In recent years, cloud computing has become one of the most popular ways to host and manage software applications. Cloud providers offer a vast range of services for individuals and businesses to choose from - ranging from virtual machines to databases to object storage. Choosing the appropriate cloud provider and services can be a challenging job for many developers, as different providers offer different combinations of services, pricing, and reliability. In this post, we will take a look at the top five cloud providers based on the free tiers they offer - Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, and IBM Cloud.
1. Google Cloud Platform
Google Cloud Platform offers a generous free tier that includes many of the core features required to develop and host a simple web application. The free tier includes:
App Engine: 28 frontend instance hours and 9 backend instance hours per day.
Cloud Firestore: 1 GB storage, 50,000 reads, 20,000 writes, and 20,000 deletes per day.
Compute Engine: 1 non-preemptible e2-micro, 30 GB HDD, and 5 GB snapshot storage (restricted to certain regions), 1 GB network egress from North America to all region destinations (excluding China and Australia) per month.
Cloud Storage: 5 GB, 1 GB network egress.
Cloud Shell: A web-based Linux shell/basic IDE with 5 GB of persistent storage. 60 hours limit per week.
Cloud Pub/Sub: 10 GB of messages per month.
Cloud Functions: 2 million invocations per month (includes both background and HTTP invocations).
Cloud Run: 2 million requests per month, 360,000 GB-seconds of memory, 180,000 vCPU-seconds of compute time, 1 GB network egress from North America per month.
Google Kubernetes Engine: No cluster management fee for one zonal cluster. Each user node is charged at standard Compute Engine pricing.
BigQuery: 1 TB of querying per month, 10 GB of storage each month.
Cloud Build: 120 build-minutes per day.
Cloud Source Repositories: Up to 5 Users, 50 GB Storage, 50 GB Egress.
Google Colab: Free Jupyter Notebooks development environment.
While the Google Cloud Platform free tier is quite comprehensive, it is important to note that many of the services have certain limitations and usage caps that may not be sufficient. Additionally, there are some services that are not included in the free tier, such as Google Kubernetes Engine cluster management fees and Cloud SQL storage fees.
2. Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services is widely regarded as one of the most mature and reliable cloud providers due to its long-standing presence in the market, and the breadth and depth of its service offerings. AWS offers a free tier that includes a range of services suitable for small web applications, including:
CloudFront: 1 TB egress per month.
Cloudwatch: 10 custom metrics and 10 alarms.
CodeBuild: 100 min of build time per month.
CodeCommit: 5 active users, 50 GB storage, and 10,000 request per month.
CodePipeline: 1 active pipeline per month.
DynamoDB: 25 GB NoSQL DB.
EC2: 750 hours per month of t2.micro or t3.micro(12mo). 100 GB egress per month.
EBS: 30 GB per month of General Purpose (SSD) or Magnetic(12mo).
Elastic Load Balancing: 750 hours per month(12mo).
RDS: 750 hours per month of db.t2.micro, db.t3.micro, or db.t4g.micro, 20 GB of General Purpose (SSD) storage, 20 GB of storage backups.
Glacier: 10 GB long-term object storage.
Lambda: 1 million requests per month.
SNS: 1 million publishes per month.
SES: 62,000 messages per month.
SQS: 1 million messaging queue requests.
One of the significant advantages of AWS is the extensive set of machine learning and artificial intelligence services that are available beyond the free tier. However, the AWS free tier has a limited selection of services, and users may quickly outgrow the free tier services offered.
3. Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure offers a wide array of services for individuals and businesses to develop and host software applications. The Azure free tier is suitable for smaller-scale web applications and offers:
Virtual Machines: 1 B1S Linux VM, 1 B1S Windows VM (12mo).
App Service: 10 web, mobile, or API apps (60 CPU minutes / day).
Functions: 1 million requests per month.
DevTest Labs: Enable fast, easy, and lean dev-test environments.
Active Directory: 500,000 objects.
Active Directory B2C: 50,000 monthly stored users.
Azure DevOps: 5 active users, unlimited private Git repos.
Azure Pipelines: 10 free parallel jobs with unlimited minutes for open source for Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Microsoft IoT Hub: 8,000 messages per day.
Load Balancer: 1 free public load balanced IP (VIP).
Notification Hubs: 1 million push notifications.
Bandwidth: 15 GB Inbound(12mo) & 5 GB egress per month.
Cosmos DB: 5 GB storage and 400 RUs of provisioned throughput.
Static Web Apps: Build, deploy and host static apps and serverless functions, with free SSL, Authentication/Authorization and custom domains.
Storage: 5 GB LRS File or Blob storage (12mo).
Cognitive Services: AI/ML APIs (Computer Vision, Translator, Face detection, Bots...) with free tier including limited transactions.
Cognitive Search: AI-based search and indexation service, free for 10,000 documents.
Azure Kubernetes Service: Managed Kubernetes service, free cluster management.
Event Grid: 100K ops/month.
The Azure free tier includes many services to support web application development, making it an effective choice for smaller-scale web application development.
4. Oracle Cloud
Oracle Cloud offers a relatively new cloud platform that is quickly gaining popularity due to the breadth and speed of its offerings. Oracle Cloud provides a free tier that includes:
Compute: 2 AMD-based Compute VMs with 1/8 OCPU and 1 GB memory each, 4 Arm-based Ampere A1 cores, and 24 GB of memory usable as one VM or up to 4 VMs. Instances will be reclaimed when deemed idle.
Block Volume: 2 volumes, 200 GB total (used for compute).
Object Storage: 10 GB.
Load balancer: 1 instance with 10 Mbps.
Databases: 2 DBs, 20 GB each.
Monitoring: 500 million ingestion data points, 1 billion retrieval data points.
Bandwidth: 10 TB egress per month, speed limited to 50 Mbps on x64 based VM, 500 Mbps * core count on ARM-based VM.
Public IP: 2 IPv4 for VMs, 1 IPv4 for load balancer.
Notifications: 1 million delivery options per month, 1000 emails sent per month.
However, it should be taken into consideration that Oracle Cloud is still mostly new in the market and has a relatively limited set of services compared to competitors. Nevertheless, its fast-growing catalog of services is worth watching.
5. IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud is another popular cloud provider with a range of offerings for businesses and individuals. IBM Cloud offers a free tier that includes:
Cloud Functions: 5 million executions per month.
Object Storage: 25 GB per month.
Cloudant Database: 1 GB of data storage.
Db2 Database: 100 MB of data storage.
API Connect: 50,000 API calls per month.
Availability Monitoring: 3 million data points per month.
Log Analysis: 500 MB of daily log.
IBM Cloud's free offerings work well for developing and hosting small applications, but the free storage and database services are not as generous as competitors such as Google Cloud Platform.
Choosing a cloud provider can be a daunting task, especially for businesses that are seeking reliable and cost-effective services. Among the top five cloud providers mentioned in this article, each cloud provider has a unique set of advantages, limitations, and services, and developers need to consider them while making a decision. The free tiers of AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle Cloud, and IBM Cloud provide a good starting point for you to experiment with services and develop smaller applications, but they may not be suitable for larger-scale or complex applications. You should perform your own research to determine the best match for the needs of your project.
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