Cost-Performance Evaluation of General Compute Instances: AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI

TL;DR

This study compares cost and performance of general compute instances across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI, highlighting how different architectures impact efficiency and guiding optimal cloud resource selection.

Contribution

It provides a standardized comparative analysis of cloud instance cost-performance across major providers, focusing on architecture and workload suitability.

Findings

ARM instances offer better price-performance for cost-sensitive tasks.

Intel instances are more reliable for enterprise applications.

Performance varies significantly based on architecture and workload type.

Abstract

Cloud computing has become the cornerstone of modern IT infrastructure, offering a wide range of general-purpose instances optimized for diverse workloads. This paper provides a comparative analysis of cost and performance for general-purpose compute instances across four major cloud providers: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Using standardized configurations of 4 vCPUs and 16 GiB of RAM, the study evaluates instances based on processor architecture (Intel, AMD, ARM), pricing models, and performance benchmarks. Key findings reveal that ARM-based instances deliver superior price-performance ratios for cost-sensitive workloads, while Intel-based instances excel in enterprise-grade applications requiring versatility and reliability. The results aim to guide organizations in selecting the most cost-effective and performance-efficient cloud resources for their specific needs.