AWS vs Google Cloud: Key Comparison Between AWS And GCP

Are you looking to invest in the best cloud solutions? Then this guide will provide you with detailed AWS vs Google Cloud comparisons out of several options. Choosing from which takes considerable planning, research, cost comparison and more. Via this guide, we aim to decide easy for you by walking you through the following:

• What Are AWS and Google Cloud?
• AWS Vs Google Cloud – Why So Much Competition?
• How AWS Vs Google Cloud compare in terms of:
  • Market share
  • Pricing, Database, Jobs
  • Services and features
  • Support, Compute, Network Services
• Whether you should choose AWS or Google Cloud.

What Are AWS and Google Cloud?

Let’s define each platform individually before we start comparing them:

AWS

As an acronym for Amazon Web Services, AWS is among the most popular and comprehensive cloud platforms, providing more than 200 features from data centers worldwide.

Leading government agencies, large enterprises, and fast-growing startups continue to rely on AWS to innovate faster, become more agile, and lower their costs.

Often referred to as the powerhouse of storage, analytics, delivery/deployment, databases, and networking options, AWS provides a massive collection of flexible, cost-effective, scalable, easy-to-use, and reliable cloud computing solutions. 

Google Cloud

Launched in 2011, Google Cloud is yet another public cloud vendor like AWS, Microsoft Azure (also read, AWS vs Azure), Digital Ocean, etc. This facilitates the customer to use the resources provided by Google, either it’s free or paid depending on the resources used.

From Google Cloud data management to cost management to delivering content around the web to machine learning and AI tools, it offers a diverse suite of computing services.

By allowing firms and other entities to take advantage of Google’s infrastructure, it lets organizations use highly flexible, secure, and intelligent services.

AWS Vs Google Cloud – Why So Much Competition?

It’s clear that both AWS and Google Platform are reliable cloud vendors with cutting-edge technology and an extensive range of cloud products and services. However, you’ll typically have trade-offs when picking one of the two.

While AWS retains its top spot in the market, when you consider progression, Google Cloud is making significant strides. Despite the stark backdrop of the global pandemic, it experienced remarkable surges in revenue. 2022 is expected to be yet another exciting year for the company as well as its competitors.

Now that you have a fair understanding of each of the two cloud platforms, let’s move on to the comparison section:

Differences Between AWS and Google Cloud

AWS Vs Google Cloud: Services and Features Comparison

When it comes to comparing services and features, you need to take into account the level of performance, reliability, and flexibility of each cloud platform based on your business needs. AWS offers more than 200 different services, while we have around 95 services offered by Google.

While Google Cloud does meet the core service needs of most businesses, many large firms need additional services to fulfill the specific requirements of their cloud environments. This makes them lean toward AWS.

To meet the needs of most organizations, both cloud platforms offer predefined instances. But when those predefined instances don’t meet the specific needs of a company, custom virtual machines (VMs) need to be created. This is where Google Cloud outplays AWS.

AWS services and features are very much limited in terms of flexibility. Google Cloud, on the other hand, offers a level of customization of compute instances that AWS simply can’t match. The high flexibility offered by Google Cloud’s custom VMs means you need not pay for capacity that’s not required.

To compare the two platform’s web hosting solutions, visit AWS’s web hosting and Google Cloud’s web hosting pages.

AWS Vs Google Cloud: Pricing Comparison

Cost reduction is among the most important goals for any business, which is why organizations keep finding opportunities to cut down costs. Knowing that cloud computing is one of those areas where significant savings can be made, businesses are even more determined to achieve that goal.

Although the services offered by the two platforms are not identical, the core cloud computing solutions are comparable.

It’s important to note here that with new services being launched by both Google Cloud and AWS, the two cloud vendors are conducting a price war. Because of frequent price cuts, a pricing comparison today may not be the same tomorrow.

Having said that, certain discount packages establish Google Cloud as a low-cost vendor compared to others.

The more your business uses a virtual machine from Google Cloud in a given month, the greater will be the price reductions with the platform’s Sustained Use Discounts program. Unlike the case for AWS, you need not reserve an instance for a specified number of years or pay any upfront fees to get discounts with Google Cloud.

Hence, for many use cases, the virtual machines from Google Cloud happen to be a lot cheaper than AWS. In fact, Google Cloud’s pricing for storage (except for archive storage) is 20% lower than those charged by AWS.

AWS Vs Google Cloud: Support Comparison

Both Google Cloud and AWS come with extensive libraries featuring technical resources and documents such as Google Cloud Documentation and AWS Documentation.

Additionally, each platform has its own thriving cloud community comprising thousands of cloud experts who are more than happy to offer help and support. To explore them, visit Google Cloud Community Support and AWS Discussion Forums.

Using the aforementioned resources, you should be able to resolve most of the issues you encounter. Certain situations, however, require hands-on, advanced expertise, where you should rely on direct, official support from your cloud vendor.

Alongside their basic support, both Google Cloud and AWS provide a range of paid premium plans. When considering a paid plan, you’ll need to research to understand the level of support each offers and choose a plan you need that falls under your budget.

AWS Vs Google Cloud: Market Share Comparison

According to Statista, the worldwide market shares of leading cloud vendors in the first quarter of 2021 included the following:

Based on the data, AWS is currently the market leader in cloud computing services, with Microsoft Azure assuming second place, and Google Cloud securing the third. In fact, AWS’s market share is greater than the shares of its two biggest competitors combined (Azure and Google Cloud).

AWS obviously is leading the market. By launching its platform way back in 2006, it took a head start over both Google and Microsoft. It was after four years that Google entered the IaaS market, which has long time in the tech world.

Yet, AWS’s competitors are quickly catching up. In the latest quarter, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure reported revenue increases of 54% and 51% respectively, compared to AWS’s 37%.

AWS Vs Google Cloud: Big Data Analytics Comparison

Both cloud vendors provide similar building blocks for big data analytics, including:

• Data Processing
• Data Analytics
• Visualizations
• Data Orchestration
• Machine Learning
• Streaming analytics

With its diverse range of services, however, Google Cloud does seem to have an edge over AWS, especially with regard to its Dataflow and DataProc solutions. When it comes to Deep Learning, Google uses Tensorflow, the most widely used ML library nowadays.

Although Google lacks BI dashboards and visualizations, it comes with a strong collection of pre-trained APIs.

AWS Vs Google Cloud- Compute

AWS Vs Google Cloud- Storage

AWS Vs Google Cloud- Databases

AWS Vs Google Cloud- Which is better Paid technology (Salary)

Cloud engineers are paid on a higher scale. There is a significant demand for cloud skills in recent times and it’s increasing day by day.

AWS and GCP both the engineers are paid almost equally in the market. It all depends on the skills of the person. Certifications also add to reaching the higher pay scale.

AWS Vs Google Cloud- Job Opportunities

The demand for cloud engineers is increasing and it will be more in the future owing to many clients opting to move to the cloud. So the point is it all depends on the current market share.

As it’s well known that the AWS share is the highest hence the job opportunity will automatically be more as compared to any other cloud service.

AWS Vs Google Cloud- Difficulty Levels

Every cloud platform is almost equally difficult but owing to the documentation and study materials available for AWS it makes it easier. AWS themselves have provided fantastic documentation.

Apart from that, we can also find a lot of courses available online for AWS, making it easier to catch up.

AWS Vs Google Cloud- Networking Services

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Also, read below AWS article.

• What Is AWS Lambda
• AWS Vs Bluehost
• (Amazon Web Services) AWS Vs Azure
• Hosting Websites On AWS For Free
• How Secure Is AWS And How Does It Work
• Overview Of AWS Cloud Management Tools And Usages
• [Solved] How To Reactivate Suspended AWS Account- All Steps
• How To Delete AWS Account [Suspended | Partner | Training]
• Introduction To IAM AWS And How It Works
• Introduction To VMWare AWS Hybrid Cloud?

Conclusion

To sum it up, AWS and Google Cloud are both great cloud platforms, so you need not worry about reputation. Before making a choice, you’ll need to understand your priorities in terms of flexibility, affordability, and other factors your business has, and how much you can pay for them.

In the end, your collective, unique business needs will help you make a choice. We truly hope that this AWS vs Google Cloud guide helps you make the right choice and you end up making the most of your chosen cloud platform.

For the latest updates about Google Cloud and AWS, stay tuned for more insights from Steps to Cloud.

Keep Clouding!!

Steve

I am an Amazon Web Services Professional, having more than 11 years of experience in AWS and other technologies. Extensively working in various AWS tools like S3, Lambda, API, Kinesis, Load Balancers, EKS, ECS, and many more. Working as a Solution Architect and Technology Lead for Architecting and implementing the same for different clients. He provides expert solutions around the world and especially in countries like the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Check out the complete profile on About us.