Top 5 strategies to reduce AWS EC2 instances costs

As you may already know, Amazon EC2 instances are virtual servers in Amazon’s EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) that allow users to run applications on the Amazon Web Servers. As you have plenty of options available when it comes to AWS EC2 instances, in this article we’d like to help you understand how to reduce the cost for these services. There are several strategies that you can implement, and these are the most effective.

1. Choose the right family instance

There are many families of EC2 instances available: they have different options for CPU, memory, and network. The “T” and “A” families are the most affordable. However, you should also find a good compromise between price and performance. The “T” family of instances, for example, is only suitable for websites with low traffic with some spikes, while the “A” family is based on ARM processors, so it’s used for laptops, smartphones, and tablet computers.

If you’re working in these areas, picking one of these two families can help you reduce the costs for AWS EC2 instances.

2. Choose the Region

Not many users know that some regions are more expensive than others: simply moving your instances from one region to another at a lower price can be cost-effective. Choosing a region is a very important factor when it comes to cost

3. Choose the Operating System

When you pay for your EC2 instances, you aren’t only paying for using some hardware; there are also costs associated with the Operating Systems. For example, using Windows or RedHat makes you spend more than if you were using Linux. (Migrating from one OS to another is free!).

4. Opt for a newer instance

With time, AWS releases new types of instances. As technology improves, the newer instances are more cost-effective: for the same price, they can provide better performances. Changing to a newer instance, therefore, can help you optimize the costs of your Amazon EC2 instances.

5. Change the instance according to your actual needs

Very often developers choose their instances early in their project. Their pick is based on assumptions so that, as the project begins being developed, some instances could be over-dimensioned compared to the actual usage. This is basically a waste of resources: if you change an instance that is suitable to your actual CPU and memory usage and needs, it’ll help you optimize the costs.

This gives you useful hints about how to reduce the costs for your Amazon EC2 instances. When making your choices, always try to find the right balance between costs and benefits: this is the basis of resource optimization!