Introduction
Picking a cloud provider can sometimes feel like a full-time job. The number of options and services each provider offers can be overwhelming. When it comes to running containerized applications, AWS and Azure both have options that might work well for your needs. AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) and Azure Container Instances (ACI) both help make it easier to run and scale container workloads in the cloud. But how do they compare in terms of cost?
Cost Comparison
To provide an unbiased comparison of pricing between AWS ECS and Azure ACI, we took a look at the cost calculator pages on each provider's website. For this comparison, we assumed that each container instance ran for 730 hours per month (roughly the equivalent of running 24/7) over the course of a year.
AWS Elastic Container Service
Amazon's Elastic Container Service allows users to “launch and stop Docker-enabled applications with simple API calls”. According to their website, this service charges per task per second, rounding up to the nearest second. For this comparison's sake, we will assume that an ECS task is equivalent to what ACI refers to as a container group. We also assumed that each task would run for 730 hours per month (24/7) for a year.
Based on these assumptions, the monthly cost of running a single container instance on ECS is approximately $8.32. Over the course of a year, this would come out to $99.84.
Azure Container Instances
Azure’s Container Instances makes it “easy to create and manage Docker containers”. For this service, pricing is based on the vCPU and memory usage per second. Specifically, Azure charges for the duration the container group is running in fractional increments, with a minimum charge of one minute. We assume that one ACI container group can equate one ECS task for cost purposes.
According to Azure’s pricing calculator, the cost of running one container group with one vCPU and 1 GB of memory 24/7 per month equates to $10.34. This cost would come out to $124.08 over the course of a year.
Conclusion
When it comes to cost, it appears that AWS Elastic Container Service is a slightly more affordable option than Azure Container Instances. Running a containerized application 24/7 for a year on ECS would cost approximately $99.84, while the same setup on ACI would cost approximately $124.08. Of course, these comparisons are based purely on cost and do not take into account all of the services, features, and benefits of each provider. Ultimately, the best choice of cloud provider for your needs should be based on a variety of factors, including costs as well as features, support, and other benefits.