Price difference between compute engine instances and cloud SQL instances

[Ben Sjoberg]

We're looking into using Google Cloud SQL instead of just running our databases on compute engine instances, but I'm a bit confused by the pricing. In compute engine an n1-standard-2 instance is $48.55 per month. (us-central-1, not including storage, and with a sustained use discount.) However, a db-n1-standard-2 instance costs about twice as much - $98.62 per month.  Since it's almost exactly twice the price, my first thought was it includes the cost of a standby instance, but then I noticed high availability is optional, and enabling it doubles the price again, to $197.24 per month.

Am I missing something about compute engine instances vs. cloud SQL instances (i.e. optimizations that improve performance/reliability), or about the pricing model in general? We like the features of cloud SQL, but I'm not sure I can convince management it's worth paying twice as much for the compute resources. :-/

[Taher (Cloud Platform Support)]

Hi Ben,

Thank you for bringing topic up. I would suggest comparing the configurations between predefined Google Compute Engine instances and predefined Cloud SQL instances. You can find a significant difference in the configuration which definitely has an impact on the performance of specific tasks. You can use the price calculator to compare the prices also.

However, two products have their own advantages which can benefit customers according to their needs. So, it really depends on the purpose of the VMs. Moreover, as Cloud SQL is managed by Google; support structure and egress traffic are two other important points need to taken to account while doing the comparison.

I hope this helps.