Side-by-side decision briefs that show when each product tends to fit, what usually breaks first, and how pricing behavior differs.
Choose EC2 if you’re AWS-first and want VM compute that matches AWS networking, IAM, and governance patterns. Choose GCE if your stack is GCP-first and you want VM compute aligned with GCP services and tooling. Both work well—long-term ownership, cost controls, and ecosystem gravity decide more than instance parity.
Choose EC2 when you’re AWS-first and want to align VM compute with AWS networking/IAM patterns and managed services. Choose Azure VMs when you’re Microsoft/Azure-first and want compute aligned with Azure governance and tooling. Both are viable; your ecosystem alignment and operating model will dominate the outcome.
Choose GCE if your stack is GCP-first and you want VM compute aligned to GCP services and tooling. Choose Azure VMs if you’re Microsoft/Azure-first and need compute aligned to Azure governance and enterprise patterns. Both work; alignment and ownership maturity matter more than instance differences.
Choose Droplets if you want a very simple control plane and predictable pricing for standard workloads with minimal overhead. Choose Linode if you want VPS simplicity but need a different footprint or platform fit. Both are good for SMB workloads; validate regions, managed add-ons, and networking needs.
Choose Hetzner when price/performance is a top constraint and your deployment footprint aligns with its regions. Choose DigitalOcean when you want a developer-friendly managed experience and predictable VPS workflows with broader platform ecosystem expectations. Both can run production workloads—validate region and support fit early.
Choose Hetzner if cost/performance and region fit dominate the decision. Choose Linode if you want predictable VPS compute with a platform model that fits your operational expectations. Both can host production workloads; validate regions, networking needs, and support model early.
Choose Droplets if you want a simpler control plane, predictable VPS workflows, and your workload doesn’t need deep hyperscaler managed services. Choose EC2 if you need AWS ecosystem depth, enterprise governance patterns, and flexibility for complex architectures—accepting the operational overhead.
Choose Linode when you want predictable VPS compute for standard workloads with less platform complexity. Choose EC2 when you need AWS ecosystem breadth, enterprise governance patterns, and a flexible foundation for complex architectures—accepting higher operational ownership and governance overhead.
Choose Fly.io when latency and multi-region presence are core requirements and you want a platform designed for global placement. Choose Render when you want a simple managed PaaS for standard web apps and APIs and prefer fewer platform constraints/operational surprises. Both reduce infra ownership; pick based on your deployment model needs.
Choose Workers when your workload fits an edge runtime and you need logic close to users with global distribution. Choose Fly.io when you need a broader app platform model for services that don’t fit edge constraints. The right choice depends on runtime constraints, state model, and how much flexibility your architecture needs.
Pricing and availability may change. Verify details on the official website.