Cloud VM benchmarks 2026: performance / price
Time for the (not exactly) yearly cloud compute VM comparison. I started testing back in October 2025, but the benchmarking scope was increased, not just due to more VM families tested (44), but also due to testing the instances over more regions to attain a possible range of performance, as in many cases not all instances are created equal. I will not spoil much if I tell you that there is one new CPU that dominates the top-end results more clearly than any previous year.
Quick Overview
Like last time, this is all about generic CPU performance and especially what you can actually get per $ spent on compute VM instances. Due to the focus on CPU workloads, burstable instances are not included. Single-thread performance is evaluated separately, as there are always workloads that cannot be further parallelized. For multi-thread, each instance type is tested in a 2vCPU configuration which is usually the minimum unit you can order (it corresponds to a single core for SMT-enabled systems, like all Intel and most AMD). The more threads your workload can utilize, the more multiples of that unit you can order.
The comparison should help you maximize performance or price depending on your requirements, by either using the optimal VM types of your provider, or perhaps by launching on a different provider.
If you don't need all the details, you can use the TOC below to jump to what's relevant to you.
Table Of Contents:
What's new
I kept the same 7 providers as last year (which was down from my max 10 providers from the 2023 comparison), but expanded to 44 VM types tested.
Other changes:
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