AWS vs Azure: Which is Cheaper?

There is no universal cheapest provider. This comparison uses m5.large on AWS (observed 2026-10-10) and D2s_v3 on Azure (observed 2026-10-10). Both reference shapes have 2 vCPU and 8 GB RAM; that does not guarantee equal performance.

US East

On-demand Linux list rates for representative nearby regions. These are different facilities, with different service and zone coverage:

• AWS us-east-1 (m5.large): $0.0960/hr; Azure eastus (D2s_v3): $0.0960/hr.
• AWS us-east-2 (m5.large): $0.0960/hr; Azure eastus2 (D2s_v3): $0.0960/hr.

Europe

On-demand Linux list rates for representative nearby regions. These are different facilities, with different service and zone coverage:

• AWS eu-north-1 (m5.large): $0.1020/hr; Azure swedencentral (D2s_v3): $0.1020/hr.
• AWS eu-west-1 (m5.large): $0.1070/hr; Azure northeurope (D2s_v3): $0.1070/hr.
• AWS eu-west-2 (m5.large): $0.1110/hr; Azure uksouth (D2s_v3): $0.1160/hr.
• AWS eu-central-1 (m5.large): $0.1150/hr; Azure germanywestcentral (D2s_v3): $0.1150/hr.

Asia-Pacific

On-demand Linux list rates for representative nearby regions. These are different facilities, with different service and zone coverage:

• AWS ap-southeast-1 (m5.large): $0.1200/hr; Azure southeastasia (D2s_v3): $0.1250/hr.
• AWS ap-southeast-2 (m5.large): $0.1200/hr; Azure australiaeast (D2s_v3): $0.1250/hr.
• AWS ap-northeast-1 (m5.large): $0.1240/hr; Azure japaneast (D2s_v3): $0.1290/hr.
• AWS ap-south-1 (m5.large): $0.1010/hr; Azure centralindia (D2s_v3): $0.1050/hr.

What changes the total cost?

• Commitments and negotiated rates: compare the actual offers your account is eligible to buy, with utilisation and flexibility included.
• Licensing: Azure Hybrid Benefit can change eligible Windows Server or SQL Server costs. These Linux reference prices do not include a licence benefit.
• Traffic and service mix: egress, managed databases, networking and support can outweigh a small VM price difference.
• Existing systems: include engineering time, migration risk, operating skills and dependency changes before switching providers.

Choose from a tested shortlist

Use the side-by-side comparison and ranking for a current shortlist. Verify service-level compliance scope and data-location needs with the provider, measure latency and benchmark a representative workload. Select on your resulting total cost and operational requirements.