GCP vs AWS 2022 Comparison: Which Cloud Platform is right for you

In today’s data-centric world, cloud computing has literally taken the world by storm. Cloud Computing includes Infrastructure as a service(IaaS), Platform as a Service(PaaS), Software as a Service(SaaS). Businesses nowadays are exploring innovative ways to grow and accomplish their business goals. With the help of cloud computing, these businesses will keep on growing in the future.

When it comes to cloud computing, there is one big(mammoth) company that is ruling the industry, and it is Amazon Web Services(AWS). According to Statista, AWS has a 33% market share in cloud computing in 2020, leading the cloud computing business. Followed by Microsoft Azure, which has 18%, and then Google cloud platform(GCP), which has only 9%. The Cloud computing business is proven to be immune to COVID-19. The pandemic has helped to highlight some of the main benefits of the public cloud.

Before comparing Google Cloud and AWS, let’s deep dive into each cloud service, its pros, and cons.

What is GCP

Google Cloud Platform is a suite of public cloud computing services. GCP offers over 50 services, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings in the categories of computing, storage, networking, AI/Machine Learning platforms, big data, and the internet of things (IoT), cloud management, security, and developer tools. GCP offers application development and integration services such as Firebase.

GCP is outlined to be a user-friendly platform, with certain Google Cloud Platform certifications that can help you work more efficiently, demonstrate technical expertise, and boost your career. There are three primary steps to be certified in the Google cloud platform.

1. Associate Certifications
2. Professional Certifications
3. G Suite Certification

Services of GCP

Google Compute

1. Compute engine
2. App Engine
3. Container Engine
4. Container Registry
5. Cloud Functions
6. Cloud Pub/Sub

Networking

1. Google Cloud Virtual Network
2. Cloud Load Balancing
3. Cloud CDN
4. Google Cloud Interconnect
5. Cloud DNS

Storage and Databases

1. Cloud Storage
2. Cloud SQL
3. Bigtable
4. Cloud Datastore
5. Cloud Spanner
6. Persistent Disk

AI and ML

1. Cloud Machine Learning
2. Cloud Vision API
3. Cloud Speech API
4. Natural Language API
5. Translate API

Big Data

1. Big Query
2. Cloud Dataflow
3. Dataproc
4. Cloud Datalab
5. Google Genomics

Advantages of GCP

1. GCP has Private Global Fiber Network.
2. GCP has Hybrid and Multicloud Play.
3. GCP unequivocally stands apart from Azure and AWS for its AI and Machine Learning services.
4. Google Cloud Storage is designed for 99.99% durability and has four different storage types: Coldline storage, nearline storage, regional storage, and multi-regional storage.
5. Google Cloud Platform offers strong data privacy and security features.

Disadvantages of GCP

1. GCP documentation is a mixed case. Some users recommend it as extensive because of hundreds of pages in total, and the API guide is very detailed. On the other hand, the documentation is incomplete in some other places.
2. GCP, in some areas, does not innovate fast enough to keep up with AWS and other competitors, who are far ahead. The support fee is quite ample, and it will cost you around 150 USD per month for the most basic service, the Silver class.
3. Google Cloud Platform has a complex pricing schema, similar to AWS, so it’s easy to get unexpected costs (e.g., number of requests, transfers…).

What is AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud platform offered by Amazon.com Inc (AMZN), has become a colossal component of the e-commerce giant’s business portfolio. AWS is a platform that provides flexible, trustworthy, scalable, easy-to-use, and cost-effective cloud computing solutions.

Amazon Web Services proposes a wide range of different business purposes for global cloud-based products. The products include storage, databases, analytics, networking, mobile, development tools, enterprise applications with a pay-as-you-go pricing model.

Services of AWS

Compute services

1. Amazon EC2
2. Amazon EC2 Auto-Scaling
3. Amazon Lightsail
4. AWS Batch

Blockchain

1. Amazon managed Blockchain
2. Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

Containers

1. Amazon Elastic Container Registry
2. Amazon Elastic Container Service

Machine Learning

1. Amazon SageMaker
2. Amazon Augmented AI
3. Amazon CodeGuru
4. Amazon Comprehend

Database

1. Amazon Aurora
2. Amazon DynamoDB
3. Amazon ElastiCache

Advantages of AWS

1. Stop guessing capacity.
2. Increase speed and agility.
3. Trade capital expense for the variable expense.
4. Go global in minutes.
5. If you are careful, then it is very cost-effective.
6. Safe-guarding your business from potential information leaks and the risk of hacks is of supreme significance for AWS.

Disadvantages of AWS

1. The technical support fee is very high.
2. Limitations of Amazon EC2.
3. If you choose to work with AWS as your Cloud provider, be prepared to learn and invest in your team’s learning.
4. General cloud computing issues.

GCP vs AWS: Complete Comparison in 2022

The cost of a Google Cloud and AWS depends on the implementation of resources and services needed. To estimate and control your costs, you can leverage free tools provided by Google pricing calculator and AWS pricing calculator.

With Google Cloud’s pay-as-you-go pricing structure, you only pay for the services you use. No up-front fees. No termination charges. Create an account to evaluate how Google Cloud products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

AWS offers:

1. Free tier – inexpensive, burst performance (t3 family)
2. General-purpose (m4/m5 family)
3. Compute-optimized (c5 family)
4. GPU instances (p3 family)
5. FPGA instances (f1 family)
6. Memory-optimized (x1, r5 family)
7. Storage optimized (i3, d2, h1 family)

GCP offers:

1. Free tier – inexpensive, burst performance (f1/g1 family)
2. Standard, shared core (n1-standard family)
3. High memory (n1-highmem family)
4. High CPU (n1-highCPU family)

GCP vs AWS: Compute Power

Google Compute Engine and AWS EC2 handle their virtual machines (instances). The technology behind Google Cloud’s Virtual Machines is KVM, whereas the technology behind AWS EC2 VMs is Xen. Both offer a different type of predefined instance configurations with specific amounts of virtual CPU, RAM, and network.

Machine Type	Google Cloud Platform	AWS
Shared	f1-micro g1-small	t2.nano – t3.2xlarge
Standard	n1-standard-1 – n1-standard-96	m3.medium – m3.2xlarge m4.large – m4.16xlarge m5.large – m5d.24xlarge
High CPU	n1-highcpu-2 – n1-highcpu-96	c4.large – c4.8xlarge c5.large – c5d.18xlarge
GPU	You can add GPUs to machine types.	p3.2xlarge – p3.16xlarge p2.xlarge – p2.16xlarge g3.4xlarge – g3.16xlarge f1.2xlarge – f1.16xlarge
SSD	n1-standard-1 – n1-standard-32 n1-highmem-2 – n1-highmem-32 n1-highcpu-2 – n1-highcpu-32	h1.2xlarge – h1.16xlarge i3.large – i3.metal

GCP vs AWS: Block Storage

Block storage is essentially virtual disk volume used in conjunction with cloud-based virtual machines. Google Compute Engine offers resolute disks, whereas AWS EC2 offers this via their Elastic Block Store (EBS).

Block Storage	Google Cloud Platform	AWS
Service	SSD	General and Provisioned IOPS SSD
Volume Sizes	1 GB to 64 TB	1 GB to 16 TB 4GB to 16 TB Provisioned IOPS
Replication	Built-in redundancy	RAID-1
Snapshot Redundancy	Multiple locations	Multiple locations

GCP vs AWS: Object Storage

Object storage, also known as distributed object storage, are essentially hosted services for storing and accessing large numbers of binary objects or blobs.

Object Storage	Google Cloud Platform	AWS
Service	Google Cloud Storage	Amazon S3
Hot	GCS Nearline	S3 Standard
Size Limit	5 TB/object	5 TB/object
Object Limit	Unlimited	Unlimited

GCP vs AWS: Comparison Table 2022

	Google Cloud Platform	AWS
Pricing	Per-minute basis	Per hour basis
Available zones	Available in 20 different zones.	Available in 21 different zones.
Big Customers	Paypal, Target, HSBC, Bloomberg	Netflix, Twitch, Facebook, BBC
Containers	Kubernetes	Docker, Kubernetes
Main Service	Google’s primary service is a compute engine.	Amazon Elastic Cloud (EC2)
Cost	It depends on the usage, but low compare to AWS.	It depends on the services you are using, but the price is high compare to GCP.
Object Storing	Google Cloud Storage	Amazon Simple Storage Services, also called (AWS S3)
File storage	Cloud Filestore	Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS)
Hybrid support	GCP relies on partners such as Egnyte for Hybrid support.	AWS Storage Gateway offers managed virtual tape infrastructure for a hybrid environment.
Disaster Recovery Management	Offers out-of-the-box DR or backup services.	Offers cloud-based disaster recovery services.
Backup	GCP has its own built-in infrastructure to store the backup files.	Amazon S3 is used for secondary backup storage.
Serverless computing	Google Cloud Functions	AWS Lamba

GCP vs AWS: Price Comparison

Pay-As-You-Go Pricing Model

Instance Type	AWS	GCP	AWS Price(Per Hour)	GCP Price(Per Hour)
General Purpose	t4g.xlarge	n1-standard-4	$0.134	$0.150
Compute Optimized	c6g.xlarge	c2-standard-4	$0.136	$0.188
Memory-Optimized	r6g.xlarge	n2-highmem-4	$0.201	$0.295

For 1-year commitment, see the below table

Instance Type	AWS	GCP	AWS Price(Per Hour)	GCP Price(Per Hour)
General Purpose	t4g.xlarge	n1-standard-4	$0.079	$0.125
Compute Optimized	c6g.xlarge	c2-standard-4	$0.080	$0.141
Memory-Optimized	r6g.xlarge	n2-highmem-4	$0.118	$$0.177

For a 3-year commitment, see the below table

Instance Type	AWS	GCP	AWS Price(Per Hour)	GCP Price(Per Hour)
General Purpose	t4g.xlarge	n1-standard-4	$0.050	$0.046
Compute Optimized	c6g.xlarge	c2-standard-4	$0.051	$0.094
Memory-Optimized	r6g.xlarge	n2-highmem-4	$0.075	$0.126

Conclusion

Google Cloud Platform and AWS are both the best cloud platforms. Before deciding, you should understand what type of feature your organization requires and how much you want to pay for them. Both AWS and GCP are providing some specialized services in their domains so if your requirement is specific to that domain, then use that services. 

AWS is known for its S3 and EC2 solutions; GCP is used for real-time platforms like Firebase, Google Cloud Functions, and Machine Learning services. Based on your specific needs, choose your platform and make sure that you track your expenses correctly; otherwise, you will get unexpected results in billings.