Is AWS EC2 or Google Compute Engine cheaper in 2026?

AWS EC2 is cheaper in all 3 modelled workloads.

What is the difference in egress cost between AWS EC2 and Google Compute Engine?

AWS EC2 charges $0.090 per GB against Google Compute Engine's $0.120, roughly 1.3× cheaper. Egress usually dominates the bill once traffic is measured in terabytes.

What do these estimates not include?

Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.

AWS EC2 vs Google Compute Engine

AWS EC2 is cheaper across every workload modelled here.

List prices checked May 2026

Rate cards side by side

Only the axes at least one of them bills on. A dash means that provider does not charge for it.

Billing axis	AWS EC2	Google Compute Engine	Difference
Compute	$0.042/vCPU-hr	$0.048/vCPU-hr	1.1× AWS EC2
Data transfer out	$0.090/GB	$0.120/GB	1.3× AWS EC2
Free tier	Yes	Yes	—

Source: Amazon Web Services pricing (May 2026) · Google pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.

Monthly cost for three real workloads

The rate cards applied to identical usage. This is where the winner changes.

Workload	AWS EC2	Google Compute Engine	Cheaper
Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process.	$39	$47	AWS EC2saves $7.31/mo (16%)
Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers.	$151	$189	AWS EC2saves $39/mo (20%)
Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought.	$930	$1,235	AWS EC2saves $304/mo (25%)

Workload definitions are identical on every comparison page, so figures here can be read against any other pair in the same category.

What each one is for

AWS EC2

by Amazon Web Services

On-demand instances across every region and instance family. List rates are the highest in this category on both compute and egress; reserved instances and savings plans are how the price actually comes down.

Free tier: 750 hours per month of a t-class micro instance for 12 months

Google Compute Engine

by Google

Comparable to EC2 on list price, with sustained-use discounts applied automatically as an instance runs rather than requiring an upfront commitment.

Free tier: One e2-micro instance per month, always free

Common questions

Is AWS EC2 or Google Compute Engine cheaper in 2026?: AWS EC2 is cheaper in all 3 modelled workloads.
What is the difference in egress cost between AWS EC2 and Google Compute Engine?: AWS EC2 charges $0.090 per GB against Google Compute Engine's $0.120, roughly 1.3× cheaper. Egress usually dominates the bill once traffic is measured in terabytes.
Which has the better free tier, AWS EC2 or Google Compute Engine?: Both publish one. AWS EC2: 750 hours per month of a t-class micro instance for 12 months. Google Compute Engine: One e2-micro instance per month, always free.
What do these estimates not include?: Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.