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Google Cloud vs Google Compute Engine comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.7
Organizations achieve ROI by migrating to Google Cloud, reducing costs, enhancing efficiency, and leveraging cost-effective and free features.
Sentiment score
6.3
Compute Engine offers initial cost savings and performance boosts, but financial benefits and precise savings remain challenging to gauge.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Google Cloud support varies, with mixed experiences; many value documentation, some prefer partners, and response improvements are needed.
Sentiment score
6.3
Google Compute Engine support receives mixed reviews; some praise responsiveness while others note inadequate assistance and delayed responses.
I consider them good partners when it comes to support.
We have consulted Google support several times, and we received a quick response.
Cloud support directly is not strong, but via partners is strong.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Google Cloud is praised for its scalability and affordability, suitable for enterprise use, despite some cost concerns.
Sentiment score
8.0
Google Compute Engine is scalable and versatile, suitable for varying workloads, with strong network and security features.
If I had to rate scalability from one to ten, I would rate it a nine as we have never faced any issues with scalability.
This solution is suitable for enterprise-level organizations, particularly in finance and healthcare domains where there is substantial data volume.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Google Cloud is generally stable and reliable, though some users note limited issue visibility and minor performance differences.
Sentiment score
8.3
Google Compute Engine is highly reliable with a 99.99% SLA, frequently surpassing performance expectations and stability compared to competitors.
 

Room For Improvement

Google Cloud needs improved user-friendliness, cost transparency, multilingual resources, integration, security, and support for right-to-left languages.
Google Compute Engine users seek UI enhancements, expanded options, improved security, synchronization, and better support and marketing focus.
If the hierarchy or similarities were the same, that would help developers more conveniently migrate from a traditional SQL server to BigQuery.
Providing more hypervisors would be beneficial.
The logging could be improved; there's currently no intuitive way to filter logs on the Google console, especially for individuals who are not familiar with query languages.
 

Setup Cost

Google Cloud's pricing is scalable and efficient but needs more flexibility, transparency, and modular offerings to satisfy users fully.
Google Compute Engine offers competitive, flexible pricing, often cheaper than Azure and AWS, with savings possible through resource optimization.
As far as I know, it is a little more expensive compared to other cloud options.
 

Valuable Features

Google Cloud offers ease of use, scalability, robust hosting, excellent security, and seamless service integration with global accessibility.
Google Compute Engine offers customizable VMs, scalability, cost-effectiveness, security features, and diverse compute and storage options.
The most valuable features of Google Cloud for us are the integration with Kubernetes, IAM, Istio integration, and Terraform capabilities.
If customers use different technologies within their environment, GCP cannot offer a full performance analysis covering all the disclosures.
We mainly use Google Cloud products that are centered around Data Warehouse, specifically BigQuery.
In GCP, there's a custom configuration feature unlike AWS and Azure.
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Cloud
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (4th)
Google Compute Engine
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
13th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud is 6.1%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Compute Engine is 1.0%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Google Cloud6.1%
Google Compute Engine1.0%
Other92.9%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Saurav Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration with Kubernetes and flexibility improve our application deployment process
The logging could be improved; there's currently no intuitive way to filter logs on the Google console, especially for individuals who are not familiar with query languages. Our non-technical users find it difficult to access logs. Additionally, the user interface could be more user-friendly and intuitive compared to our previous experience with AWS.
Arundeep Veerabhadraiah - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly scalable and seamless platform which is easily automated
One of GCE's best features is the managed instance groups. We typically use managed instance groups for high availability. You can set certain parameters for managed instance groups where if the load of the computer or server increases beyond 80%, for example, the solution will automatically spawn another instance, and the load will be automatically divided between two systems. If the load is 80% of one of the VMs or GCEs, once the load is divided, it comes down to 40%, so the availability of your systems goes up. However, that all depends on the parameters or configurations we put on the instance group. You also have regular health checks on these managed instance groups, which are configurable. If these health checks determine something wrong with the VM, they will automatically kick off or spawn a new GCE instance. This way, the outage time is less. Previously, on-premises, unless somebody reported the issue to the helpdesk saying that a particular service was unavailable, then a support team would need to troubleshoot what went wrong, which takes a long time. At least 30 minutes to one hour. But by using these managed instance groups, we can reduce the outage time, and second, we can configure them with minimal resources, bringing down our cost. And if the load increases, the managed instance groups automatically respond to new things. Subsequently, our costs decrease. We have a wide range of VMs. There are general-purpose VMs that can be used for hosting general-purpose applications. If some of our applications are memory intensive, then we have a lot of VMs in the M1 series. We can use a range of memory-optimized VMs for these things. We have C-series VMs for compute-intensive applications. If we use some mathematical formulas and require a very high throughput from that, there are GPU-optimized VMs used for machine learning or 3D visualizations in rendering software. GPU-enabled VMs are pretty powerful and responsive. Again, the best part is that we can spin them up when we need them, and once we're done with our work, we can shut them down, allowing tremendous cost savings for any customer. Previously, if we wanted a very high-configuration VM, we had to own the entire hardware and have it on our on-prem data center. And once we'd done with a particular activity, the system would just be lying there on our premises. That is not the case now. We use and decommission it, so we're only billed for the time we're using the product. One of the best things is the preemptible VMs or Spot VMs. These are the cheapest VMs in Google Cloud, but it has a string attached to it where Google can shut down these VMs whenever Google teams split. You only get about 90 seconds notice before they shut down this particular VM. There are scenarios where customers can use these preemptible VMs, for example, when running a batch job. Batch jobs are run once or twice daily, depending on the customer's requirement. Once we are done running these batches, we can decommission the VM. Even if, in the middle of this batch job, Google shuts down these VMs, we can pick up the processing from wherever the VM left off. These are some of the beautiful things we have on Google Cloud concerning the Compute Engine.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
26%
Computer Software Company
10%
Performing Arts
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Cloud?
Google Cloud is perceived as a cost-effective and user-friendly option, especially compared to AWS. The current affordability and ease of use make it suitable for medium-sized companies. While the ...
What needs improvement with Google Cloud?
Since I'm working with BigQuery, I had to invest time to become familiar with the system. As I was working in SQL server previously, I had an idea that we would have a server, and inside the server...
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud?
I currently work with Google Cloud, mainly with BigQuery. I have recently started, approximately three months ago. I primarily use Google Cloud for BigQuery operations and data storage, similar to ...
What do you like most about Google Compute Engine?
Everything is simple and useful. The initial setup is not challenging.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Compute Engine?
Google resources are cheaper compared to AWS and Microsoft Azure. Among the three, Google is the cheapest option.
What needs improvement with Google Compute Engine?
Google has a lack of focus on their products. They have many products in various areas of the market, but they do not productize or appeal to the market effectively. They should concentrate on prod...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Allthecooks, BetterCloud, Bluecore, Cosentry, Evite, Ezakus, HTC, Infectious Media, iStreamPlanet, Mendelics, SageMathCloud, Sedex, Treeptik, Wibigoo, Wix, zulily, Zync
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud vs. Google Compute Engine and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.