Amazon EC2 vs SoftLayer vs Slicehost
Published: 29 Aug 2008
A while back I did a bit of research on how much it would cost to run a modest application on each of the following services:
- Amazon EC2 - elastic compute cloud, provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud.
- SoftLayer.com - cheaper alternative to Rackspace.com, various configurations of dedicated machines available.
- Slicehost.com - "Built for developers", VPS via Xen virtualization software and RAID 10 (or 1+0) disks.
Although the comparison isn’t exactly apples to apples, it still gives you a rough idea.
| Feature | Amazon EC2 Small | Amazon EC2 Large | SoftLayer | Slicehost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RAM (GB) | 1.7 | 7.5 | 2 | 2 |
| Disk space (GB) | 160 | 850 | 250 | 80 |
| CPU Type | 1.2 GHz Xenon | 4x1.2GHZ | 2.4 GHz Xenon | n/a |
| Kernel | 32 bit | 64 bit | 64 bit | varies |
| Bandwidth (GB/month) | 2000 | 2000 | 2000 | 800 |
| CPU Cost (per month) | $73.20 | $292.80 | $179.00 | $140.00 |
| Bandwidth Cost ($/month) | $352.00 | $352.00 | $0.00 * | $0.00 * |
| Total Monthly Cost | $425.20 | $644.80 | $179.00 | $140.00 |
* Bandwidth overage fees: SoftLayer charges $0.10/GB, Slicehost charges $0.30/GB
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