Micro instance pricing for On-Demand instances starts at $0.02 per hour for Linux and $0.03 per hour for Windows. That translates to monthly costs of US$14.88 if hosted in North Virginia and US$18.60 if hosted in Singapore (Asia Pacific). Prices have yet to include bandwidth and EBS storage charges.
Lately I’ve been looking at Linode’s 512MB VPS offering that would set me back US$19.95 monthly which includes storage and bandwidth. This new Amazon announcement is particularly attractive due to the option of having a website hosted closer to me (i.e. Singapore).
So what are micro instances
According to Amazon (link to the EC2 page): “Instances of this family provide a small amount of consistent CPU resources and allow you to burst CPU capacity when additional cycles are available. They are well suited for lower throughput applications and web sites that consume significant compute cycles periodically. Micro Instance 613 MB of memory, up to 2 ECUs (for short periodic bursts), EBS storage only, 32-bit or 64-bit platform.”
Things to watch out for
EBS storage is chargeable so you have to estimate that yourself. And ECU (EC2 Compute Unit) is for short periodic bursts only. It’s hard to understand what exactly is ECU and it’s some sort of voodoo unit that you can only compare among Amazon EC2 packages.
It’s still a good promotion, especially if you are considering finding a host in Singapore. Amazon is being very competitive in this region. I am almost certain no other web hosting service in Singapore is able to best their offering at this moment.
[via Uzyn]