AWS vs Azure - 컴퓨트 인스턴스 가격
AWS vs Azure — Compute Instance Pricing
AWS EC2 and Azure Virtual Machines are the two most widely used 컴퓨트 services, and choosing between them on 가격 alone can save your team thousands of dollars per month. This 비교 puts equivalent general-purpose 인스턴스 families side by side, using published list 가격s for the baseline US 리전s (us-east-1 for AWS, East US for Azure).
Equivalent General-Purpose Instances
The table below matches AWS m5 and m6i 인스턴스s with the Azure Dv4/Dv5 series by vCPU and memory. All 가격s are for Linux on-demand hourly rates.
| vCPU | RAM | AWS instance | AWS on-demand | Azure instance | Azure on-demand |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 8 GiB | m5.large | $0.096 | D2s_v5 | $0.096 |
| 4 | 16 GiB | m5.xlarge | $0.192 | D4s_v5 | $0.192 |
| 8 | 32 GiB | m5.2xlarge | $0.384 | D8s_v5 | $0.384 |
| 16 | 64 GiB | m5.4xlarge | $0.768 | D16s_v5 | $0.768 |
On-demand pricing for these general-purpose families is effectively identical between AWS and Azure at the list level. The real 비용 difference appears when you apply reservation 할인s.
1-Year Reserved Instance Pricing
| vCPU | RAM | AWS 1-yr RI (No Upfront) | Azure 1-yr RI |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 8 GiB | $0.058 (-40%) | $0.057 (-41%) |
| 4 | 16 GiB | $0.115 (-40%) | $0.114 (-41%) |
| 8 | 32 GiB | $0.230 (-40%) | $0.228 (-41%) |
| 16 | 64 GiB | $0.460 (-40%) | $0.456 (-41%) |
Azure’s 1-year Reserved Instances come in fractionally cheaper for the equivalent size, but the difference is within 1 percent and rarely the deciding factor. The bigger lever is whether your 워크로드 is steady-state enough to justify the commitment in the first place — see our 예약 인스턴스s 가이드 for the strategy.
Spot / Preemptible Pricing
| vCPU | RAM | AWS Spot | Azure Spot VM |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 8 GiB | ~$0.029 (-70%) | ~$0.025 (-74%) |
| 4 | 16 GiB | ~$0.058 (-70%) | ~$0.050 (-74%) |
Spot pricing fluctuates with supply, but Azure Spot VMs are consistently 10 to 15 percent cheaper than AWS Spot Instances for equivalent general-purpose sizes. If your 워크로드 is interruptible — batch jobs, CI runners, stateless web tiers — Azure Spot can be the cheaper default. See our 스팟 인스턴스s 가이드 for interruption-handling patterns.
Key Differences Beyond Price
- Billing granularity — AWS bills per second with a 60-second minimum; Azure bills per minute rounded up. For short-lived 워크로드s, the per-minute rounding can add 5 to 10 percent to the bill.
- B-series burstable — Azure’s
B-seriesis significantly cheaper than AWSt3for the same vCPU/RAM at low utilization, because Azure does not charge for CPU credits above the baseline. - Azure Hybrid Benefit — organizations with existing Windows Server or SQL Server licenses can reuse them on Azure for up to 85 percent off, a 할인 AWS cannot match.
Verdict
For Linux general-purpose on-demand and 예약 워크로드s, AWS and Azure are within 1 percent of each other and the choice should be driven by team expertise and existing tooling. For Windows 워크로드s with existing licenses, Azure Hybrid Benefit typically wins. For interruptible 워크로드s, Azure Spot VMs are the cheaper default.