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](http://aws.amazon.com/ec2) - elastic compute cloud, provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud.
- [SoftLayer.com](http://www.softlayer.com) - cheaper alternative to [Rackspace.com](http://www.rackspace.com), various configurations of dedicated machines available.
- [Slicehost.com](http://www.slicehost.com) - "Built for developers", VPS via Xen virtualization software and [RAID](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks) 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