--- title: Google Compute Engine Reviews meta_title: 'Google Compute Engine Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 953 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Google Compute Engine works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.5 review_count: 953 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-09' parent_category: name: IT Management url: https://www.g2.com/categories/it-management --- # Google Compute Engine Reviews **Vendor:** Google **Category:** [Auto Scaling Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/auto-scaling) **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 953 ## About Google Compute Engine Compute Engine is Google's infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform for organizations to create and run cloud-based virtual machines. ## Google Compute Engine Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users appreciate the **ease of use** of Google Compute Engine, enabling quick VM provisioning and seamless integration with GCP products. (65 reviews) - Users love the **scalability** of Google Compute Engine, allowing quick adjustments to resources for varying workloads. (60 reviews) - Users value the **flexibility and scalability** of Google Compute Engine, making it easy to customize VMs for various needs. (59 reviews) - Users admire the **flexibility and scalability** of Google Compute Engine, allowing customized and efficient cloud resource management. (51 reviews) - Users appreciate the **scalability and flexibility** of Google Compute Engine, enabling quick and reliable virtual machine provisioning. (47 reviews) - Users appreciate the **flexibility** of Google Compute Engine to adjust VMs based on project needs efficiently. (45 reviews) - Integrations (42 reviews) - Performance (40 reviews) - Reliability (36 reviews) - User Interface (31 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users struggle with the **complex pricing structure** of Google Compute Engine, leading to unexpected costs and confusion. (42 reviews) - Users find the **pricing structure confusing** and potentially expensive, especially when scaling multiple instances without careful monitoring. (38 reviews) - Users find the **cost management** challenging, noting confusion over pricing and potential for quickly rising costs. (29 reviews) - Users find the **steep learning curve** of Google Compute Engine daunting, especially for beginners unfamiliar with cloud concepts. (28 reviews) - Users find the **complex pricing structure** of Google Compute Engine challenging, often leading to unexpected costs and confusion. (23 reviews) - Users highlight the **steep learning curve** of Google Compute Engine, making it challenging for beginners to navigate effectively. (22 reviews) - Not User-Friendly (21 reviews) - Difficult Learning (17 reviews) - Poor Customer Support (16 reviews) - Steep Learning Curve (16 reviews) ## Google Compute Engine Reviews ### 1. GCP is like a easy cake walk to spin-up but an old-school to work with. **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rahul Singh 2. | Software Engineer - Full Stack, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 09, 2025 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** What I like best about Google Compute Engine (GCE) is its scalability, flexibility, and performance. Because I can quickly provision virtual machines with customized CPU, memory, and storage configurations to fit any workload, and GCE integrates seamlessly with other GCP services. The infrastructure worldwide ensures high availability, and features such as live migration, automatic load balancing, and robust security make it reliable for both development and production environments. This is something an upside I have felt as an upside while using the GCE in my projects. **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** The one thing I hate most about the GCE is its "pricing structure," specifically when scaling multiple instances, because if you're doing the same thing on the AWS platform, it offers features like savings plans and reserved instances, which let you commit to usage over a period of time in exchange for lower prices. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** Well,spinning-up a GCE instance has always been a super-easy task for my personal project benefits, its easy to provision, I have also scaled my instances due to spike in a the workload of my personal MCP server shopping cart project. It has reduced my harware managment issue, inn totality, I'm happy with it. ### 2. GCP experience. **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ankit Kumar S. | Manager - Cloud Solutions, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 22, 2025 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** No Downtime in Migration & Custom VM Size **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** I don't like the UI/UX of GCP is not comfortable to work **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** I think the over utilization of VM's is the best way GCP is supporting. As comparing this to the other hyperscaler, it allows me to customise my VM as per the usage of my Application. ### 3. Expensive experience **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ali K. | Senior Backend Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 05, 2025 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** IP Addressing and firewall management is so detailed. **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** Some of deployments takes much time approx more than 20mins in autopilot clusters. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** It takes too much time to deploy correctly. ### 4. While making a hit with new applications, struggling with classic enterprise ones. **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** matt m. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 11, 2024 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** The seemless nature of the data to the operating systems, overall Kubernetes management and funcctionality around linux workload **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** The struggle with microsoft and legacy workloads. Not everything can be refactored on day one and there is very little support beyond GCVE that with the new VMWare model is uber expensive. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's bringing us rapid integration of our linux and data systems. It creates an easy to use workspace that is automation by default. It's also allows us to tag and keep track of systems with more segregation and a higher level of security. ### 5. Ok if you are in google cloud system already **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Han Y. | Data Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 12, 2024 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** Integration with google cloud? Web UI is also OK **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** Price is not competitive, instance availability lacking during peak **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** Just getting "some machine" to run a service in google cloud ### 6. A go to platform **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Md Salman S. | Deep Learning Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 02, 2024 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** It provide the scaliability, and the golbal reach. **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** This should be more user friendly, should focus on UX. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** This Google Cloud Platform providing me a way to rent virtual machines (VMs) running on Google's vast global infrastructure. Which means that I don't need to own and maintain physical servers, that is a very handy thing to have. ### 7. Reliable infrastructure for computing needs **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sanjeev M. | System Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 10, 2024 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** Optimising the virtualisation spend & Build in data analytics **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** Difficult to integrate with other virtualisation tools **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** Tool to automate the deployments and management of various virtual machine at one time. ### 8. Good for coders, but a bit expensive for some. **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Harmandeep Singh M. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 05, 2024 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** The Google client SDK and the cloud console are very helpful. **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** Template generation for Google cloud machine does not always work. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** I would like to use Google's SDK to manage VM's. But I'm interested in Windows VM as well which are pricier than azure. ### 9. It works fine **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Alternative Medicine | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 05, 2024 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** The fact that AI can generate me a response to my questions **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** Probably the sponsored pages coming up first. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** My immediate questions. ### 10. sre review 1 **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** rohit P. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 10, 2024 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** VM based, container integration, LB, machine type. **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** IAM access control, ssh and login aspect **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** hosting virtual machines and load balancing ### 11. Use compute for nodes for GKE. Avoid VMs **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Airlines/Aviation | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 10, 2024 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** It serves workloads. Easy to spin up. Commotized hardware **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** Can be difficult to standardize/templatize across unique business cases **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** Serves as underlying compute as node pools for GKE ### 12. Documentation could be better **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Hardware | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 30, 2023 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** I like best that Google Compute engine is reliable **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** Documentation especially for APIs is pretty hard to parse through, especially regarding restrictions on free tier etc **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** Offloading ai trainings ### 13. Review for Google cloud engine **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shubham P. | DevOps Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 02, 2023 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** Best about GCE it is very reliable, easy to create and use, scalable according to client need **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** When I create gke cluste some time face node issues. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** As we know cloud services are rapidly changing the way to deploy and deliver applications and project. ### 14. Could be bit easy to use **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in E-Learning | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 02, 2019 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** It is difficult to connect to the instance using ssh, i was scratching my head just to connect to the instance and do my stuff. The settings to configure port and all was also difficult. **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** The difficulty in configuring this service was the thing that i disliked most. It was difficult to configure port setting and also no clear instruction on how to connect to instance using ssh. sometimes connecting to ssh was hell frustrating. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** Only benefits that i realized was that this service is cheap than other players. ### 15. Easy to spin up VMs for testing purposes. **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Apparel & Fashion | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 09, 2019 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** Very familiar technology that was intuitive and easy to use. I like the ability to manipulate the VMs by CLI vs having to use a portal. **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** I wish they supported VMware as instances and virtualization. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** I utilized it for automating my testing and development environment. ### 16. Feedback on GCE **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Olive H. | Data Scientist, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** I like the flexibility of ssh into the vm via different ways. It is very scalable and flexible for its memory and CPUs. **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** It is region restrictions and there are some command packages that is not preinstalled, like pip. Also, there are some dependencies and restrictions on which packages to install. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** We build our recommendation system with GCE and then automate it via GAE via a cron job. It is very scalable and works great in the exploration phase. ### 17. Hadoop Cluster Performance Review **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sandeep V. | Systems Reliability Engineer, Computer Software, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 24, 2018 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** Ease of deployment and managing the VM's. **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** The User interface is pathetic, a major change/modification is required to make the UI great. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** I used Google Compute Engine as part of my coursework and did my thesis on GCP. We used GCP to test performance of Hadoop cluster. ### 18. Easy **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shyam A. | Technical Expert, Retail, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 27, 2018 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** Ease of use and the ability to quickly spinup a vm **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** More options to schedule shutdown for a predetermined duration **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** Serving apps and API ### 19. Little Experience **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Max T. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 27, 2018 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** Easy access and direct integration with our infrastructure **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** Hard to get proactive assistance from Google. AWS is much support friendly **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** getting started ### 20. Google Ornanization Rocks! **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Biotechnology | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 27, 2018 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** I am coming from an AWS background and when I saw Google Organization and how it is seperating the projects an folders is just awesome **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** all good so far, when i will actually start using it I will come to know the pain points **Recommendations to others considering Google Compute Engine:** should be competitive to aws **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** IAM security ### 21. Still under review **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Marketing and Advertising | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** Like most cloud providers, the unlimied scale GCE provides for can be helpful in solving scale issues or seasonality. **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** The billing portal is still a bit rough compared to the area leader. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** we are working to reduce time to mark and reduce scale concerns. ### 22. Adequate but not great **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** Some features are more complete than competitors (AWS, Azure). Custom VM sizes are interesting. **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** Not all regions are the same, some compute platforms not available in specific regions and even zones (Frankfurt) **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** Migrating from data centers to public cloud ### 23. Young platform but with a great potential **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Benoît S. | Co-founder, Aviation & Aerospace, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 07, 2016 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** The best thing that I like is the pricing : machine are billed minutely, and some extra discount are applied for long time running machines (Sustained usage Discount). **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** One thing gives us headache : the credentials management. Unlike other Cloud Service Providers (such as AWS), the credentials are very complicated to set up (with oauth2 and all). **Recommendations to others considering Google Compute Engine:** Even if Compute Engine became more mature the past year (2015), the service list is still tiny compared to the AWS one. But the "main" features for a public cloud are here: compute, storage, scaling... As a developer, I can tell that the tools are not so easily to use (for instance all the authentication use Asymmetrical keys, instead of the simple "access key pair" in AWS). **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have to process large sets of data (up to 1To for each customer), several times per day. Google Cloud allow us to infinity scale our processing power, regardless of the amount of data. ### 24. Elasticsearch Setup **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Internet | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 04, 2016 **What do you like best about Google Compute Engine?** Taking images of servers and creating new servers from those images works well. The creation and destruction of servers is less intimidating than AWS, but less so than VPS providers like Digital Ocean. **What do you dislike about Google Compute Engine?** A lack of tutorials and pre-made environments. I end up reading Digital Ocean's tutorials and trying to apply them to other clouds hosts because they are written so well. **Recommendations to others considering Google Compute Engine:** If AWS is too expensive but you don't want to use VPS servics, Google Compute Engine may be for you. **What problems is Google Compute Engine solving and how is that benefiting you?** I add additional features to our product that sometimes involve provisioning servers with applications that assist in providing those features. ## Google Compute Engine Discussions - [What is a compute instance?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-a-compute-instance) - 2 comments, 2 upvotes - [Is Google Compute Engine PaaS?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-google-compute-engine-paas) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [What does Google Compute Engine do?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-does-google-compute-engine-do) - 4 comments, 1 upvote - [Can I get the manual to understand the different features of it ?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/can-i-get-the-manual-to-understand-the-different-features-of-it) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [Feature Max Limit and Partnership](https://www.g2.com/discussions/feature-max-limit-and-partnership) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [View Google Compute Engine pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/google-compute-engine/reviews?filters%5Bnps_score%5D%5B%5D=3§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-10+18%3A22%3A08+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=c640bbfd-148a-498e-b1b2-3196ec242616&secure%5Btoken%5D=ebe0342b63a8ad763d2add9bd1411c832a56b968c51738bd79e580245085bf74&format=llm_user) ## Google Compute Engine Integrations - [Airbyte](https://www.g2.com/products/airbyte/reviews) - [Coralogix](https://www.g2.com/products/coralogix/reviews) - [Datadog](https://www.g2.com/products/datadog/reviews) - [Docker](https://www.g2.com/products/docker-inc-docker/reviews) - [Firebase](https://www.g2.com/products/firebase/reviews) - [GitHub](https://www.g2.com/products/github/reviews) - [Google Cloud BigQuery](https://www.g2.com/products/google-cloud-bigquery/reviews) - [Google Cloud Load Balancing](https://www.g2.com/products/google-cloud-load-balancing/reviews) - [Google Cloud Monitoring](https://www.g2.com/products/google-cloud-monitoring/reviews) - [Google Cloud Storage](https://www.g2.com/products/google-cloud-storage/reviews) - [Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)](https://www.g2.com/products/google-kubernetes-engine-gke/reviews) - [Google Maps Platform](https://www.g2.com/products/google-maps-platform/reviews) - [Google Translate](https://www.g2.com/products/google-translate/reviews) - [IBM Terraform (formerly HashiCorp Terraform)](https://www.g2.com/products/ibm-terraform-formerly-hashicorp-terraform/reviews) - [Microsoft Power BI](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-microsoft-power-bi/reviews) - [MongoDB Atlas](https://www.g2.com/products/mongodb-atlas/reviews) - [MySQL](https://www.g2.com/products/mysql/reviews) - [New Relic](https://www.g2.com/products/new-relic/reviews) - [Snowflake](https://www.g2.com/products/snowflake/reviews) - [Verint Workforce Management](https://www.g2.com/products/verint-workforce-management/reviews) - [Visual Studio Code](https://www.g2.com/products/visual-studio-code/reviews) - [WordPress.org](https://www.g2.com/products/wordpress-org/reviews) ## Google Compute Engine Features **Functionality** - Cloud Consolidation - Cloud Orchestration - Cloud Optimization **Infrastructure Provision** - Public Cloud - Private Cloud - Hybrid Cloud - Bare Metal - High-Performance Computing (HPC) - Virtual Machines (VMs) - Edge Computing - Virtual Networks - Cloud Computing **Performance** - Scalability - Portability - Data Recovery - Disaster Recovery **Automated resource scaling** - Automatic resource discovery - Smart scaling **Management** - Cloud Cost Analytics - Cloud Security - Security Management - Cloud Backup and Recovery - Capacity Analytics - Compliance Management - Disaster Recovery **Management** - Pay by Usage - Usage Tracking - Performance Tracking - Activity Tracking **Functionality** - OS Integration - Resource Saving - Performance Management - Security - Third-Party Integrations - User Management - Compliance Management - Task Management **Scaling strategies** - Pre-defined optimization strategies - Predictive scaling **Functionality** - Resource Auto-Scaling **Visualization** - Unified scaling - Dashboard **Agentic AI - Cloud Management Platforms** - Autonomous Task Execution - Cross-system Integration - Decision Making - Data Integration - Third-Party Integrations **Agentic AI - Server Virtualization** - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning - Cross-system Integration - Adaptive Learning - Proactive Assistance - Decision Making - File Transfer **Additional Functionality** - Performance Analysis - Service Catalog - Activity Tracking - Anomaly Detection - Real-Time Monitoring - Data Visualization - Alerts/Notifications - Multitenancy - Generative AI - Self Service Portal - Network Monitoring - API - Reporting & Statistics - Data Import/Export - AI Copilot - Search/Filter - Access Controls/Permissions - Database Support - Cloud Encryption - Data Migration - Event Logs - Monitoring **Additional Functionality** - Cloud Computing - Archiving & Retention - Issue Tracking - Virtual Machine Migration - Server Monitoring - Status Tracking - Secure Login - Activity Dashboard - API - Graphical User Interface - Secure Data Storage - Alerts/Escalation - Generative AI - Virtual Server - Remote Update/Installation - Data Verification - AI Copilot - Reporting & Statistics - VDI - Database Support - Data Synchronization - Data Replication - Virtual Machine Monitoring **Additional Functionality** - Version Control - Database Support - Real-Time Monitoring - Monitoring - Activity Dashboard - SSL Security - Configurable Workflow - Performance Metrics - Performance Management - Server Monitoring - Data Security - Reporting/Analytics - API - Compliance Management - Access Controls/Permissions - Authentication - Real-Time Analytics - Audit Management - Single Sign On - Generative AI - Third-Party Integrations - Alerts/Escalation - Data Storage Management - AI Copilot - Resource Management - Activity Management - Scheduling - Load Balancing - Backup and Recovery - User Management - Role-Based Permissions - Secure Login - Reporting & Statistics - Network Monitoring - Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management - Task Scheduling - Application Management - Resource Allocation & Planning - Real-Time Notifications - Data Migration - Configuration Management - Log Access - Data Visualization - Real-Time Data - Audit Trail - Secure Data Storage - Data Capture and Transfer - Workflow Management - Performance Monitoring - Search/Filter ## Top Google Compute Engine Alternatives - [Azure Virtual Machines](https://www.g2.com/products/azure-virtual-machines/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (377 reviews) - [Vultr](https://www.g2.com/products/vultr/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (284 reviews) - [Amazon EC2](https://www.g2.com/products/amazon-ec2/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (1,144 reviews)