r6in.xlarge

Analysis

The r6in.xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r6in series with 4 vCPUs and 32 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon 8375C (Ice Lake) (up to 3.5 GHz), which makes it memory-heavy at 8 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Within the same generation and size, the r6g.xlarge on AWS Graviton2 costs $0.2016/hour, 42% less ($107 a month), though switching means rebuilding software for arm64. The other variants are the r6a.xlarge at $0.2268, the r6gd.xlarge at $0.2304 and the r6i.xlarge at $0.2520.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of Sydney saves $54.66 a month per instance: $0.3487/hour against $0.4235/hour, a 21% spread. It is not offered in São Paulo, London and Mumbai, so plan around that if you need a presence there.

On demand it costs $0.3487/hour in US East (N. Virginia), $255 a month if left running, which puts it mid-table for memory optimized types at the 61st percentile per vCPU ($0.0872 per vCPU-hour) and the 76th percentile per GiB ($0.0109 per GiB-hour).

Looking beyond its own line, 29 of 45 current types with 4 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r7g.xlarge on AWS Graviton3 at $0.2142/hour.

It is size 2 of 9 in the r6in series. Stepping up to the r6in.2xlarge gives 8 vCPUs and 64 GiB for $255 more a month. Dropping to the r6in.large saves $127 a month.