c3.largevsc4.large
c4.large is 5% cheaper than c3.large on demand in US East (N. Virginia), saving $3.65 a month.
Prices in US East (N. Virginia)
“Off” is the discount against each type’s own on-demand price. Linux, USD per hour.
| Option | c3.large | c4.large | c4.large vs c3.large |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-demandPay by the hour | $0.105 | $0.1 | ▼ 5% |
| SpotCan be interrupted | 75% off$0.0261 | 72% off$0.0278 | ▲ 7% |
| 1-yr reservedNo upfront | 30% off$0.073 | 37% off$0.063 | ▼ 14% |
| 3-yr reservedNo upfront | — | 56% off$0.044 | — |
| 1-yr savings planHourly commitment | 28% off$0.076 | 28% off$0.072 | ▼ 5% |
| 3-yr savings planHourly commitment | 37% off$0.066 | 49% off$0.051 | ▼ 23% |
Key differences
The biggest lead each one has.
Where c3.large leads
No clear lead on the measures we compare.
Where c4.large leads
On-demand price$0.1 vs $0.105 per hour
5% cheaperNetwork baseline0.625 Gbps vs 0.5 Gbps
25% higherECU8 vs 7
14% higherMax EBS volumes40 vs 39
3% higherSpecs
19 of 42 specs differ. Those are in bold.
| Compute5 of 11 differ | c3.large | c4.large |
|---|---|---|
| vCPUs | 2 | 2 |
| Physical cores | 1 | 1 |
| Threads per core | 2 | 2 |
| Architecture | x86_64 | x86_64 |
| Processor | Intel Xeon E5-2680 v2 (Ivy Bridge) | Intel Xeon E5-2666 v3 (Haswell) |
| CPU maker | Intel | Intel |
| Clock speed | 2.8 GHz | 2.9 GHz |
| Sustained clock | 2.8 GHz | 2.9 GHz |
| Processor features | Intel AVX; Intel Turbo | Intel AVX; Intel AVX2; Intel Turbo |
| Burstable | No | No |
| ECU | 7 | 8 |
| MemoryAll 1 match | c3.large | c4.large |
|---|---|---|
| Memory (GiB) | 3.75 | 3.75 |
| Networking1 of 8 differ | c3.large | c4.large |
|---|---|---|
| Network | Moderate | Moderate |
| Network baseline | 0.5 Gbps | 0.625 Gbps |
| Network peak | 1.2 Gbps | 1.2 Gbps |
| Enhanced networking | No | No |
| EFA | No | No |
| IPv6 | Yes | Yes |
| Max network interfaces | 3 | 3 |
| IPv4 addresses per interface | 10 | 10 |
| Storage11 of 12 differ | c3.large | c4.large |
|---|---|---|
| Storage | 2 x 16 SSD | EBS only |
| Local disks | 2 × 16 GB SSD | – |
| EBS optimized | No | Yes |
| EBS over NVMe | No | No |
| EBS throughput | – | 500 Mbps |
| EBS baseline bandwidth | – | 500 Mbps |
| EBS max bandwidth | – | 500 Mbps |
| EBS baseline throughput | – | 62.5 MB/s |
| EBS max throughput | – | 62.5 MB/s |
| EBS baseline IOPS | – | 4,000 |
| EBS max IOPS | – | 4,000 |
| Max EBS volumes | 39 | 40 |
| Instance details2 of 10 differ | c3.large | c4.large |
|---|---|---|
| Family | c3 | c4 |
| Category | Compute optimized | Compute optimized |
| Current generation | No | Yes |
| Normalization factor | 4 | 4 |
| Bare metal | No | No |
| Hypervisor | Xen | Xen |
| Placement groups | Cluster, Partition, Spread | Cluster, Partition, Spread |
| Hibernation | Yes | Yes |
| Nitro Enclaves | No | No |
| Boot modes | Legacy BIOS | Legacy BIOS |
On-demand prices by region
Cheapest for c3.large first. Linux, USD per hour.
| Region | c3.large | c4.large | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| US East (N. Virginia)Used in summaryus-east-1 | $0.105 | $0.1 | ▼ 5% |
| US West (Oregon)us-west-2 | $0.105 | $0.1 | ▼ 5% |
| Asia Pacific (Seoul)ap-northeast-2 | $0.115 | $0.114 | ▼ 1% |
| EU (Ireland)eu-west-1 | $0.12 | $0.113 | ▼ 6% |
| US West (N. California)us-west-1 | $0.12 | $0.124 | ▲ 3% |
| AWS GovCloud (US-West)us-gov-west-1 | $0.126 | $0.12 | ▼ 5% |
| Asia Pacific (Tokyo)ap-northeast-1 | $0.128 | $0.126 | ▼ 2% |
| EU (Frankfurt)eu-central-1 | $0.129 | $0.114 | ▼ 12% |
| Asia Pacific (Singapore)ap-southeast-1 | $0.132 | $0.115 | ▼ 13% |
| Asia Pacific (Sydney)ap-southeast-2 | $0.132 | $0.13 | ▼ 2% |
| South America (Sao Paulo)sa-east-1 | $0.163 | $0.155 | ▼ 5% |
Keep exploring
Each type’s own page, and how it compares with others.
AWS EC2 Linux prices in USD. Monthly figures use 730 hours. Prices last updated 12 Nov 2026.