Bigger Is Not Necessary Better: AWS vs. UpCloud
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One of the most common questions our customers ask us is that how we can compete with the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS) on price as they have economies of scale on their side. This is perhaps one of the most common misperceptions of the industry – economy of scale does not matter if the fundaments of how your service is produced differ greatly.
Yes, I know this is arrogant, but it has to be said.
AWS has managed to position themselves as the price leader (or so people think) in the industry through 60+ price cuts. We have made only a handful of price cuts (and will do a few in the near future as well), but are still dramatically more competitive than AWS pricing.
AWS pricing comparison
We recently compared our offering in terms of pricing with that of AWS for a customer. I thought this was quite eye-opening so I wanted to share it with our readers. All of these prices are from the Ireland region for AWS and London for UpCloud. Prices are for 30 days (720 hours). The conversion rate to euros is 1 EUR = 1,06798 USD.
| On-demand AWS m3-series (General purpose) vs. UpCloud | ||
|---|---|---|
| Configuration / instance | AWS | UpCloud |
| m3.medium (1vCPU, 3.75GB memory, 1x4GB SSD) UpCloud (1 CPU, 4GB memory, 10GB MaxIOPS) | 51.91 EUR | 25.78 EUR |
| m3.large (2 vCPU, 7.5GB memory, 1x32GB SSD) UpCloud (2 CPU, 7.5GB memory, 30GB MaxIOPS) | 103.82 EUR | 49.61 EUR |
| m3.xlarge (4 vCPU, 15GB memory, 2x40GB SSD) UpCloud (4 CPU, 15GB memory, 80GB MaxIOPS) | 207.64 EUR | 93.02 EUR |
| On-demand AWS c3-series (Compute optimised) vs. UpCloud | ||
|---|---|---|
| Configuration / instance | AWS | UpCloud |
| c3.large (2 vCPU, 3.75GB memory, 2x16GB SSD) UpCloud (2 CPU, 4GB memory, 30GB MaxIOPS) | 80.90 EUR | 37.01 EUR |
| c3.2xlarge (8 vCPU, 15GB memory, 2x80GB SSD) UpCloud (8 CPU, 15GB memory, 160GB MaxIOPS) | 322.25 EUR | 146.02 EUR |
| On-demand AWS r3-series (Memory optimised) vs. UpCloud | ||
|---|---|---|
| Configuration / instance | AWS | UpCloud |
| r3.large (2 vCPU, 15GB memory, 1x32GB SSD) UpCloud (2 CPU, 15GB memory, 40GB MaxIOPS) | 131,46 EUR | 78.62 EUR |
| r3.2xlarge (8 vCPU, 61GB memory, 1x160GB SSD) UpCloud (8 CPU, 61GB memory, 160GB MaxIOPS) | 525,85 EUR | 311.62 EUR |
As you can see, AWS is constantly double the price of better servers from UpCloud. Why do I say better? First of all, our storage does not erase itself when the servers are shut down and secondly, MaxIOPS has superior performance over competitors’ SSD storage backends. Thirdly, perhaps worth mentioning is the network performance our customers enjoy over smaller AWS servers. We do not discriminate the network performance of our customers based on the size of their server.
Amazon Web Services Reserved Instance Price Comparison
I know what you are thinking – on-demand pricing is quite high and if you’re going to be around for a longer time, you probably opt for the reserved instances? Even though we think this approach resembles more the business of VPS’s we can do the comparison to sort it out. All the prices are 1-year, all upfront payments and prices from Amazon Web Services.
| 1-yr Reserved Instance Pricing (All Upfront) AWS m3-series (General purpose) vs. UpCloud | ||
|---|---|---|
| Configuration / instance | AWS | UpCloud |
| m3.medium (1vCPU, 3.75GB memory, 1x4GB SSD) UpCloud (1 CPU, 4GB memory, 10GB MaxIOPS) | 35.19 EUR | 25.78 EUR |
| m3.large (2 vCPU, 7.5GB memory, 1x32GB SSD) UpCloud (2 CPU, 7.5GB memory, 30GB MaxIOPS) | 71.06 EUR | 49.61 EUR |
| m3.xlarge (4 vCPU, 15GB memory, 2x40GB SSD) UpCloud (4 CPU, 15GB memory, 80GB MaxIOPS) | 141.44 EUR | 93.02 EUR |
| 1-yr Reserved Instance Pricing (All Upfront) AWS c3-series (Compute optimised) vs. UpCloud | ||
|---|---|---|
| Configuration / instance | AWS | UpCloud |
| c3.large (2 vCPU, 3.75GB memory, 2×16 SSD) UpCloud (2 CPU, 4GB memory, 30GB MaxIOPS) | 51.64 EUR | 37.01 EUR |
| c3.2xlarge (8 vCPU, 15GB memory, 2×80 SSD) UpCloud (8 CPU, 15GB memory, 160GB MaxIOPS) | 207.31 EUR | 146.02 EUR |
| 1-yr Reserved Instance Pricing (All Upfront) AWS r3-series (Memory optimised) vs. UpCloud | ||
|---|---|---|
| Configuration / instance | AWS | UpCloud |
| r3.large (2 vCPU, 15GB memory, 1×32 SSD) UpCloud (2 CPU, 15GB memory, 40GB MaxIOPS) | 86,54 EUR | 78.62 EUR |
| r3.2xlarge (8 vCPU, 61GB memory, 1×160 SSD) UpCloud (8 CPU, 61GB memory, 160GB MaxIOPS) | 324,85 EUR | 311.62 EUR |
Even with the reserved instance pricing, UpCloud is still more competitive and you only need to pay as you go. For example, in the case of the r3.2xlarge server, to enjoy the reserved instance pricing you would need to deposit 4210 USD to AWS – all upfront.
Conclusion
UpCloud’s cloud servers are more competitive in price and AWS does not offer the benefits of its so-called economies of scale to its customers. Furthermore, you are able to save even more money with UpCloud, by further optimising your configuration by choosing just the resources you need – instead of settling for a compromise (pre-configured instance).
Have a look at our pricing information and see the difference for yourself.
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In case you would like to learn more about some specific detail of the infrastructure described here, don’t hesitate to contact UpCloud at our sales ([email protected]).
