Amazon EC2 vs Amazon Virtual Private Cloud comparison

Amazon EC2 and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud are both solutions in the Compute Service category. Amazon EC2 is ranked #6 with an average rating of 9.1, while Amazon Virtual Private Cloud is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.0. Amazon EC2 holds a 6.5% mindshare in CS, compared to Amazon Virtual Private Cloud’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Amazon EC2 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Amazon Virtual Private Cloud users who would recommend it.

Amazon EC2

Read 69 Amazon EC2 reviews

1,057 Views
962 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

Read 36 Amazon Virtual Private Cloud reviews

224 Views
224 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Amazon EC2

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

Amazon EC2 and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) cater to cloud infrastructure and networking within AWS offerings. Amazon EC2 seems to have the upper hand due to its unmatched flexibility and scalable computing capacity, alongside the ability for cost transparency despite VPC offering excellent networking and security capabilities.

Features: Amazon EC2 is recognized for its scalable computing capacity, customizable AMIs, and auto-scaling capabilities, which provide flexibility and ease of use without upfront costs. VPC is lauded for its robust security features, including configurable subnets and network access control lists, ensuring seamless integration with AWS services.

Room for Improvement: Amazon EC2 could enhance integration efficiency and simplify pricing and configuration updates. Users request improved networking features and less complex migration processes. For VPC, users need better peering configurations and more accessible documentation. Both services could benefit from cost optimization and more intuitive management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon EC2 provides scalable deployment with extensive documentation, though cost management complexity and varied technical support quality are noted issues. VPC benefits from AWS's dedicated support, yet sometimes falls short in offering configuration solutions.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon EC2 operates on a usage-based pricing model, offering potential cost savings through reduced infrastructure. VPC achieves cost-effectiveness with direct cost relativity to resource usage but is praised for its transparent pricing. Both show favorable ROI though EC2 pricing complexity requires careful cost management.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon EC2 vs. Amazon Virtual Private Cloud Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon EC2 vs. Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

July 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EC2

Ranking in Compute Service

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

Ranking in Compute Service

7th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Amazon EC2 is 6.5%, down from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Virtual Private Cloud is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Compute Service

Featured Reviews

KatlegoMabila

Senior AWS Account Manager at Silicon Overdrive

Offers customization and flexibility with great support

Scalability depends on whether the client wants to scale up or scale down. It decreases resources based on demand. The great aspect of scalability is the flexibility to allow business success to optimize resource solutions and cost efficiency. Another crucial aspect of scalability is auto-scaling. When you have the opportunity to auto-scale, it can't always be available for everything. If you have chosen to integrate with auto-scaling, it's marvellous and doesn't require additional effort. Auto-scaling gives you the edge by using the capacity you have efficiently, scaling up or down as needed. These flexibilities within the EC2 feature instances of AWS play a crucial role in helping me utilize AWS EC2 Intelligent efficiently.

Read full review

Carl Seguya

Aws Solutions Architect at Italemwa hub

Reliable traffic management with good cost reduction and a straightforward setup

In terms of the system, I love the functionality of a NAT Gateway. For instance, when I was using it, it was easy to refuse certain traffic from penetrating into my other availability zone. I had to use a NAT Gateway to transition traffic only to the desired portal. Due to using Amazon VPC, it was reliable, efficient in operations, and cost-effective. For scalability, it was beneficial when one instance was down in an availability zone, as we had a standby instance. This ensured that when an availability zone in South Africa went down, another one in the US was available. We used methods like backup, restore, and pilot standby to recover data, and AWS Trusted Advisor guided us on cost optimization. We achieved an average of 70% cost reduction through savings plans for reserved instances and Spot Instances for short-term development servers.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"EC2 is flexible when we need to increase its resources (memory, boosting, and storage) based on our usage. That is the power of EC2."

"We find it easy to scale."

"EC2 has helped us to deploy various Microsoft applications efficiently. It has also facilitated our workstation operations."

"We don't have to worry about scalability issues or maintenance or security. It's all taken care of."

"The product is easy to set up."

"I like the AMI-related features. A very good feature of this solution is the customizable AMI. It is a very good feature provided by Amazon. The encryption technologies are also very good. We are using KMS, etc."

"Stable, scalable, and simple to implement."

"The most valuable features of Amazon EC2 are ease of use and the services offered."

More Amazon EC2 pros

"One person with capable knowledge can implement the solution."

"For network security, Network Access Control Lists (NACLs). They work very well. For example, instead of leaving a resource open to the world with something like 0.0.0.0/0, we can use NACLs to be much more specific with our network traffic rules. It adds an important security layer to our infrastructure."

"The product’s most valuable feature is allowing us to control access for specific workloads or traffic within a particular region."

"It is a good solution."

"The solution's subnetting feature is good and has impacted our network design."

"It is a very stable product...Amazon Virtual Private Cloud gives you security."

"The UI is very user-friendly."

"The main feature I like about Amazon VPC is its security capabilities, including security groups and subnets."

More Amazon Virtual Private Cloud pros

Cons

"The GUI used to deploy EC2 must be improved."

"The ease of migrating applications could be improved."

"Its price can be reduced."

"I would like to see as much automation for data validation as possible in the future."

"Amazon EC2 could improve by having integration with other cloud systems, such as Azure, and Google Cloud which would be good. Additionally, having integration with on-premise systems would be appreciated."

"The process of detaching EC2 instances to avoid billing could be less complex."

"This solution could be improved with better pricing. If you continue using this solution over a long period of time, your costs may accumulate."

"The customization could be simplified."

More Amazon EC2 cons

"From an improvement perspective, the product's initial setup phase should be easy for those who are not experienced in creating VPCs."

"The tool needs to improve its stability and support which should be faster. The product's pricing is also expensive. When we scale up, we have to pay more."

"I would like to see an improvement in the process of peering multiple VPCs."

"This solution is not fully compatible with every vendor that we use regarding firewalls and networking equipment. They provide you with the option and details on how to configure this on your premises but it would be good to have an easier way to do this."

"The initial setup is complex."

"There are some differences in the route tables between public and private subnets, which is something that is not properly documented."

"The performance insights and VPC flow logs should be in the form of GUI or dashboards. The solution needs to work on integration with the transit gateway and multiple accounts."

"The solution could improve its price."

More Amazon Virtual Private Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not an expensive solution."

"EC2 pricing is somewhat transparent, in that AWS provides pricing for all instance types. However, the number of pricing options can be confusing."

"It has helped to reduce costs with infrastructure."

"The price of Amazon EC2 could improve. The Google Cloud Platform is more cost-effective."

"The tool's pricing is not cheap."

"When we did the deployment of Amazon EC2 we found it to be less expensive than other solutions."

"The solution has different pricing models, and its cost differs when you purchase it for one year or three years."

"Pricing appears to be cheap, however, it is extremely difficult in calculating what something will cost."

More Amazon EC2 pricing and cost advice

"Amazon VPC is generally affordable. There might be costs if you need to reserve specific IPs. Otherwise, it's cheap."

"Amazon is not very transparent with pricing. It's quite complicated to see where you're spending and how you can track it. I was spending $30,000 a year and $3600 monthly on top of that initial payment. However, I have been able to bring the cost down for this year."

"The solution is pricey but worth its money."

"VPC itself is free to create and use."

"The product is expensive."

"I would rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."

"We can use the tool for free."

"The product is expensive."

More Amazon Virtual Private Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EC2?

The scalability and elasticity are helpful.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EC2?

Amazon EC2 is a bit expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon EC2?

The main thing that needs improvement is the cost. Other than that, there is nothing that needs improvement.

See all answers

What do you like most about Amazon Virtual Private Cloud?

The solution is secure.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Virtual Private Cloud?

The cost of Amazon VPC depends on the components you put inside the VPC and the traffic volume. While the direct cost of the VPC is usually not problematic, the associated components and their traf...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon Virtual Private Cloud?

There is always a chance to improve.

See all answers

Comparisons

AWS Batch vs Amazon EC2

Compared 22% of the time

AWS Lambda vs Amazon EC2

Compared 19% of the time

AWS Fargate vs Amazon EC2

Compared 15% of the time

Apache Spark vs Amazon EC2

Compared 11% of the time

Apache NiFi vs Amazon EC2

Compared 9% of the time

More Amazon EC2 Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon EC2

August 2025

Download Amazon EC2 product report

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

August 2025

Download Amazon Virtual Private Cloud product report

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, EC2

Amazon VPC

Overview

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale cloud computing easier for developers.

Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use. Amazon EC2 provides developers the tools to build failure resilient applications and isolate them from common failure scenarios.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) lets you provision a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud where you can launch AWS resources in a virtual network that you define. You have complete control over your virtual networking environment, including selection of your own IP address range, creation of subnets, and configuration of route tables and network gateways. You can use both IPv4 and IPv6 in your VPC for secure and easy access to resources and applications.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

Netflix, Expedia, TimeInc., Novaris, airbnb, Lamborghini

Hess, Expedia, Kelloggs, Philips, HyperTrack

Buyer's Guide

Amazon EC2 vs. Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

July 2025

Free Report: Amazon EC2 vs. Amazon Virtual Private Cloud

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