large picture.
1. Establishment– AWS is the clear winner as it has a head start of 5 years over its counterparts.
2. Growth Rate– Here the winner is GCP as it is currently clocking growth rate close to 100%.
3. Market Share– Hands down goes to AWS with a 33% market share.
4. Brands– With several top companies using all three, it is a tie between them.
5. Availability zone– Clear winner is AWS with a greater number of regions and availability zones.
6. Pricing model– the presence of customer-friendly pricing models and discounts makes GCP the clear
winner.
7. Services– AWS leads the way with the volumes of services provided but with respect to the integration
with open-source and on-site platforms Azure leads the pack.
