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Google Compute Engine Review

GCE



Google Compute Engine was founded in 2008.
It is headquartered in the USA.
It offers VPS, Database, Storage and Networking hosting products.

It has datacenters in:
  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • China
  • Finland
  • Germany
  • Hong Kong
  • India
  • Japan
  • Netherlands
  • Singapore
  • Switzerland
  • Taiwan
  • UK
  • USA

Features and Usability

Features not included in the VPS price are marked as missing below.

Last updated on August 23 2019.

Feature Value Comment
Hourly Billing  Yes
DDOS Protection  Yes

GCE uses the Andromeda network stack which features DDOS protection.
https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2014/04/enter-andromeda-zone-google-cloud-platforms-latest-networking-stack.html
Backups  No

Snapshots and Images are available but are charged extra as storage ($0.026 per GB per month as of 5/8/2016).
Control Panel  Builtin
SSH Keys Setup  Yes
Total Number of Datacenters  20
Number of Datacenter Continents  4
Monitoring Charts  Yes

CPU, disk and network utilization.

Admin REST API  Yes

URL: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/api/getting-started
Upgrade VPS from admin console  No
Mobile Friendly UI  No
Accepted Forms of Payment  Credit Cards
Hidden CPU Model  Yes
Affiliate Program  No
Firewall  No

In VPSBenchmark's opinion

Feature Value Comment
UI Friendliness 

A tad complex but manageable.
Quality of Service 
Compare Features

Google Compute Engine Extra Services

In addition to features included in the VPS plan, Google Compute Engine also offers the following services (possibly for a fee):

Backups   Block storage   Object storage   Load balancer   Floating IP addresses  
Teams   Datastores   Serverless   DDoS protection   Kubernetes  
GPU instances  

VPS Instance Provisioning Time

For each Google Compute Engine VPS trial, we measured how long it took to provision the server.

See also VPS provisioning times for all providers.

Average Provisioning Time Min Provisioning Time Max Provisioning Time Number of VPS Samples
26s 15s 35s 6

Admin UI Screenshots


Cloud Storage Prices

For a comparison of storage features and prices from all providers, please check the Cloud Storage page.

Storage Type Price / GB / month Restriction Description
Block $0.170 SSD Provisioned space Called "Additional Disks" at Google.
Also available in Standard form on HDD at $0.04/GB/month.
https://cloud.google.com/persistent-disk/
Object $0.026 Multi Regional Storage. First 5GB free. Object storage is called "Cloud Storage" at Google.
Nearline and Coldline storage are also available at lower prices and speeds.
https://cloud.google.com/storage/pricing
Snapshots $0.026 https://cloud.google.com/persistent-disk#persistent-disk-pricing

Compare all Google Compute Engine plans in the Screener

The Screener shows all Google Compute Engine plans side by side with their grades in 5 categories.

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Google Compute Engine Plans


Plan Specifications

URL https://developers.google.com/compute/pricing#machinetype
Price per month $13.13
Warning: storage costs are not included in this price.
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 Surcharge
The on-demand price for this plan is $18.50/month, which is 40% more expensive than the monthly price.
The surcharge does not apply if the VPS is used for 30 days or more.
Disk GB 10
Num Cores 1
Memory GB 1.7
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB 100
Burstable CPU
Per core CPU allocation: 50%
Dedicated No

Plan Grades

Screen Google Compute Engine VPS Plans

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 33

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
E D D E D
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Performance Test Results

We conducted 5 different types of tests during the latest trial for Google Compute Engine - g1-small. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Test Remote Timing Test Network Transfers Sysbench Test Endurance Test
Review Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the g1-small plan

This plan was tested 17 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the g1-small plan and the web response times for every one of those.

Start of Trial CPU Overall Grade
Mar 28 2019 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.30GHz E
Aug 16 2018 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.50GHz D
Feb 11 2018 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.30GHz D
Apr 30 2017 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.30GHz
Oct 02 2016 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.30GHz
May 08 2016 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.30GHz
Jan 04 2016 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.30GHz
Jul 27 2015 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.60GHz
Feb 23 2015 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.50GHz
Feb 15 2015 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.50GHz
Sep 22 2014 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.60GHz
Sep 15 2014 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.60GHz
Apr 21 2014 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.60GHz
Apr 15 2014 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.60GHz
Apr 08 2014 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.60GHz
Apr 07 2014 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.60GHz
Mar 31 2014 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.60GHz

Plan Specifications

URL https://cloud.google.com/compute/pricing#predefined_machine_types
Price per month $24.27
Warning: storage costs are not included in this price.
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 Surcharge
The on-demand price for this plan is $34.20/month, which is 40% more expensive than the monthly price.
The surcharge does not apply if the VPS is used for 30 days or more.
Disk GB 20
Num Cores 1
Memory GB 3.75
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB 100
Burstable CPU No
Dedicated No

Plan Grades

Screen Google Compute Engine VPS Plans

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 44

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
C D D E D
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Performance Test Results

We conducted 6 different types of tests during the latest trial for Google Compute Engine - n1-standard-1. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

web_runs Web Test Remote Timing Test Endurance Test Network Transfers Sysbench Test
Review Review Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the n1-standard-1 plan

This plan was tested 4 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the n1-standard-1 plan and the web response times for every one of those.

Start of Trial CPU Overall Grade
Oct 28 2019 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.20GHz D
Nov 07 2018 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.50GHz D
Jan 07 2018 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.30GHz C
Apr 02 2017 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.30GHz

Plan Specifications

URL https://cloud.google.com/compute/pricing#predefined
Price per month $36.23
Warning: storage costs are not included in this price.
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 Surcharge
The on-demand price for this plan is $51.05/month, which is 40% more expensive than the monthly price.
The surcharge does not apply if the VPS is used for 30 days or more.
Disk GB 20
Num Cores 2
Memory GB 1.8
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB 100
Burstable CPU No
Dedicated No

Plan Grades

Screen Google Compute Engine VPS Plans

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 53

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
C C B E C
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Performance Test Results

We conducted 5 different types of tests during the latest trial for Google Compute Engine - n1-highcpu-2. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Test Remote Timing Test Network Transfers Sysbench Test Endurance Test
Review Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the n1-highcpu-2 plan

This plan was tested 1 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the n1-highcpu-2 plan and the web response times for every one of those.

Start of Trial CPU Overall Grade
May 31 2019 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.00GHz C

These are the C2 instances with Cascade Lake CPUs described in the pricing page.

Plan Specifications

URL https://cloud.google.com/compute/vm-instance-pricing#c2_machine_types
Price per month $39.36
Warning: storage costs are not included in this price.
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 Surcharge
The on-demand price for this plan is $55.51/month, which is 41% more expensive than the monthly price.
The surcharge does not apply if the VPS is used for 30 days or more.
Disk GB 0
Num Cores 2
Memory GB 2.0
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB 0
Burstable CPU No
Dedicated No

Plan Grades

Screen Google Compute Engine VPS Plans

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 54

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
C B D E C
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Performance Test Results

We conducted 5 different types of tests during the latest trial for Google Compute Engine - n2-highcpu-2. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Test Network Transfers Sysbench Test Remote Timing Test Endurance Test
Review Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the n2-highcpu-2 plan

This plan was tested 1 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the n2-highcpu-2 plan and the web response times for every one of those.

Start of Trial CPU Overall Grade
Aug 12 2019 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU C

Plan Specifications

URL https://cloud.google.com/compute/pricing#predefined_machine_types
Price per month $48.55
Warning: storage costs are not included in this price.
Warning: network bandwidth costs are not included in this price.
Discount or Surcharge for
long or short term use		 Surcharge
The on-demand price for this plan is $68.40/month, which is 40% more expensive than the monthly price.
The surcharge does not apply if the VPS is used for 30 days or more.
Disk GB 10
Num Cores 2
Memory GB 7.5
Hourly Billing Yes
Virtualization KVM
Data Transfer GB 100
Burstable CPU No
Dedicated No

Plan Grades

Screen Google Compute Engine VPS Plans

Grades are calculated by combining results from web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Grade A is best, grade F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

More details about grades calculation

Overall Score: 50

Web Performance Raw CPU Power Performance Stability Disk IO Performance Network Performance
D C D D C
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Performance Test Results

We conducted 5 different types of tests during the latest trial for Google Compute Engine - n1-standard-2. Review the results and compare this plan to its competitors.

Web Test Remote Timing Test Network Transfers Sysbench Test Endurance Test
Review Review Review Review Review
Compare Compare Compare Compare Compare

Performance trials run on the n1-standard-2 plan

This plan was tested 2 times at vpsbenchmarks.com. The table below shows all trials run on the n1-standard-2 plan and the web response times for every one of those.

Start of Trial CPU Overall Grade
Jan 27 2019 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.50GHz C
Jul 05 2018 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.30GHz C

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