GCP vs AWS — Service Comparison

This is the service-mapping lookup table. For the conceptual mental-model shifts an AWS engineer needs (resource hierarchy, additive IAM, global VPC, pricing model differences), see the companion doc from-aws.md.

Core Philosophy Difference

graph TB
    classDef history fill:#ff9900,stroke:#cc7a00,color:#fff
    classDef adoption fill:#e67e22,stroke:#ba6018,color:#fff
    classDef infra fill:#4285f4,stroke:#2a56c6,color:#fff
    classDef data fill:#34a853,stroke:#1e7e34,color:#fff
    classDef k8s fill:#fbbc05,stroke:#c79000,color:#333

    subgraph AWS["AWS — breadth first"]
        A1["20 years in market<br/>150+ services"]:::history
        A2["Dominant enterprise adoption<br/>most compliance certifications"]:::adoption
        A3["Every use case has an official service<br/>sometimes 2-3 overlapping ones"]:::history
    end

    subgraph GCP["GCP — engineering first"]
        G1["Built on Google's own infra<br/>~70+ services, tighter surface"]:::infra
        G2["BigQuery, Bigtable, Spanner<br/>data & analytics born here"]:::data
        G3["GKE — reference Kubernetes implementation<br/>Google created Kubernetes"]:::k8s
    end

Service-by-Service Mapping

Compute

Storage and Databases

Networking

Key networking difference:

graph TD
    classDef awsvpc fill:#ff9900,stroke:#cc7a00,color:#fff
    classDef gcpvpc fill:#4285f4,stroke:#2a56c6,color:#fff
    classDef subnet fill:#34a853,stroke:#1e7e34,color:#fff
    classDef note fill:#7f8c8d,stroke:#616a6b,color:#fff

    subgraph AWS_MODEL["AWS — one VPC per region"]
        AVPC1["VPC — us-east-1<br/>10.0.0.0/16"]:::awsvpc
        AVPC2["VPC — eu-west-1<br/>10.1.0.0/16"]:::awsvpc
        AVPC1 -->|"VPC Peering<br/>or Transit Gateway"| AVPC2
        ANOTE["Two separate networks.<br/>Nothing routes across regions<br/>until you configure it."]:::note
    end

    subgraph GCP_MODEL["GCP — one VPC, global"]
        GVPC["VPC: my-vpc<br/>spans every region"]:::gcpvpc
        US["Subnet: us-central1<br/>10.0.1.0/24"]:::subnet
        EU["Subnet: europe-west1<br/>10.0.2.0/24"]:::subnet
        GVPC --> US
        GVPC --> EU
        US -.->|"private IP, same VPC<br/>Google's backbone"| EU
        GNOTE["One network. Every subnet<br/>routes to every other subnet<br/>automatically."]:::note
    end

Observability

AI/ML

GCP TPUs: Google's Tensor Processing Units give 10-100× better price/performance for LLM training vs GPUs on any cloud. If you're training large models, GCP is often cheaper.

GCP Unique Advantages

1. Global VPC

Single VPC spanning all regions — no peering needed. Add a subnet in Tokyo, your London VM can reach it without configuration.

2. BigQuery Pricing

BigQuery: $5/TB scanned, $0.02/GB storage. AWS Redshift: $0.25/hour for smallest cluster (even when idle). For sporadic analytics, BigQuery is often 10× cheaper.

3. Sustained Use Discounts

GCP automatically gives discounts for VMs running >25% of the month — no upfront commitment required. AWS requires Reserved Instances (1-3 year commitment) for equivalent discounts.

4. GKE Quality

GKE gets Kubernetes features first (it's the reference implementation). Autopilot mode — true serverless Kubernetes — doesn't exist on AWS/Azure.

5. Spanner — True Global ACID

AWS Aurora Global has replication lag (seconds). Spanner provides globally consistent transactions with ~10ms latency using TrueTime (atomic clocks).

AWS Unique Advantages

1. Service breadth

AWS has services GCP doesn't: AppSync (GraphQL), Kinesis Data Firehose simplicity, CodePipeline, many enterprise integrations.

2. Enterprise ecosystem

AWS has the most ISV integrations, compliance certifications, and enterprise support.

3. Mature marketplace

AWS Marketplace has thousands of third-party products pre-configured.

4. On-premises hybrid

AWS Outposts, AWS Local Zones — better on-prem story than GCP Distributed Cloud.

When to Choose Which