GCP vs RunPod

In this page:

What's good about them
Price comparison
Services offered
Company details
Alternatives to consider

What's good about...

Google Cloud

Extensive range of managed services with a focus on big data and machine learning
BigQuery and Google Kubernetes Engine are widely considered industry-leading solutions
Strong community and developer tooling
40+ data centers around the world

RunPod

Affordable GPUs in various configurations
Packed with features: hot-reloading, managed containers, logging & monitoring
Available in 30+ regions across the world

Price comparison

How do Google Cloud's prices compare against RunPod?

Example configuration	Google Cloud	RunPod
VM Small	$20.49 / mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM (E2 custom)	$43.20 / mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM (Compute-Optimized)
VM Medium	$90.15 / mo 4 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (E2 custom)	$86.40 / mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (Compute-Optimized)
VM Large	$179.87 / mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (E2 custom)	$172.80 / mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (Compute-Optimized)
Block Storage	$4.10 / mo 100 GB	$10.00 / mo 100 GB
Object Storage	$24.93 / mo 1 TB	--
Load Balancer	$29.44 / mo	--
Managed PostgreSQL	$93.60 / mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB storage	--
Managed Redis®*	$35.28 / mo 1 vCPU, 1.55 GiB RAM (Basic)	--
Serverless 25M Executions	$47.62 / mo 25M invocations, 2nd gen, 150 ms duration	--
Free egress allowance	Depends on service	--
1 TB of egress beyond allowance	$120.00 $0.12 / GB (Premium network)	Free and unlimited

GCP offers GPUs in the following configurations:

Name	GPUs	VRAM	vCPUs	RAM	Price/h
g2-standard-4	1x L4	24GB	4	16GB	$0.71	Source
g2-standard-8	1x L4	24GB	8	32GB	$0.85	Source
g2-standard-12	1x L4	24GB	12	48GB	$1.00	Source
g2-standard-16	1x L4	24GB	16	64GB	$1.15	Source
g2-standard-32	1x L4	24GB	32	128GB	$1.73	Source
g2-standard-24	2x L4	48GB	24	96GB	$2.00	Source
a2-highgpu-1g	1x A100	40GB	12	85GB	$3.67	Source
g2-standard-48	4x L4	96GB	48	192GB	$4.00	Source
a2-highgpu-2g	2x A100	80GB	24	170GB	$7.35	Source
g2-standard-96	8x L4	192GB	96	384GB	$8.00	Source
a2-highgpu-4g	4x A100	160GB	48	340GB	$14.69	Source
a2-highgpu-8g	8x A100	320GB	96	680GB	$29.39	Source
a2-megagpu-16g	16x A100	640GB	96	1360GB	$55.74	Source

RunPod offers GPUs in the following configurations:

Name	GPUs	VRAM	vCPUs	RAM	Price/h
A30	1x A30	24GB	8	31GB	$0.22	Source
RTX A4000	1x A4000	16GB	4	20GB	$0.32	Source
A4500	1x A4500	20GB	4	29GB	$0.34	Source
A5000	1x A5000	24GB	4	24GB	$0.36	Source
A40	1x A40	48GB	9	50GB	$0.39	Source
RTX4090	1x RTX 4090	24GB	5	30GB	$0.69	Source
A6000	1x A6000	48GB	8	62GB	$0.76	Source
A6000 Ada	1x A6000	48GB	14	58GB	$0.88	Source
L40	1x L40S	48GB	16	250GB	$0.99	Source
L40S	1x L40S	48GB	12	62GB	$1.03	Source
A100 PCIe	1x A100	80GB	8	117GB	$1.64	Source
A100 SXM	1x A100	80GB	16	125GB	$1.89	Source
MI250	1x MI250	128GB	--	--	$2.10	Source
H100 PCIe	1x H100	80GB	24	188GB	$2.69	Source
H100 SXM	1x H100	80GB	16	125GB	$2.99	Source
MI300X	1x MI300X	192GB	24	283GB	$2.99	Source
H200 SXM	1x H200	141GB	--	--	$3.99	Source

Note: Our pricing examples are based on several assumptions. Your actual costs may differ. Always check the cloud provider's website for the most up-to-date pricing.

Which services do they offer

Here are some managed services that Google Cloud and RunPod offer:

Service	Google Cloud	RunPod
Block Storage
Content Delivery Network (CDN)		--
Container Registry		--
GPU-powered Servers
Load Balancer		--
Managed Containers
Managed Kubernetes		--
Managed MySQL		--
Managed PostgreSQL		--
Managed Redis®*		--
Object Storage		--
Serverless Cron Jobs		--
Serverless Functions		--
Static Sites		--
Virtual Private Server (VPS)

Company details

	Google Cloud	RunPod
Website	cloud.google.com	www.runpod.io
Headquarters	United States of America 🇺🇸	United States of America 🇺🇸
Founded	2008	2022
Data Center Locations	40	24
Example Customers	PayPal, GitLab, 20th Century Fox, Target, Scotiabank	AfterShoot, Replika, Otovo, Data Science Dojo, Abzu

	Google Cloud
Website	cloud.google.com
Headquarters	United States of America 🇺🇸
Founded	2008
Data Center Locations	40
Example Customers	PayPal, GitLab, 20th Century Fox, Target, Scotiabank

	RunPod
Website	www.runpod.io
Headquarters	United States of America 🇺🇸
Founded	2022
Data Center Locations	24
Example Customers	AfterShoot, Replika, Otovo, Data Science Dojo, Abzu