Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) VS Google Compute Engine

Compare Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) VS Google Compute Engine and see what are their differences

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) logo Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)

Store data in the cloud and learn the core concepts of buckets and objects with the Amazon S3 web service.

Google Compute Engine logo Google Compute Engine

Google Compute Engine is not just fast. It’s Google fast.
  • Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-05
  • Google Compute Engine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-22

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) features and specs

  • Scalability
    Amazon S3 automatically scales storage resources to accommodate growing amounts of data without requiring upfront provisioning or capacity planning from users.
  • Durability and Availability
    S3 is designed for 99.999999999% (11 9's) of durability and very high availability, ensuring that data is highly protected and readily accessible.
  • Security
    Offers comprehensive security and compliance capabilities including encryption, access controls, and logging features.
  • Integration
    Deep integration with other AWS services and features, making it a pivotal part of AWS's cloud ecosystem, suitable for a wide range of applications.
  • Cost-effectiveness
    Pay-as-you-go pricing model without upfront expenses, along with different storage classes for optimizing costs based on data access patterns.
  • Data Management Features
    Includes features for lifecycle management, versioning, and cross-region replication to organize, manage, and backup data effectively.

Possible disadvantages of Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)

  • Complexity
    The wide range of features and configurations may be complex for new users to fully understand and leverage properly.
  • Data Transfer Costs
    While inbound data transfers to S3 are generally free, outbound data transfers can become costly, particularly if data is frequently moved out of S3.
  • Latency
    Although S3 offers high availability, the latency can be an issue for applications requiring real-time data retrieval due to the nature of cloud storage.
  • Pricing Complexity
    The pricing structure, which varies by factors such as storage used, requests processed, and data transferred, can be challenging to predict and manage.
  • Limited Control
    As a managed service, users may have limited control over the underlying infrastructure compared to on-premise or more customizable cloud solutions.

Google Compute Engine features and specs

  • Scalability
    Google Compute Engine offers robust scalability, allowing users to easily increase or decrease resources to match the workload demands. This ensures that businesses can handle growing traffic and data without unnecessary delays.
  • Performance
    GCE provides high-performance virtual machines with the ability to customize CPU, memory, and persistent disk configurations. The underlying infrastructure is optimized for high-speed operations.
  • Global Reach
    With data centers located around the world, GCE provides global reach and redundancy. This ensures low-latency access and high availability for applications and services.
  • Integration
    GCE integrates seamlessly with other Google Cloud services, such as Google Kubernetes Engine, BigQuery, and Cloud Storage. This ecosystem facilitates streamlined workflows and enhanced functionality.
  • Security
    GCE features multiple layers of security including encryption, identity management, and regular compliance audits. These measures ensure that data and applications are well-protected.
  • Cost-Effective
    With per-second billing and various pricing plans, GCE offers cost-effective solutions. Users only pay for what they use, which can lead to significant savings.

Possible disadvantages of Google Compute Engine

  • Complexity
    For new users, the wide range of services and options within GCE can be overwhelming. It may require a steep learning curve to fully understand and leverage all available features.
  • Support Costs
    While GCE offers various support plans, premium support options can be expensive. Smaller businesses might find the cost prohibitive compared to their budget.
  • Vendor Lock-In
    Once services are deeply integrated with GCE, it may be difficult to migrate to another cloud provider. This could result in vendor lock-in and reduced flexibility for organizations.
  • Regional Availability
    Even though GCE has a broad global presence, not all services are available in every region. This can be a limitation for businesses that require specific features in certain geographic locations.
  • Network Egress Charges
    GCE charges for outbound data transfer, which can add up for applications serving large amounts of data across regions or the internet. Users need to monitor and manage egress costs carefully.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) videos

Introduction to Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) - Cloud Storage on AWS

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3): Overview and Tutorial

Google Compute Engine videos

Getting Started with Google Compute Engine

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Google Compute Engine)
Cloud Storage
100 100%
0% 0
Cloud Computing
20 20%
80% 80
Cloud Infrastructure
0 0%
100% 100
File Sharing
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Google Compute Engine

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) Reviews

We have no reviews of Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) yet.
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Google Compute Engine Reviews

Alternatives to Amazon's Cloud Services (AWS)
Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Compute are the two biggest competitors to AWS attempting to offer a growing stack of service offerings.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Google Compute Engine seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 15 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) yet. Tracking of Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Google Compute Engine mentions (15)

  • Please bring neon db to GCP
    Surely you can run your own instances on some sort of "Compute" in GCP? https://cloud.google.com/products/compute. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Pickems website for MSI 2023
    The backend is written in node.js and is deployed using Google Compute Engine. I wanted to learn Kubernetes but it seemed more complicated and also more expensive than GCE. We also use mongodb. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Is it possible to host a Golang Application Free Indefinitely?
    Google seems to have a free tiny VM offering. AWS and Azure have one for a year. Of course, whether Google's will still be free in a year is whoknows. Source: about 2 years ago
  • typical programmer life
    Cloud VM's are the easy answer here. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Migrating Wordpress from GCP to AWS
    You may have noticed some changes to this site. Along with some style and color changes, I've updated the domain, and focused the pages on my technical blog. Originally this site started as an administrative page for the Minecraft servers I am hosting. I built the first Minecraft server in Google Cloud on a general Compute Engine instance, and was running this web page on a separate smaller instance. As the... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Google Compute Engine, you can also consider the following products

Google Cloud Storage - Google Cloud Storage offers developers and IT organizations durable and highly available object storage.

Amazon EC2 - Amazon Web Services offers reliable, scalable, and inexpensive cloud computing services. Free to join, pay only for what you use.

Azure Blob Storage - Use Azure Blob Storage to store all kinds of files. Azure hot, cool, and archive storage is reliable cloud object storage for unstructured data

DigitalOcean - Simplifying cloud hosting. Deploy an SSD cloud server in 55 seconds.

Minio - Minio is an open-source minimal cloud storage server.

Microsoft Azure - Windows Azure and SQL Azure enable you to build, host and scale applications in Microsoft datacenters.