Instances›AWS EC2›c8a›c8a.medium
Compute
vCPUs1
Memory2 GiB
Mem / vCPU2.00 GiB
ProcessorEPYC 9R45 Processor
Clock speedUp to 4.5 GHz
Architecturex86_64
Storage
TypeEBS only
Bandwidth10,000 Mbps
Throughput1250 MB/s
IOPS40,000
Networking
PerformanceUp to 12.5 Gigabit
Max ENIs2
IPv6Yes
GPUNone
Family sizes
c8a.medium1 vCPU · 2 GiB
c8a.large2 vCPU · 4 GiB
c8a.xlarge4 vCPU · 8 GiB
c8a.2xlarge8 vCPU · 16 GiB
c8a.4xlarge16 vCPU · 32 GiB
c8a.8xlarge32 vCPU · 64 GiB
c8a.12xlarge48 vCPU · 96 GiB
c8a.16xlarge64 vCPU · 128 GiB
c8a.24xlarge96 vCPU · 192 GiB
c8a.metal-24xl96 vCPU · 192 GiB
c8a.48xlarge192 vCPU · 384 GiB
c8a.metal-48xl192 vCPU · 384 GiB
c8a.medium

The c8a.medium pairs 1 vCPU with 2 GiB of RAM, the 2.00 GiB-per-vCPU ratio that marks a compute-optimized instance. In the name, "c" stands for compute, "8" is the generation, "a" marks AMD processors and "medium" is the size within the c8a family. It runs on AMD EPYC 9R45 Processor at Up to 4.5 GHz, and AWS introduced it in December 2025. AWS has since shipped c9g; c9g.medium is the direct replacement at this size. ch.vs2.medium is the closest Spot shape: 2 vCPU and 4 GiB, so 1 more vCPU and 2 GiB more memory, $0.054/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$0.054$0.013$0.002
$0.052 savings
US Central, Chicagono AWS region$0.011
US Central, Dallasno AWS region$0.011
Hong Kong$0.061
Sydney, Australia$0.061
London, UK$0.016
US West, San Jose$0.011
US Central, Dallas 2no AWS region$0.011
US East, N. Virginia 2$0.054$0.013$0.011
$0.043 savings
When to use it
Good for
  • ●Game servers and matchmaking
  • ●Batch processing and CI/CD runners
  • ●Video encoding and transcoding
  • ●Workloads that fit inside 2 GiB of RAM
  • ●Small, steady services that do not need more than 1 vCPU
  • ●Network-heavy services — AWS rates this size at Up to 12.5 Gigabit
Avoid if
  • ●The working set needs more than 2 GiB of RAM
  • ●Memory-hungry applications. A memory-optimized family gives more RAM per dollar.
  • ●More than 2.00 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
$39/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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Frequently asked questions