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Google Compute Engine pros and cons

Vendor: Google

4.3 out of 5

17 reviews
88% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Google Compute Engine offers significant cost savings, up to 90% with ephemeral instances and auto-scaling. It is managed by Google, removing hardware provisioning needs, and supports API integration with custom configurations and features like preemptive and Spot instances. However, security is complex; users face quotas, licensing challenges, lack of multi-region support, and slow support. Despite these issues, it distinguishes itself from AWS and Azure.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Google Compute Engine provides cost savings up to 90 percent with ephemeral instances.

Auto-scaling is a highly valuable feature.

Google manages all hardware, eliminating the need for users to provision.

API integration, automation capabilities, and features like preemptive and Spot instances are beneficial.

The custom configuration feature sets it apart from AWS and Azure.

CONS

Google Compute Engine has a complex security environment that is difficult to set up and easy to disrupt.

Users encounter quota issues when deploying VMs within a project.

The licensing process is not straightforward.

Google Compute Engine lacks multi-region support and does not offer tracking mechanisms.

Support response times can be delayed.

Google Compute Engine Pros review quotes

AK

Cloud Engineer at Global Payments Inc.

Jan 20, 2026

What I like the most about Google Compute Engine is SSH access and the different price categories.

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Head of Software Engineering at Abarobotics.com

Aug 28, 2024

I recommend the tool to others since it has high availability features, scalability, and stability.

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Arundeep Veerabhadraiah

Associate Director - Cloud Infrastructure at Kyndryl

Oct 4, 2023

One of GCE's best features is the managed instance groups.

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Google Compute Engine

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Manimaran Tannimalai

Managing Partner at Cloud Analytics Sdn Bhd

Sep 26, 2024

Google Compute is highly scalable.

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Senior Data Scientist at Breuninger

Aug 31, 2023

Google is managing all hardware. You don't need to provision or pre-provision your computer engine.

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DV

Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Sep 8, 2023

From a feature perspective, I find API integration, automation capabilities, and features like preemptive and Spot instances valuable. Migration tools have also been useful.

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RM

Cloud Engineer at Freelancer

Oct 9, 2023

Everything is simple and useful. The initial setup is not challenging.

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Infrastructuer Security at Premise Data

Sep 5, 2023

The solution is readily available, and software engineers can provision it. It is scalable and allows self-service.

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Leonard Niehaus

Solutions Architect at CGI

Feb 22, 2023

The solution helps to direct SSH into the machine at the click of a button. It also helps to deploy container images right from the UI. There is no need to manage the containers on the machine. I also like the tool’s Spot provision model.

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JB

Janagan Balasubramaniam

Engineer at SLT Visioncom Pvt Ltd

Jan 17, 2023

The support for ephemeral instances has been particularly valuable for me. It allows me to significantly reduce costs for temporary virtual machines by automatically destroying them once they are no longer needed, which can result in cost savings of up to 90 percent. Additionally, the solution is easy to use.

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Google Compute Engine Cons review quotes

AK

Cloud Engineer at Global Payments Inc.

Jan 20, 2026

From my personal perspective, I suggest that while setting up Google Compute Engine, the process is hard compared to AWS.

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Head of Software Engineering at Abarobotics.com

Aug 28, 2024

The high availability features in Google are only available in Google Compute Engine in different regions. If I have another server outside Google, the high availability features in Google cannot synchronize with such a server.

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Arundeep Veerabhadraiah

Associate Director - Cloud Infrastructure at Kyndryl

Oct 4, 2023

There have been instances when a customer has tried to deploy a certain number of VMs inside a project, and they come across quota issues.

Read full review

Google Compute Engine

Free Report: Google Compute Engine Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Google Compute Engine. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.

893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Manimaran Tannimalai

Managing Partner at Cloud Analytics Sdn Bhd

Sep 26, 2024

Google has a lack of focus on their products.

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Senior Data Scientist at Breuninger

Aug 31, 2023

It is not very user-friendly for non-experienced users

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DV

Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Sep 8, 2023

The licensing process is not a very straightforward process.

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RM

Cloud Engineer at Freelancer

Oct 9, 2023

It would be better if there was an option to change the background. Like in Gmail, there's an option to change your theme.

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Infrastructuer Security at Premise Data

Sep 5, 2023

Google Compute Engine needs to have multi-region support. It would also be nice to have a tracking mechanism.

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Leonard Niehaus

Solutions Architect at CGI

Feb 22, 2023

I would like to improve the solution’s UI while deploying a container. It is sometimes hard to figure out the container’s details and format that you want to deploy. The tool does not give you a guide to find out the error and why the container is not starting up which could be because you have configured it wrong. This is always a hit on the setup.

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JB

Janagan Balasubramaniam

Engineer at SLT Visioncom Pvt Ltd

Jan 17, 2023

Google Compute Engine does not have many options at a lower tier level. If they had more options it will be better. For example, Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure, have more options and different types of instances, of VMs we can select.

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Show 6 more reviews (out of 16)

Product Categories

Product Categories

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Amazon AWS vs Google Compute Engine

Microsoft Azure vs Google Compute Engine

Google Cloud vs Google Compute Engine

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Google Compute Engine

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Google Compute Engine

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) vs Google Compute Engine

VMware Cloud Foundation vs Google Compute Engine

Google Firebase vs Google Compute Engine

Amazon Bedrock vs Google Compute Engine

SAP S4HANA on AWS vs Google Compute Engine

Tencent Cloud vs Google Compute Engine

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See all alternatives

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