Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) vs. Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Users can launch instances with a variety of OSs, load them with custom application environments, manage network access permissions, and run images on multiple systems.
$0.01
per IP address with a running instance per hour on a pro rata basis
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) lets users provision a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud where they can launch AWS resources in a virtual network. Users have control over the virtual networking environment, including selection of one's IP address range, creation of subnets, and configuration of route tables and network gateways. Users can use both IPv4 and IPv6 in the VPC for secure and easy access to resources and applications.
$0.05
per month per NAT gateway
Pricing
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
Editions & Modules
Data Transfer
$0.00 - $0.09
per GB
On-Demand
$0.0042 - $6.528
per Hour
EBS-Optimized Instances
$0.005
per IP address with a running instance per hour on a pro rata basis
Carrier IP Addresses
$0.005 - $0.10
T4g Instances
$0.04
per vCPU-Hour Linux, RHEL, & SLES
T2, T3 Instances
$0.05 ($0.096)
per vCPU-Hour Linux, RHEL, & SLES (Windows)
IP Address Manager (IPAM)
$0.00027 per active IP address managed by IPAM
Hourly
Traffic Monitoring
$0.015 per ENI ($/hour)
Hourly
NAT Gateway
$0.045 per NAT gateway
Hourly
Standard
Free
Hourly
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThere is no additional charge for creating and using an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) itself, you can pay for optional VPC capabilities with usage-based charges. AWS provides features and services that give you the ability to customize control, connectivity, monitoring, and security for your Amazon VPC.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
Features
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
8.8
27 Ratings
7% above category average
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
8.0
2 Ratings
3% below category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime9.625 Ratings7.12 Ratings
Dynamic scaling9.226 Ratings8.12 Ratings
Elastic load balancing9.625 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Pre-configured templates8.726 Ratings8.12 Ratings
Monitoring tools8.225 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images8.625 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Operating system support8.626 Ratings5.01 Ratings
Security controls8.726 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Automation8.316 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
Small Businesses
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(73 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
9.2
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(12 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
Suitable for companies that are looking for performance at a competitive price, flexibility to switch instance type even with RI, flexibility to add-on IOPS, option to lower running cost with the regular introduction of new instance type that comes with higher performance but at a lower cost.
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Amazon AWS
If you are going to deploy within AWS, you need to know how to leverage VPCs. VPCs have several items you must configure for them to be usable and to even link one VPC to another. If you are only going to deploy a few resources or use some of the default configurations, you still need to have working knowledge of how a VPC functions. If you are used to working with VLANs and the ideology behind those, that is the best direct reference to how a VPC can be described, but with additional layers on top of that with route tables, internet gateways, etc.
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Pros
Amazon AWS
  • Huge Diverse range of machine shapes are available which cater to our demand.
  • Ability to combine the machines and integrate them with any other service in AWS (Ex: RDS, S3)
  • Handling performance and scalability using auto-scaling, ELB configuration and high performance machine shapes.
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Amazon AWS
  • Pricing model & On demand service commitment.
  • Well, architectural infrastructure development processing before spending the money.
  • AWS VPC are providing hassle-free using with all others services from AWS very easily.
  • AWS business support is very helpful & [gives] the right direction according to client’s situations.
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Cons
Amazon AWS
  • The choices on AMIs, instance types and additional configuration can be overwhelming for any non-DevOps person.
  • The pricing information should be more clear (than only providing the hourly cost) when launching the instance. AWS DynamoDB gives an estimated monthly cost when creating tables, and I would love to see similar cost estimation showing on EC2 instances individually, as not all developers gets access to the actual bills.
  • The term for reserving instances are at least 12 months. With instance types changing so fast and better instances coming out every other day, it's really hard to commit to an existing instance type for 1 or more years at a time.
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Amazon AWS
  • The biggest issue with VPC networks is knowing how you can leverage VPC endpoints to ensure your resources within the VPC are not reaching out over the Internet to get to AWS services such as S3 and others.
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Usability
Amazon AWS
You an start using EC2 instances immediately, is so easy and intuitive to start using them, EC2 has wizard to create the EC2 instances in the web browser or if you are code savvy you can create them with simple line in the CLI or using an SDK. Once you are comfortable using EC2, you can even automate the process.
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Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Amazon AWS
AWS's support is good overall. Not outstanding, but better than average. We have had very little reason to engage with AWS support but in our limited experience, the staff has been knowledgeable, timely and helpful. The only negative is actually initiating a service request can be a bit of a pain.
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Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
Amazon EC2 is super flexible compared to the PaaS offerings like Heroku Platform and Google App Engine since with Amazon EC2, we have access to the terminal. In terms of pricing, it's basically just the same as Google Compute Engine. The deciding factor is Amazon EC2's native integration with other AWS services since they're all in the same cloud platform.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
Read full review
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • It reduced the need for heavy on-premises instances. Also, it completely eliminates maintenance of the machine. Their SLA criteria are also matching business needs. Overall IAAS is the best option when information is not so crucial to post on the cloud.
  • It makes both horizontal and vertical scaling really easy. This keeps your infrastructure up and running even while you are increasing the capacity or facing more traffic. This leads to having better customer satisfaction.
  • If you do not choose your instance type suitable for your business, it may incur lots of extra costs.
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Amazon AWS
  • AWS VPCs are actively used for following various compliance and regulatory needs such as network separation for PCI DSS. The ability to keep resources and access to those resources controlled through the initial steps of creating VPCs has helped tremendously.
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