AWS vs Azure: Pricing Comparison (2026)
Updated May 21, 2026AWSAzure
Overall Winner
AWS
AWS Wins
30
Azure Wins
24
Ties
6
Pricing Analysis
AWS wins 30 of 60 price comparisons, averaging 60.1% lower prices in categories where it leads.
Prices range from $0.000001/hr to $125.00/hr across comparable tiers.
- ●Azure leads in EC2 (3/3 tiers, avg 40% difference)
- ●AWS leads in S3 (3/3 tiers, avg 76% difference)
- ●Azure leads in EFS (2/2 tiers, avg 98% difference)
- ●Azure leads in DynamoDB (2/3 tiers, avg 26% difference)
- ●AWS leads in OpenSearch (2/3 tiers, avg 54% difference)
Choose Azure
Best for EC2 workloads
Choose AWS
Best for S3 workloads
Side-by-Side Pricing
Comparing AWS and Azure across 60 equivalent tiers. On-demand hourly rates are shown in USD for the default region.
Sort by:
Family:
| Category | AWS AWS | Azure Azure | Diff | Cheapest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
EC2 - Accelerated Computing - 8 vCPU, 15 GB RAM | $0.6500/hr g2.2xlarge ($474.50/mo) | $0.3030/hr Standard_B8als_v2 ($221.19/mo) | +53.4% | Azure |
EC2 - General Purpose - 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM | $0.1153/hr m8gd.large ($84.18/mo) | $0.0712/hr Standard_D2as_v5 ($51.98/mo) | +38.3% | Azure |
EC2 - Storage Optimized - 4 vCPU, 32 GB RAM | $0.4746/hr i8ge.xlarge ($346.46/mo) | $0.3430/hr Standard_L4s ($250.39/mo) | +27.7% | Azure |
S3 - Storage - Storage | $0.0010/hr TimedStorage-INT-DAA-ByteHrs ($0.72/mo) | $0.0025/hr Cool RA-GZRS - Cool RA-GZRS Blob Inventory ($1.82/mo) | +60.4% | AWS |
S3 - AmazonS3 - S3-API-Dual-Decyrption | $0.0030/hr S3DSSE-Out-Bytes ($2.19/mo) | $0.0130/hr Cool GZRS - Cool Read Operations ($9.49/mo) | +76.9% | AWS |
S3 - API Request - API Request | $0.0100/hr Retrieval-ZIA ($7.30/mo) | $0.1200/hr Premium - Premium ZRS Provisioned Base Unit ($87.60/mo) | +91.7% | AWS |
EBS - General Purpose - 40 vCPU, 160 GB RAM | $2.0000/hr m4.10xlarge ($1,460.00/mo) | $13.1400/hr Premium_SSD_Managed_Disks_P40 - P40 LRS Disk Mount ($9,592.20/mo) | +84.8% | AWS |
EFS - Storage - Storage | $0.0080/hr USE1-ArchiveTimedStorage-ByteHrs ($5.84/mo) | $0.0002/hr HDD - HDD GZRS Provisioned Throughput MiBPS ($0.15/mo) | +97.4% | Azure |
EFS - Storage - Storage | $0.0133/hr USE1-IATimedStorage-Z-ByteHrs ($9.71/mo) | $0.0001/hr SSD - SSD LRS Overflow Snapshot Usage ($0.10/mo) | +99.0% | Azure |
RDS - Database Instance - 16 vCPU, 64 GB RAM | $11.4752/hr db.m5.4xlarge ($8,376.90/mo) | $2.1373/hr 16 vCore - vCore ($1,560.21/mo) | +81.4% | Azure |
DynamoDB - Provisioned IOPS - Provisioned IOPS | $0.0002/hr IA-ReadCapacityUnit-Hrs ($0.12/mo) | $0.0002/hr Premium SSD Managed Disk - Premium SSD Managed Disk ($0.15/mo) | +23.1% | Tie |
DynamoDB - Amazon DynamoDB Restore Data Size - Amazon DynamoDB Restore Data Size | $0.1500/hr USE1-RestoreDataSize-Bytes ($109.50/mo) | $0.0764/hr 2 vCore - burstable - vCore ($55.77/mo) | +49.1% | Azure |
DynamoDB - Database Storage - Database Storage | $0.2000/hr USE1-TimedPITRStorage-ByteHrs ($146.00/mo) | $0.1900/hr D2s - D2s ($138.70/mo) | +5.0% | Azure |
ElastiCache - Cache Instance - 4 vCPU, 12.93 GB RAM | $0.0952/hr cache.m5.xlarge ($69.50/mo) | $2.2200/hr Azure_Redis_Cache_Premium_P4_Cache - P4 Cache Instance ($1,620.60/mo) | +95.7% | AWS |
OpenSearch - Amazon OpenSearch Service Volume - Amazon OpenSearch Service Volume | $0.0000/hr OpenSearch-Vectors-Request-Tier3 ($0.00/mo) | $0.0000/hr Agentic Retrieval Minimum Reasoning - Agentic Retrieval Minimum Reasoning Tokens ($0.02/mo) | +88.6% | Tie |
OpenSearch - Amazon OpenSearch Service Instance - m8g.2xlarge.search | $0.5970/hr m8g.2xlarge.search ($435.81/mo) | $1.3440/hr Standard S2 - Standard S2 Unit ($981.12/mo) | +55.6% | AWS |
OpenSearch - Amazon OpenSearch Service Instance - i4i.24xlarge.search | $13.1790/hr i4i.24xlarge.search ($9,620.67/mo) | $16.1200/hr Semantic Ranker - Semantic Ranker Unit ($11,767.60/mo) | +18.2% | AWS |
Lambda - Serverless - Serverless | $0.0161/hr Lambda-Managed-Instances-r7g.large-Management-Hours ($11.73/mo) | $0.1730/hr Premium - Premium vCPU Duration ($126.29/mo) | +90.7% | AWS |
Fargate - Compute - x2gd.medium | $0.0100/hr x2gd.medium ($7.31/mo) | $0.0050/hr Dedicated - Dedicated Memory Usage ($3.63/mo) | +50.3% | Azure |
Fargate - Compute - r6id.2xlarge | $0.0726/hr r6id.2xlarge ($52.98/mo) | $0.1000/hr Dedicated - Dedicated Plan Management ($73.00/mo) | +27.4% | AWS |
Fargate - Compute - m8gd.4xlarge | $0.1107/hr m8gd.4xlarge ($80.82/mo) | $4.4076/hr Dedicated - Dedicated GPU Usage ($3,217.55/mo) | +97.5% | AWS |
API Gateway - Amazon API Gateway Cache - Amazon API Gateway Cache | $1.0000/hr USE1-ApiGatewayCacheUsage:58.2GB ($730.00/mo) | $0.9589/hr Standard v2 - Standard v2 Unit ($700.00/mo) | +4.1% | Azure |
API Gateway - Amazon API Gateway Portals - Amazon API Gateway Portals | $125.0000/hr USE1-APIGateway-Portal-Months ($91,250.00/mo) | $21.7700/hr Isolated - Isolated Unit ($15,892.10/mo) | +82.6% | Azure |
EKS - Compute - Compute | $0.0283/hr EKS-Auto:r8g.xlarge-management-hours ($20.64/mo) | $0.0145/hr Automatic - Automatic Storage Optimized ($10.58/mo) | +48.8% | Azure |
EKS - Compute - Compute | $0.4424/hr EKS-Auto:r6gd.16xlarge-management-hours ($322.93/mo) | $0.6000/hr Standard - Standard Long Term Support ($438.00/mo) | +26.3% | AWS |
EKS - Compute - Compute | $0.7789/hr EKS-Auto:inf2.24xlarge-management-hours ($568.58/mo) | $0.0121/hr Automatic - Automatic Confidential Compute ($8.85/mo) | +98.4% | Azure |
ECR - EC2 Container Registry - EC2 Container Registry | $0.0200/hr USE1-AsyncActions-ImageSigning ($14.60/mo) | $0.1000/hr Premium - Data Stored ($73.00/mo) | +80.0% | AWS |
ECR - EC2 Container Registry - EC2 Container Registry | $0.1000/hr TimedStorage-ByteHrs ($73.00/mo) | $0.3333/hr Premium - Premium Connected registry ($243.33/mo) | +70.0% | AWS |
ECR - EC2 Container Registry - EC2 Container Registry | $0.1000/hr USE1-TimedStorage-Archive-ByteHrs ($73.00/mo) | $1.6666/hr Premium - Premium Registry Replication Unit ($1,216.62/mo) | +94.0% | AWS |
Route 53 - DNS Query - DNS Query | $0.7500/hr USE1-DNS-ProfileBasePackage ($547.50/mo) | $0.6000/hr DNS Security Policy Queries ($438.00/mo) | +20.0% | Azure |
ELB - Load Balancer-Application - Load Balancer-Application | $0.0050/hr TS-LoadBalancerUsage ($3.65/mo) | $0.0040/hr Gateway ($2.92/mo) | +20.0% | Azure |
ELB - Load Balancer - Load Balancer | $0.0080/hr DataProcessing-Bytes ($5.84/mo) | $0.0100/hr Gateway ($7.30/mo) | +20.0% | AWS |
ELB - Load Balancer-Network - Load Balancer-Network | $0.0125/hr LoadBalancerUsage ($9.13/mo) | $0.0125/hr Gateway ($9.13/mo) | 0.0% | Tie |
SageMaker - Machine Learning - Machine Learning | $0.0360/hr USE1-Bbox:PublicTaskAt0.036 ($26.28/mo) | $0.0200/hr Safety Evaluations Input tokens - Evaluation Input Tokens ($14.60/mo) | +44.4% | Azure |
SageMaker - Amazon SageMaker - Amazon SageMaker | $0.1510/hr USE1-UnifiedStudio:Notebook-sc.r6i.large ($110.23/mo) | $0.5260/hr NC4asT4 v3 - NC4asT4 v3 Capacity Unit ($383.98/mo) | +71.3% | AWS |
SageMaker - ML Instance - ml.r6i.8xlarge | $2.4190/hr ml.r6i.8xlarge ($1,765.87/mo) | $3.2000/hr NV36adsA10v5 - NV36adsA10v5 Capacity Unit ($2,336.00/mo) | +24.4% | AWS |
Bedrock - Amazon Bedrock - Amazon Bedrock | $0.0001/hr USE1-gpt-oss-120b-input-tokens-flex ($0.05/mo) | $0.0000/hr gpt-4.1-nano-ft cached input global - gpt-4.1-nano-ft cached input global Tokens ($0.02/mo) | +66.7% | Tie |
Bedrock - Amazon Bedrock - Amazon Bedrock | $0.0006/hr USE1-moonshotai.kimi-k2.5-input-tokens ($0.44/mo) | $0.0055/hr gpt-image-1-inp-txt-rgnl - gpt 4o mini dev ft inpt glbl Tokens ($4.01/mo) | +89.1% | AWS |
Bedrock - Amazon Bedrock - Amazon Bedrock | $0.0050/hr USE1-Nova2.0Pro-text-output-tokens-cross-region-global-batch ($3.65/mo) | $0.5000/hr Sora 2 pro high res glbl - Sora 2 pro high res glbl Second ($365.00/mo) | +99.0% | AWS |
Redshift - Serverless - Serverless | $0.3750/hr USE1-Redshift:ServerlessUsage ($273.75/mo) | $0.5790/hr D4 v3 - D4 v3 AHB ($422.67/mo) | +35.2% | AWS |
Redshift - Redshift Data Scan - Redshift Data Scan | $5.0000/hr USE1-DataScanned ($3,650.00/mo) | $1.9380/hr D8 v3 - D8 v3 License Included ($1,414.74/mo) | +61.2% | Azure |
SNS - AmazonSNS - SNS-Standard-Payload-MessageFiltering-Filtered-Out | $0.0900/hr PL-Filtered-Out ($65.70/mo) | $0.0400/hr Standard - Standard Throughput Unit ($29.20/mo) | +55.6% | Azure |
SNS - AmazonSNS - SNS-Standard-Payload-MessageFiltering-Filter-Matched | $0.0900/hr PL-Filter-Matched ($65.70/mo) | $0.0600/hr Standard - Standard Operations ($43.80/mo) | +33.3% | Azure |
SNS - AmazonSNS - SNS-Publish-Payload | $0.0170/hr F-Ingress-Tier1 ($12.41/mo) | $0.6000/hr Standard - Standard Event Operations ($438.00/mo) | +97.2% | AWS |
Kinesis - Kinesis Streams - Kinesis Streams | $0.0130/hr ReadBytes ($9.49/mo) | $0.0150/hr Basic - Basic Throughput Unit ($10.95/mo) | +13.3% | AWS |
Kinesis - Kinesis Streams - Kinesis Streams | $0.0200/hr Extended-ShardHour ($14.60/mo) | $0.0900/hr Standard - Standard Kafka Endpoint ($65.70/mo) | +77.8% | AWS |
Kinesis - Kinesis Streams - Kinesis Streams | $0.0800/hr OnDemand-BilledIncomingBytes ($58.40/mo) | $6.8490/hr Dedicated - Dedicated Capacity Unit ($4,999.77/mo) | +98.8% | AWS |
Step Functions - AWS Step Functions - AWS Step Functions | $0.0000/hr USE1-StepFunctions-Request ($0.00/mo) | $0.0000/hr Consumption - Consumption Built-in Actions ($0.02/mo) | +96.0% | Tie |
CloudWatch - API Request - API Request | $0.0000/hr CW:GMWI-Metrics ($0.01/mo) | $0.0000/hr Notifications - Notifications Web hook ($0.00/mo) | +70.0% | Tie |
CloudWatch - Metric - Metric | $0.3000/hr CW:MetricMonitorUsage ($219.00/mo) | $0.1000/hr SMS Country Code 220 - SMS Country Code 220 Notification ($73.00/mo) | +66.7% | Azure |
Showing 50 of 60 rows
When to Choose AWS AWS
- ✓S3 - Storage - Storage - saves $1.09/mo (60.4% cheaper)
- ✓S3 - AmazonS3 - S3-API-Dual-Decyrption - saves $7.30/mo (76.9% cheaper)
- ✓S3 - API Request - API Request - saves $80.30/mo (91.7% cheaper)
- ✓EBS - General Purpose - 40 vCPU, 160 GB RAM - saves $8,132.20/mo (84.8% cheaper)
- ✓ElastiCache - Cache Instance - 4 vCPU, 12.93 GB RAM - saves $1,551.10/mo (95.7% cheaper)
- ✓OpenSearch - Amazon OpenSearch Service Instance - m8g.2xlarge.search - saves $545.31/mo (55.6% cheaper)
- ✓OpenSearch - Amazon OpenSearch Service Instance - i4i.24xlarge.search - saves $2,146.93/mo (18.2% cheaper)
- ✓Lambda - Serverless - Serverless - saves $114.54/mo (90.7% cheaper)
- ✓Fargate - Compute - r6id.2xlarge - saves $20.00/mo (27.4% cheaper)
- ✓Fargate - Compute - m8gd.4xlarge - saves $3,136.74/mo (97.5% cheaper)
- ✓EKS - Compute - Compute - saves $115.05/mo (26.3% cheaper)
- ✓ECR - EC2 Container Registry - EC2 Container Registry - saves $58.40/mo (80% cheaper)
- ✓ECR - EC2 Container Registry - EC2 Container Registry - saves $170.31/mo (70% cheaper)
- ✓ECR - EC2 Container Registry - EC2 Container Registry - saves $1,143.62/mo (94% cheaper)
- ✓ELB - Load Balancer - Load Balancer - saves $1.46/mo (20% cheaper)
- ✓SageMaker - Amazon SageMaker - Amazon SageMaker - saves $273.75/mo (71.3% cheaper)
- ✓SageMaker - ML Instance - ml.r6i.8xlarge - saves $570.13/mo (24.4% cheaper)
- ✓Bedrock - Amazon Bedrock - Amazon Bedrock - saves $3.58/mo (89.1% cheaper)
- ✓Bedrock - Amazon Bedrock - Amazon Bedrock - saves $361.35/mo (99% cheaper)
- ✓Redshift - Serverless - Serverless - saves $148.92/mo (35.2% cheaper)
- ✓SNS - AmazonSNS - SNS-Publish-Payload - saves $425.59/mo (97.2% cheaper)
- ✓Kinesis - Kinesis Streams - Kinesis Streams - saves $1.46/mo (13.3% cheaper)
- ✓Kinesis - Kinesis Streams - Kinesis Streams - saves $51.10/mo (77.8% cheaper)
- ✓Kinesis - Kinesis Streams - Kinesis Streams - saves $4,941.37/mo (98.8% cheaper)
- ✓Secrets Manager - Secret - Secret - saves $438.00/mo (60% cheaper)
- ✓Glue - AWS Glue - AWS Glue - saves $1,938.88/mo (83.6% cheaper)
- ✓Glue - AWS Glue - AWS Glue - saves $14,578.10/mo (93% cheaper)
- ✓WAF - Web Application Firewall - Web Application Firewall - saves $547.50/mo (42.9% cheaper)
- ✓Direct Connect - Direct Connect - Direct Connect - saves $116.80/mo (84.2% cheaper)
- ✓Direct Connect - Direct Connect - Direct Connect - saves $270.10/mo (75.5% cheaper)
When to Choose Azure Azure
- ✓EC2 - Accelerated Computing - 8 vCPU, 15 GB RAM - saves $253.31/mo (53.4% cheaper)
- ✓EC2 - General Purpose - 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM - saves $32.19/mo (38.3% cheaper)
- ✓EC2 - Storage Optimized - 4 vCPU, 32 GB RAM - saves $96.07/mo (27.7% cheaper)
- ✓EFS - Storage - Storage - saves $5.69/mo (97.4% cheaper)
- ✓EFS - Storage - Storage - saves $9.64/mo (99% cheaper)
- ✓RDS - Database Instance - 16 vCPU, 64 GB RAM - saves $6,816.67/mo (81.4% cheaper)
- ✓DynamoDB - Amazon DynamoDB Restore Data Size - Amazon DynamoDB Restore Data Size - saves $53.73/mo (49.1% cheaper)
- ✓DynamoDB - Database Storage - Database Storage - saves $7.30/mo (5% cheaper)
- ✓Fargate - Compute - x2gd.medium - saves $3.65/mo (50.3% cheaper)
- ✓API Gateway - Amazon API Gateway Cache - Amazon API Gateway Cache - saves $30.00/mo (4.1% cheaper)
- ✓API Gateway - Amazon API Gateway Portals - Amazon API Gateway Portals - saves $75,357.90/mo (82.6% cheaper)
- ✓EKS - Compute - Compute - saves $10.07/mo (48.8% cheaper)
- ✓EKS - Compute - Compute - saves $559.76/mo (98.4% cheaper)
- ✓Route 53 - DNS Query - DNS Query - saves $109.50/mo (20% cheaper)
- ✓ELB - Load Balancer-Application - Load Balancer-Application - saves $0.73/mo (20% cheaper)
- ✓SageMaker - Machine Learning - Machine Learning - saves $11.68/mo (44.4% cheaper)
- ✓Redshift - Redshift Data Scan - Redshift Data Scan - saves $2,235.26/mo (61.2% cheaper)
- ✓SNS - AmazonSNS - SNS-Standard-Payload-MessageFiltering-Filtered-Out - saves $36.50/mo (55.6% cheaper)
- ✓SNS - AmazonSNS - SNS-Standard-Payload-MessageFiltering-Filter-Matched - saves $21.90/mo (33.3% cheaper)
- ✓CloudWatch - Metric - Metric - saves $146.00/mo (66.7% cheaper)
- ✓CloudWatch - Data Payload - Data Payload - saves $197.10/mo (54% cheaper)
- ✓Glue - AWS Glue - AWS Glue - saves $25.99/mo (8.1% cheaper)
- ✓Direct Connect - Direct Connect - Direct Connect - saves $14,854.77/mo (90.4% cheaper)
- ✓Cognito - User Pool ASF MAU - User Pool ASF MAU - saves $14.60/mo (40% cheaper)
Monthly Cost Examples
EC2 - Accelerated Computing - 8 vCPU, 15 GB RAM
AWS g2.2xlarge$474.50/mo
Azure Standard_B8als_v2$221.19/mo
ELB - Load Balancer-Application - Load Balancer-Application
AWS TS-LoadBalancerUsage$3.65/mo
Azure Gateway$2.92/mo
Cognito - User Pool ASF MAU - User Pool ASF MAU
AWS USE1-CognitoASFMAU$36.50/mo
Azure Basic - Basic Multi-Factor Authentication$21.90/mo
Related Comparisons
AWS EC2 vs Azure Virtual Machines Pricing
Compare AWS EC2 and Azure Virtual Machines pricing side by side
AWS EC2 vs DO Droplets Pricing
Compare AWS EC2 and DO Droplets pricing side by side
AWS EC2 vs GCP Compute Engine Pricing
Compare AWS EC2 and GCP Compute Engine pricing side by side
AWS vs GCP
Overall pricing comparison
AWS vs DO
Overall pricing comparison
AWS vs Hetzner
Overall pricing comparison
AWS vs Linode
Overall pricing comparison
AWS vs OCI
Overall pricing comparison
AWS vs Vultr
Overall pricing comparison