Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Amazon EC2 vs Rackspace Cloud Servers: What are the differences?
## Key Differences between Amazon EC2 and Rackspace Cloud Servers
Amazon EC2 and Rackspace Cloud Servers are two popular cloud computing services that offer virtual servers to businesses and individuals. Here are some key differences between the two services:
1. **Flexibility of Instances**: Amazon EC2 provides a wide range of instance types, including general-purpose, memory-optimized, compute-optimized, and storage-optimized instances. On the other hand, Rackspace Cloud Servers offer a more limited selection of instance types, primarily focusing on providing standard general-purpose instances, making it easier to choose the right configuration for specific application needs in Amazon EC2.
2. **Pricing Structure**: Amazon EC2 pricing is more complex due to the various instance types, pricing tiers, and additional services offered. On the contrary, Rackspace Cloud Servers have a more simplified pricing structure, making it easier for users to estimate costs without getting overwhelmed by too many options.
3. **Data Center Locations**: Amazon EC2 has a larger global presence with multiple data centers worldwide, allowing users to deploy instances closer to their target audience for reduced latency. In comparison, Rackspace Cloud Servers have a smaller number of data centers, which may limit deployment options in certain regions or countries.
4. **Managed Services and Support**: Amazon EC2 offers a wide range of managed services, such as AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS OpsWorks, and AWS CloudFormation, making it easier for users to set up and manage their applications. Rackspace Cloud Servers focus more on providing personalized support services, including 24/7 customer support and a dedicated account manager for each customer.
5. **Storage Options**: Amazon EC2 offers various storage options, including Amazon EBS, Amazon EFS, and Amazon S3, providing users with flexibility and scalability for their storage needs. Rackspace Cloud Servers primarily rely on Rackspace Cloud Block Storage for additional storage requirements, which may limit the choices available to users.
6. **Networking Capabilities**: Amazon EC2 provides robust networking capabilities, such as Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Elastic Load Balancing, and AWS Direct Connect, allowing users to create secure and scalable network architectures. In contrast, Rackspace Cloud Servers offer basic networking features, which may not be sufficient for complex networking requirements of some users.
In Summary, Amazon EC2 offers more instance flexibility and diverse services, while Rackspace Cloud Servers provide simplified pricing and personalized support, catering to different user preferences and requirements in the cloud computing landscape.
Albeit restricted to only a few places worlwide compared to its peers in the cloud segment, I am yet to find another provider capable of delivering a score over 5000 (Geekbench) in a benchmark on a single CPU machine, and each machine costs $6 a month. For homelab and experienced users who don't need DBaaS or IaaC's, it's a pretty straightforward choice. A more comprehensive review of Vultr's HF machines can be found here.
Our company builds micro saas applications. Based on the application we decide whether to deploy it over one of our shared servers or on a dedicated server.
We decided to Lightsail over EC2.
Lightsail is a lightweight, simplified product offering that has a dramatically simplified console. The instances run in a special VPC, but this aspect is also provisioned automatically, and invisible in the console.
Lightsail supports optionally peering this hidden VPC with your default VPC in the same AWS region, allowing Lightsail instances to access services like EC2 and RDS in the default VPC within the same AWS account.
Bandwidth is unlimited, but of course free bandwidth is not -- however, Lightsail instances do include a significant monthly bandwidth allowance before any bandwidth-related charges apply.
It has predictable pricing with no surprises at the end.
The flexibility of EC2 leads inevitably to complexity. Whereas for Lighsail there is virtually no learning curve, here. You don't even technically need to know how to use SSH with a private key -- the Lightsail console even has a built-in SSH client -- but there is no requirement that you use it. You can access these instances normally, with a standard SSH client.
DigitalOcean was where I began; its USD5/month is extremely competitive and the overall experience as highly user-friendly.
However, their offerings were lacking and integrating with other resources I had on AWS was getting more costly (due to transfer costs on AWS). Eventually I moved the entire project off DO's Droplets and onto AWS's EC2.
One may initially find the cost (w/o free tier) and interface of AWS daunting however with good planning you can achieve highly cost-efficient systems with savings plans, spot instances, etcetera.
Do not dive into AWS head-first! Seriously, don't. Stand back and read pricing documentation thoroughly. You can, not to the fault of AWS, easily go way overbudget. Your first action upon getting your AWS account should be to set up billing alarms for estimated and current bill totals.
We first selected Google Cloud Platform about five years ago, because HIPAA compliance was significantly cheaper and easier on Google compared to AWS. We have stayed with Google Cloud because it provides an excellent command line tool for managing resources, and every resource has a well-designed, well-documented API. SDKs for most of these APIs are available for many popular languages. I have never worked with a cloud platform that's so amenable to automation. Google is also ahead of its competitors in Kubernetes support.
GCE is much more user friendly than EC2, though Amazon has come a very long way since the early days (pre-2010's). This can be seen in how easy it is to edit the storage attached to an instance in GCE: it's under the instance details and is edited inline. In AWS you have to click the instance > click the storage block device (new screen) > click the edit option (new modal) > resize the volume > confirm (new model) then wait a very long time. Google's is nearly instant.
- In both cases, the instance much be shut down.
There also the preference between "user burden-of-security" and automatic security: AWS goes for the former, GCE the latter.
Most bioinformatics shops nowadays are hosting on AWS or Azure, since they have HIPAA tiers and offer enterprise SLA contracts. Meanwhile Heroku hasn't historically supported HIPAA. Rackspace and Google Cloud would be other hosting providers we would consider, but we just don't get requests for them. So, we mostly focus on AWS and Azure support.