Skip to main content
TrustRadius
Google Compute Engine

Google Compute Engine

Overview

What is Google Compute Engine?

Google Compute Engine is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) product from Google Cloud. It provides virtual machines with carbon-neutral infrastructure which run on the same data centers that Google itself uses.

Read more
Recent Reviews
Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 9 features
  • Security controls (45)
    7.3
    73%
  • Operating system support (45)
    7.2
    72%
  • Pre-defined machine images (44)
    6.2
    62%
  • Pre-configured templates (43)
    5.8
    58%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing

Preemptible Price - Predefined Memory

0.000892 / GB

Cloud
Hour

Three-year commitment price - Predefined Memory

$0.001907 / GB

Cloud
Hour

One-year commitment price - Predefined Memory

$0.002669 / GB

Cloud
Hour

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://cloud.google.com/compute/pricin…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Return to navigation

Product Demos

Google Compute Engine Load Balancing, a quick introduction

YouTube

Computing with Google Compute Engine

YouTube

RouterOS CHR deployment in Google Compute Engine (GCE) demo

YouTube

Creating Custom Images for Google Compute Engine

YouTube

Hands on with Load Balancing on Google Compute Engine

YouTube
Return to navigation

Features

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

IaaS provides the basic building blocks for an IT infrastructure like servers, storage, and networking, in an on-demand model over the Internet

6.8
Avg 8.1
Return to navigation

Product Details

What is Google Compute Engine?

Virtual machines for any workload

Online VMs on high-performance, reliable cloud infrastructure offered on preset or custom machine types for web servers, databases, or AI.


Includes one e2-micro VM instance, up to 30 GB storage, and up to 1 GB of outbound data transfers free per month.


Preset and custom configurations

Prebuilt samples called Jump Start Solutions can be used to deploy an application in minutes, such as a dynamic website, load-balanced VM, Java application, three-tier web app, or ecommerce web app.

Offers predefined machine types, sizes, and configurations for any workload, from large enterprise applications, to modern workloads (like containers) or AI/ML projects that require GPUs and TPUs.

For more flexibility, a custom machine type between 1 and 96 vCPUs with up to 8.0 GB of memory per core can be created. Also offers many block storage options, from flexible Persistent Disk to high performance and low-latency Local SSD.


Industry-leading reliability

Compute Engine boasts strong single instance compute availability SLA: 99.95% availability for memory-optimized VMs and 99.9% for all other VM families. Offers live migration to maintain workload continuity during planned and unplanned events. When a VM goes down, Compute Engine performs a live migration to another host in the same zone.


Automations and recommendations for resource efficiency

VMs can be added automatically to handle peak load and replace underperforming instances with managed instance groups.

Resources can be manually adjusted using historical data with rightsizing recommendations, or capacity for planned demand spikes can be guaranteed with future reservations. All of Google's latest compute instances (C3, A3, H3) run on Titanium, a system of purpose-built microcontrollers and tiered scale-out offloads to improve infrastructure performance, life cycle management, and security.


Pricing and discounting

Google offers detailed pricing guidance for any VM type or configuration, and a pricing calculator to get a personalized estimate.

To save on batch jobs and fault-tolerant workloads, Spot VMs are offered to reduce costs. Automatic discounts for sustained use are offered, or up to 70% off when signing up for committed use discounts.


Security controls and configurations

Encrypts data-in-use and while it’s being processed with Confidential VMs.

Defends against rootkits and bootkits with Shielded VMs.

Meets compliance standards for data residency, sovereignty, access, and encryption with Assured Workloads.


Google Compute Engine Features

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Features

  • Supported: Dynamic scaling
  • Supported: Elastic load balancing
  • Supported: Pre-configured templates
  • Supported: Pre-defined machine images
  • Supported: Operating system support
  • Supported: Security controls

Google Compute Engine Screenshots

Screenshot of How to choose the right VM With thousands of applications, each with different requirements, which VM is right for you?Screenshot of documentation, guides, and reference architectures Migration Center is Google Cloud's unified migration platform with features like cloud spend estimation, asset discovery, and a variety of tooling for different migration scenarios.

Google Compute Engine Videos

Compute Engine in 2 minutes
What is Compute Engine?

Google Compute Engine Competitors

Google Compute Engine Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Google Compute Engine is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) product from Google Cloud. It provides virtual machines with carbon-neutral infrastructure which run on the same data centers that Google itself uses.

Google Compute Engine starts at $0.

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) are common alternatives for Google Compute Engine.

Reviewers rate Dynamic scaling highest, with a score of 8.3.

The most common users of Google Compute Engine are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

(174)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-9 of 9)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
March 12, 2024

Google Cloud - your dev friendly alternative to AWS and Azure

EG
Eddie Galvez
VP
Cloud Software Group (Computer Software, 1001-5000 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Usability
9
The user interface is fast loading, quick to navigate and delivers the basic information rapidly and in a clean UI, as is common with Google interfaces. The CLI is chock full of options - good and bad, as some commands are very long, but cleaner to type than AWS equivalents.
August 23, 2019

Google Cloud Engine -- a cost-benefit comparison is sorely needed. Because everything else is there.

Brendon Brown | TrustRadius Reviewer
Brendon Brown
Business IT, Web Development, eCommerce and Digital Marketing
Island City Media (Retail, 11-50 employees)
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Usability
8
Having interacted with several cloud services, GCE stands out to me as more usable than most. The naming and locating of features is a little more intuitive than most I've interacted with, and hinting is also quite helpful. Getting staff up to speed has proven to be overall less painful than others.
August 20, 2019

Excelent cloud solution

Verified User
Vice-President in Information Technology
Consumer Goods Company, 501-1000 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Usability
10
Google Compute Engine offers great functionality. It's easy to manage and deploy. It can be used by any person without any knowledge with its intuitive dashboards. You can easily generate and personalize reports. We can give 10 points out of 10 points for usability. We recommend Google Compute Engine for small and big companies. Also the migration from hardware to visualized servers from Google Compute Engine is easy, inclusive with the support of Google.
August 19, 2019

Google's Compute Engine is Good if You Like the Google Ecosystem, and Probably Even if You Don't Like Google

Thomas Young | TrustRadius Reviewer
Thomas Young
Owner, previous CEO
Econometric Studios (Financial Services, 11-50 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Usability
8
Google Cloud Compute Engine works well with individuals that are experienced analysts. Google appears to be targeting professional analysts rather than first-time analytics professionals or individuals that just want to play around in the cloud. Although it takes a little bit of effort to figure things out, working with Google Cloud Compute Engine is fairly straight-forward now.
August 16, 2019

Ease to start, easy to maintain

Tristan Dobbs | TrustRadius Reviewer
Tristan Dobbs
Vice President of Shared Services
Cloudbakers (Computer Software, 51-200 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
Usability
10
Our engineers are provided with many options to interact with GCE. The web UI and console is a fantastic way to see the available options, manage right-sizing, seeing improvements made to the service, and monitoring deployments. The CLI is also incredibly helpful for mass deployment or bulk work, allowing the scripting of workloads and scaling rules easily and quickly.
August 16, 2019

The best cloud solution

JA
Josh Ashby
CEO (Chief Executive Officer)
UK Flooring Direct Ltd. (Consumer Goods, 501-1000 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Usability
10
Google Compute Engine gives you the flexibility of virtualization for a wide range of computing solutions: development and testing, running applications, and extending your datacenter with support for Linux, Windows Server, SQL Server, Oracle, IBM, and SAP. Very easy to use and very good reports to monitor the cloud.
Return to navigation