Instances›AWS EC2›m4›m4.xlarge
Compute
vCPUs4
Memory16 GiB
Mem / vCPU4.00 GiB
ProcessorXeon E5-2676 v3
Clock speed2.4 GHz
Architecturex86_64
Storage
TypeEBS only
Bandwidth750 Mbps
Throughput93.75 MB/s
IOPS6,000
Networking
PerformanceHigh
Max ENIs4
IPv6Yes
GPUNone
Family sizes
m4.large2 vCPU · 8 GiB
m4.xlarge4 vCPU · 16 GiB
m4.2xlarge8 vCPU · 32 GiB
m4.4xlarge16 vCPU · 64 GiB
m4.10xlarge40 vCPU · 160 GiB
m4.16xlarge64 vCPU · 256 GiB
m4.xlarge

The m4.xlarge is a general-purpose AWS EC2 instance: 4 vCPU and 16 GiB of memory, 4.00 GiB per vCPU. In the name, "m" is the general-purpose line, "4" is the generation and "xlarge" is the size within the m4 family. It runs on Intel Xeon E5-2676 v3 (Haswell) at 2.4 GHz, and AWS introduced it in June 2015. AWS has since shipped m5, m6i, m7i and m8i; m5.xlarge is the direct replacement at this size. Rackspace Spot's gp.vs1.large is a like-for-like substitute at 4 vCPU and 16 GiB, about 95% below the US East (N. Virginia) on-demand rate.

Pricing by region
1 hr
RegionAWS on-demandAWS Spot1-yr Reserved3-yr ReservedRackspace SpotYou save
US East, N. Virginia$0.200$0.059$0.124$0.086$0.011
$0.189 savings
US Central, Chicagono AWS region$0.011
US Central, Dallasno AWS region$0.021
Hong Kong$0.011
Sydney, Australia$0.250$0.107$0.168$0.121$0.011
$0.239 savings
London, UK$0.232$0.079$0.158$0.115$0.026
$0.206 savings
US West, San Jose$0.234$0.102$0.170$0.117$0.041
$0.193 savings
US Central, Dallas 2no AWS region$0.041
US East, N. Virginia 2$0.200$0.059$0.124$0.086$0.041
$0.159 savings
When to use it
Good for
  • ●Backend services with no single dominant resource
  • ●Queue workers and scheduled jobs
  • ●Web and application servers with mixed CPU and memory demand
  • ●Workloads that fit inside 16 GiB of RAM
  • ●Small, steady services that do not need more than 4 vCPU
Avoid if
  • ●Starting a new deployment. m5.xlarge is the newer generation at this size.
  • ●The working set needs more than 16 GiB of RAM
  • ●Local NVMe or instance-store disk is a hard requirement
  • ●GPU or FPGA acceleration is needed
  • ●Sustained full-core CPU load. A compute-optimized family costs less per unit of work.
  • ●More than 4.00 GiB of RAM per vCPU is needed — that ratio is fixed for the whole family
$146/mo on AWS on-demand against $8/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.
Build your Cloudspace
Frequently asked questions