you are locking down a single piece of hardware just for your purposes.

Dedicated Instance does not work like this. Your instance runs on some dedicated hardware. Its not lockdown to you. If you stop/start instance, you can get some other hardware somewhere else. Basically, the hardware is "yours" (you are not sharing it with others) for the time your instance is running. You stop/start it, you may get different physical machine later on (maybe older, maybe newer, maybe its specs will be a bit different), and so on. So your instance is moved around on different physical servers - whichever is not occupied by others at the time.

With Dedicated Host the physical server is basically yours. It does not change, it's always the same physical machine for as long as you are paying.

Answer from Marcin on Stack Overflow
🌐
Jayendra's Cloud Certification Blog
jayendrapatil.com › tag › dedicated-hosts-vs-dedicated-instances
Dedicated Hosts vs Dedicated Instances Archives - Jayendra's Cloud Certification Blog
If you don’t have any running instances that match the attributes of the Capacity Reservation, it remains unused until you launch an instance with matching attributes. ... Dedicated Instances are EC2 instances that run in a VPC on hardware that’s dedicated to a single customer
🌐
Amazon Web Services
docs.aws.amazon.com › amazon ec2 › user guide › amazon ec2 instances › amazon ec2 billing and purchasing options › amazon ec2 dedicated instances
Amazon EC2 Dedicated Instances - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
For more information, see Reserved Instances for Amazon EC2 overview and Reserve compute capacity with EC2 On-Demand Capacity Reservations. When you purchase a Dedicated Reserved Instance, you are purchasing the capacity to launch a Dedicated Instance at a much reduced usage fee; the price ...
🌐
LinkedIn
linkedin.com › pulse › quick-comparison-reserved-instance-vs-dedicated-hosts
Quick Comparison of Reserved Instance vs Dedicated Hosts vs AWS OutPosts
August 23, 2020 - For comparison purpose, the same type is assumed for UAT and Prod instance with higher CPU (and EBS space). 6. EBS volume is not considered as parameter for comparison of cost. 7. 3 Years of usage required with atleast m5.12xlarge for Dev/QA/UAT and Production respectively in all the 3 cases. ... 1. Dedicated Reserved Instances for 3 years with the above configurations for 4 systems ( for Dev/QA/UAT/Prod respectively).
🌐
AWS
aws.amazon.com › what is cloud computing? › cloud comparisons hub › compute › what’s the difference between on-demand instances and reserved instances?
On-Demand Instances vs Reserved Instances - Instance Types Comparison - AWS
4 days ago - With On-Demand Instances, you pay ... automatically scales up or down with changing workloads. In contrast, Reserved Instances provide a discounted rate and an optional capacity reservation for your instances....
🌐
AWS
aws.amazon.com › amazon ec2 › pricing › dedicated instances
Amazon EC2 Dedicated Instances
5 days ago - Your Dedicated instances are physically isolated at the host hardware level from instances that belong to other AWS accounts. Dedicated instances may share hardware with other instances from the same AWS account that are not Dedicated instances. Pay for Dedicated Instances On-Demand, save up ...
🌐
Virtana
virtana.com › home › aws pricing – dedicated, on-demand, reserved and spot. demystifying the terminology of aws instances
AWS Pricing - Dedicated, On-Demand, Reserved and Spot. Demystifying the Terminology of AWS Instances
May 12, 2023 - But there’s another option if you want even more isolation and control over your infrastructure. Dedicated Hosts enable the same level of isolation as Dedicated Instances, but additionally, they give you visibility into the physical host.
Top answer
1 of 6
235

you are locking down a single piece of hardware just for your purposes.

Dedicated Instance does not work like this. Your instance runs on some dedicated hardware. Its not lockdown to you. If you stop/start instance, you can get some other hardware somewhere else. Basically, the hardware is "yours" (you are not sharing it with others) for the time your instance is running. You stop/start it, you may get different physical machine later on (maybe older, maybe newer, maybe its specs will be a bit different), and so on. So your instance is moved around on different physical servers - whichever is not occupied by others at the time.

With Dedicated Host the physical server is basically yours. It does not change, it's always the same physical machine for as long as you are paying.

2 of 6
28

Dedicated Host

As soon as you 'allocate' a Dedicated Host, you start paying for that whole host.

A host computer is very big. In fact, it is the size of the largest instance of the selected family, but can be divided-up into smaller instances of the same family. ("You can run any number of instances up to the core capacity associated with the host.")

Any instances that run on that Host are not charged, since you are already being billed for the Host.

That is why a Dedicated Host is more expensive than a Dedicated Instance -- the charge is for the whole host.

Dedicated Instance

"Dedicated Instances are Amazon EC2 instances that run in a virtual private cloud (VPC) on hardware that's dedicated to a single customer... Dedicated Instances may share hardware with other instances from the same AWS account that are not Dedicated Instances."

This means that no other AWS Account will run an instance on the same Host, but other instances (both dedicated and non-dedicated) from the same AWS Account might run on the same Host.

Billing is per-instance, with a cost approximately 10% more than the normal instance charge (but no extra charge if it is the largest instance in the family, since it requires the whole host anyway).

🌐
Trek10
trek10.com › homepage › blog listing › what is the difference between dedicated hosts and dedicated instances on aws?
What is the Difference Between Dedicated Hosts and ...
If you fill an entire on-demand Dedicated Host with instances, you will be paying around a 10% premium vs. on-demand instances · You can purchase reserved Dedicated Hosts to reduce cost
Price   $
Address   1400 E. Angela Blvd, Suite 209, 46617, South Bend
🌐
AWS
aws.amazon.com › amazon ec2 › pricing › reserved instances
Reserved Instances - Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances - AWS
4 days ago - Tenancy: If you are using instances with a default tenancy, purchase default tenancy Reserved Instances. If you are using dedicated instances, purchase Reserved Instances with a tenancy of dedicated.
Find elsewhere
🌐
Harness
harness.io › harness devops academy (glossary) › what are aws reserved instances?
What are AWS Reserved Instances?
November 5, 2025 - Dedicated Hosts provide physical servers dedicated to your use, offering increased visibility and control over the underlying infrastructure. Reserved Instances are best suited for long-term, consistent, and predictable workloads.
🌐
Boltops
blog.boltops.com › 2018 › 07 › 13 › on-demand-vs-reserved-vs-spot-aws-ec2-pricing-comparison
On-Demand vs Reserved vs Spot AWS EC2 Pricing Comparison - BoltOps Blog
Once you get the on-demand instance, you keep it until you terminate it. In this pricing model, you pay the most because you can leave at any time. With reserved instances, you get the same instance hardware, but you pay less.
🌐
Reddit
reddit.com › r/awscertifications › have some doubt on pricing models. on demand, reserved, etc...
r/AWSCertifications on Reddit: Have some doubt on pricing models. On demand, Reserved, etc...
August 19, 2023 -

I have a peculiar doubt on the pricing models. Clarify me if I am wrong. We have options such as

On-demand (For compute and storage)

Dedicated hosts (An entire server is dedicated to us and we can use it for compute and storage as well)

Dedicated instances (We are dedicated a physical hardware which other customers cannot use but if we stop and start the service or similar operation, then, we are assigned some other physical hardware where there are no customers using. Used for compute and storage both)

Spot instances (Spare hardware is given at a discount to make use of the idle. If the EC2 instance wants the resource we may lose the progress. IS THIS FOR COMPUTE AND STORAGE or ONLY COMPUTE?)

Savings Plan (Commitment to a consistent amount of usage for what? Compute or storage or both?)

Reserved instances (Reservation for 1 or 3 years. Both compute and Storage. Does this apply to elasticache as well? Elasticache is a caching service right? Does it also require reservations? Does it not erase after some time?)

I hope someone answers. Learning for the CCP exam.

Top answer
1 of 2
4
price in order dedicated hosts > dedicated instances > on-demand > reserved instance > spot instance In short Dedicated hosts -> you pay for the whole machine, no one else can use it Dedicated instance -> One host can have multiple instances, On-demand -> you buy on demand, like what it mention Reserved instance -> you buy more in advance, aws give you discount spot instance -> aws capacity did not hit the ceiling yet, many times there are idle servers lying around, they are promoting a bigger sale than reserved instances. However, they hold the rights to terminate this instance if someone wants to use it and pay a bigger price
2 of 2
2
Pricing is one of the hardest things to wrap your head around with theory only studying since a lot of courses gloss over it for the most part, so you're definitely not alone in not fully understanding it (hell, some of the architects I work with barely understand cost since they don't have to scope out their own projects lol) The different pricing models you listed here are basically all just for compute. Storage is typically billed differently/independently of your ec2 instance running cost. Reserved Instance: You're pretty spot on here. The only thing I'll add that may make it easier to remember is that pretty much any service that makes you provision resources manually will allow you to use RIs (Ex: EC2, RDS, DocumentDB, Elasticache). To be pedantic, because higher level exams will be, technically elasticache uses reserved nodes instead of RIs, but they're the same thing in everything but name. -Savings Plans: A savings plan is sort of like the inverse of a reserved instance. With an ri, your promising Amazon that you will have an instance of whatever type you select running 24/7 for the duration of your commitment period. Savings plans are kind of the opposite. With a savings plan you are committing to a certain dollar amount spent monthly on compute, but you're not bound to a certain instance type. There are two different kinds of savings plans (EC2 and General Compute) but you probably don't need to know the specifics of how they differ for cloud practitioner. Just know that they exist. -Elasticache: I responded to another comment with some clarifications about elasticache hosting, but if you buy an RI for an elasticache node, all you're saying is that you will have elasticache running for that period and you want a cheaper price. RIs have no bearing whatsoever on data persistence. All the RI does is confirm a lower running cost with the agreement that the server will run 24/7. Everything else is exactly the same as EC2. If you want to get lower pricing on EBS storage, your only option is to pick a cheaper volume type (Ex: GP3 is cheaper than GP2, and Standard HDD is cheaper than GP3). This cost stuff is super important for the cloud practitioner so it's good that you're looking into it this deeply! If you haven't already, I would look into services like cost explorer, trusted advisor, and the billing dashboard as those are other fairly important cost-related services. Good luck on the exam!
🌐
Amazon Web Services
docs.aws.amazon.com › amazon ec2 › user guide › amazon ec2 instances › amazon ec2 billing and purchasing options › reserved instances for amazon ec2 overview
Reserved Instances for Amazon EC2 overview - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
With Reserved Instances, you make a commitment to a specific instance configuration, whereas with Savings Plans, you have the flexibility to use the instance configurations that best meet your needs. To use Savings Plans, you make a commitment to a consistent usage amount, measured in USD per hour.
🌐
Amazon Web Services
docs.aws.amazon.com › amazon ec2 › user guide › amazon ec2 instances › amazon ec2 billing and purchasing options
Amazon EC2 billing and purchasing options - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Spot Instances – Request unused EC2 instances, which can reduce your Amazon EC2 costs significantly. Dedicated Hosts – Pay for a physical host that is fully dedicated to running your instances, and bring your existing per-socket, per-core, or per-VM software licenses to reduce costs.
🌐
Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › azure › virtual-machines › prepay-dedicated-hosts-reserved-instances
Prepay for Azure Dedicated Hosts to save money - Azure Virtual Machines | Microsoft Learn
Over the lifetime of the reservation, ... on the hardware usage fluctuations and lifecycle. Reserved instances are available for most dedicated host sizes, with some exceptions....
🌐
The Cloudericks Blog
cloudericks.com › home › aws cloud › understanding ec2 dedicated hosts and dedicated instances
Understanding EC2 Dedicated Hosts and Dedicated Instances - The Cloudericks Blog
December 24, 2024 - On-Demand: You pay for the Dedicated Host on a per-second basis. Reserved: This option comes with a commitment of 1 or 3 years and offers several payment modes – No Upfront, Partial Upfront, or All Upfront.
🌐
Incredibuild
incredibuild.com › home › what’s the difference between on-demand, reserved, and spot instances?
On-Demand vs Reserved vs Spot Instances | Incredibuild
February 13, 2025 - Try to stick to using On-Demand Instances for short-term projects where you’ll struggle to predict the amount of capacity you’ll need at any given time. If your project is running for longer, or you can predict your computing needs with some level of accuracy, it’s much more cost-effective to use Reserved Instances instead.
🌐
Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › azure › cost-management-billing › reservations › billing-understand-dedicated-hosts-reservation-charges
Understand Azure Dedicated Hosts Reserved Instances discount - Microsoft Cost Management | Microsoft Learn
Azure Reserved Dedicated Hosts Instance provides you with a discount to the cost of the compute infrastructure used with your dedicated hosts. The discount applies to your dedicated hosts regardless of whether they're actively used by virtual ...
🌐
Jayendra's Cloud Certification Blog
jayendrapatil.com › tag › spot-vs-on-demand-instances
Spot vs On-Demand Instances Archives - Jayendra's Cloud Certification Blog
If you don’t have any running instances that match the attributes of the Capacity Reservation, it remains unused until you launch an instance with matching attributes. ... Dedicated Instances are EC2 instances that run in a VPC on hardware that’s dedicated to a single customer