Cloud costs · EC2 and Azure VMs
AWS vs Azure VM cost comparison.
Pick a size class and a region to see the on-demand Linux price of the matching EC2 instance and Azure virtual machine, side by side, with the monthly and yearly difference.
A 2 vCPU / 8 GiB general-purpose VM (m5.large vs Standard_D2s_v5) is $0.096 an hour on AWS and $0.096 on Azure in US East, $70.08 a month either way. In Canada (Central) both are $0.107 an hour. The compute-optimized pair differs: c5.large is $62.05 a month against $61.76 for Standard_F2s_v2.
Your numbers
Result
Method and limits
Pairs. EC2 m5.large (2 vCPU, 8 GiB) with Azure Standard_D2s_v5 (2 vCPU, 8 GiB); m5.xlarge (4 vCPU, 16 GiB) with Standard_D4s_v5 (4 vCPU, 16 GiB); c5.large (2 vCPU, 4 GiB) with Standard_F2s_v2 (2 vCPU, 4 GiB). vCPU and memory match, but the processors and per-vCPU performance are not identical, so treat it as a price comparison, not a benchmark.
Regions. US East (N. Virginia) with Azure East US, US West (Oregon) with West US 2, Canada (Central) with Canada Central, and Europe (Ireland) with North Europe.
Prices. AWS on-demand Linux hourly prices from the AWS Price List and Azure pay-as-you-go Linux consumption prices from the Azure Retail Prices API, both in USD, compute only. The burstable B-series is left out because Microsoft lists the Bv1 sizes as end of life. Google Cloud is not included because its price list needs an API key.
Not included. Reserved instances, savings plans, spot, Azure Hybrid Benefit, disks, bandwidth, support plans and taxes.
Price date. List prices in USD, on-demand and pay-as-you-go, retrieved 2026-10-16 and stored in this page. Providers change prices without notice, so confirm on the provider's pricing page before you commit spend. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
Sources
- AWS Price List, AmazonEC2 offer (CSV), US East (N. Virginia) (retrieved 2026-10-16): EC2 on-demand Linux hourly prices, vCPU and memory in four regions.
- Azure Retail Prices API (retrieved 2026-10-16): Azure pay-as-you-go consumption prices for Virtual Machines (Linux), regions eastus, westus2, canadacentral and northeurope.
- Microsoft Learn: Dsv5 size series (retrieved 2026-10-16): vCPU and memory of Standard_D2s_v5 and Standard_D4s_v5.
- Microsoft Learn: Fsv2-series sizes (retrieved 2026-10-16): vCPU and memory of Standard_F2s_v2.
- Microsoft Learn: Bv1 size series (retrieved 2026-10-16): the B-series is in the end-of-life lifecycle stage.
FAQ
Is AWS or Azure cheaper for virtual machines?
It depends on the size and region. For the 2 vCPU / 8 GiB general-purpose pair the list prices are $0.096 and $0.096 an hour in US East, while for the compute-optimized pair AWS is $0.085 and Azure $0.0846.
Why not include Google Cloud?
Google publishes machine-readable prices through an API that needs a key, so there was no keyless public source to cite. This page only shows figures taken directly from a public price list.
Do these prices include Windows or SQL Server licences?
No. They are Linux compute prices only.
Why is the burstable B-series missing?
Microsoft lists the Bv1 sizes as end of life with an announced retirement, so they are not offered as a comparison for new deployments.
Does a reserved instance change the answer?
Usually. Reserved terms and savings plans cut both clouds' prices by different amounts, so compare discounted rates from each provider before committing.