AWS EC2 alternatives
Default enterprise VM substrate. Agents should wrap it — humans shouldn't live in the console.
Overall 8.01 (curated_estimate, high) · score asOf 2026-09-14 · last reviewed 2026-09-14. This is not an Elo and not a live price board. Provider · JSON
Jobs: agent-backend, cheap-vms, enterprise-compute, postgres-vector
| Provider | Why listed | Overall | Δ vs subject | asOf |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supabase (pgvector) Depot default for most agent apps under ~25–50M vectors. Don't add Pinecone until Postgres actually hurts. | same_jtbd_pick · postgres-vector | 8.64high | +0.63 | 2026-09-14 |
| Modal Depot darling for Python agent backends and bursty GPU jobs. If you think in functions not VMs, start here. | same_jtbd_pick · agent-backend | 8.44high | +0.43 | 2026-10-19 |
| Hetzner When you need cheap always-on CPU in EU, start here. DIY the agent orchestration yourself. | same_jtbd_pick · cheap-vms | 8.2high | +0.19 | 2026-09-14 |
| Neon Excellent serverless Postgres for agent apps that want branching + pgvector without Supabase's full BaaS. | same_jtbd_runner · postgres-vector | 8.59high | +0.58 | 2026-09-14 |
| Fly.io Excellent for globally distributed agent sidecars and Machines-based sandboxes. Prefer Railway/Render if you… | same_jtbd_runner · agent-backend | 8.28high | +0.27 | 2026-09-14 |
| Convex Great TS agent product backend when you want reactive state+actions together. Prefer Supabase/Neon when… | same_jtbd_runner · agent-backend | 8.15high | +0.14 | 2026-09-14 |
| DigitalOcean Classic simple cloud. Use for steady VMs and Spaces; pair Paperspace/RunPod for GPUs. | same_jtbd_runner · cheap-vms | 8.15high | +0.14 | 2026-09-14 |
| Render Boring reliable PaaS. Great when Railway feels too hip and AWS feels too heavy. | same_jtbd_runner · agent-backend | 8.1high | +0.09 | 2026-09-14 |
| Railway Depot favorite for shipping agent APIs quickly. When bills climb, move steady-state to Fly/Hetzner/DO. | same_jtbd_runner · agent-backend | 8.08high | +0.07 | 2026-09-14 |
| GCP Compute Engine Solid when you're already on GCP. Otherwise Hetzner/DO/Fly are faster paths for agents. | same_jtbd_runner · enterprise-compute | 7.93high | -0.08 | 2026-09-14 |
| Oracle Cloud GPU Secret weapon for cheap cloud GPUs if you tolerate OCI quirks. Not the agent-native DX winner. | same_jtbd_runner · cheap-vms | 7.65medium | -0.36 | 2026-09-14 |
| Azure Virtual Machines Enterprise Microsoft default. Indie agent stacks should look elsewhere first. | same_jtbd_runner · enterprise-compute | 7.64high | -0.37 | 2026-09-14 |
Prices are not ranked on this page. For a job, use the sourced quote (separate input and output rows, Depot Pick unchanged): agent-backend, cheap-vms, enterprise-compute, postgres-vector.
Alternatives are other catalog providers that share a JTBD as pick or runner-up. If fewer than three exist, same-category active providers fill the list and are labeled same_category. Overall deltas are catalog scores. kind=curated_estimate is not a lab measurement. Pricing rows are sourced or explicitly null. Do not parse pricingNotes. A single normalized USD figure is set only for a provider with exactly one token row.