Instances›AWS EC2›c4›c4.large
Compute
vCPUs2
Memory3.75 GiB
Mem / vCPU1.88 GiB
ProcessorXeon E5-2666 v3
Clock speed2.9 GHz
Architecturex86_64
Storage
TypeEBS only
Bandwidth500 Mbps
Throughput62.5 MB/s
IOPS4,000
Networking
PerformanceModerate
Max ENIs3
IPv6Yes
GPUNone
Family sizes
c4.large2 vCPU · 3.75 GiB
c4.xlarge4 vCPU · 7.5 GiB
c4.2xlarge8 vCPU · 15 GiB
c4.4xlarge16 vCPU · 30 GiB
c4.8xlarge36 vCPU · 60 GiB
c4.large

The c4.large pairs 2 vCPU with 3.75 GiB of RAM, the 1.88 GiB-per-vCPU ratio that marks a compute-optimized instance. In the name, "c" stands for compute, "4" is the generation and "large" is the size within the c4 family. It runs on Intel Xeon E5-2666 v3 (Haswell) at 2.9 GHz, and AWS introduced it in January 2015. AWS has since shipped c5, c6i, c7i and c8i; c5.large is the direct replacement at this size. ch.vs1.medium on Rackspace Spot lines up one-for-one: 2 vCPU and 4 GiB, $0.100/hr on AWS in US East (N. Virginia), from $0.002/hr on Rackspace Spot.

Pricing by region
1 hr
RegionAWS on-demandAWS Spot1-yr Reserved3-yr ReservedRackspace SpotYou save
US East, N. Virginia$0.100$0.025$0.063$0.044$0.002
$0.098 savings
US Central, Chicagono AWS region$0.011
US Central, Dallasno AWS region$0.011
Hong Kong$0.061
Sydney, Australia$0.130$0.028$0.084$0.063$0.061
$0.069 savings
London, UK$0.119$0.033$0.082$0.063$0.016
$0.103 savings
US West, San Jose$0.124$0.021$0.085$0.062$0.011
$0.113 savings
US Central, Dallas 2no AWS region$0.011
US East, N. Virginia 2$0.100$0.025$0.063$0.044$0.011
$0.089 savings
When to use it
Good for
  • ●High-traffic web and API serving
  • ●Scientific modelling and simulation
  • ●Ad serving and real-time bidding
  • ●Workloads that fit inside 3.75 GiB of RAM
  • ●Small, steady services that do not need more than 2 vCPU
Avoid if
  • ●Starting a new deployment. c5.large is the newer generation at this size.
  • ●The working set needs more than 3.75 GiB of RAM
  • ●More than 1.88 GiB of RAM per vCPU is needed — that ratio is fixed for the whole family
  • ●Local NVMe or instance-store disk is a hard requirement
  • ●GPU or FPGA acceleration is needed
  • ●Memory-hungry applications. A memory-optimized family gives more RAM per dollar.
$73/mo on AWS on-demand against $1/mo on Rackspace Spot for the equivalent — market-priced, not list-priced.
  • Spot sells spare capacity at market prices. It is the cheapest compute on the internet.
  • Prices are set by supply and demand. You pay what the market decides.
  • Compute is delivered as fully managed Kubernetes. All infrastructure is taken care of.
  • Egress costs $0.01/GB after the free allowance. AWS charges $0.09/GB.
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