EC2 Instance Types 101: The Definitive Guide For 2026

The same flexibility that makes EC2 appealing can also make it complex, confusing, and unnecessarily costly.

Understanding EC2 instance types and their best use cases is essential for optimizing both performance and cost. This guide covers instance families, sizes, and when to use each.

We’ve also covered Amazon EC2 pricing in this article, featuring On-Demand Instances, Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, and Spot Instances.

What Is An Amazon EC2 Instance?

An EC2 instance is a virtual server in the AWS ecosystem that provides processing, memory, storage, and networking capabilities to run applications.

Amazon EC2 instances differ from standard virtual machines (VMs) in several ways:

What Are EC2 Instances Used For?

AWS offers five categories of Amazon EC2 instances for different use cases:

Each of these instance classes divides further into different sizes and families of EC2 instances.

What Are The EC2 Instance Families?

Amazon EC2 organizes instances into five classes, each containing multiple instance families:

Amazon EC2 Instance Types
General Purpose	Compute Optimized	Memory Optimized	Storage Optimized	Accelerated Computing
Mac, T, M, A	C, Hpc	R, X, High Memory, Z	I, D, H	P, DL, Trn, Inf, G, F, VT

EC2 offers over 20 instance families across these five classes, each optimized for specific workload types.

Each of these families was designed for a specific use case, which we will explore in the sections that follow.

What EC2 Instance Types Are Available Today?

An EC2 instance type describes the combination of CPU, RAM, storage, and networking capacity for a specific instance family. Below is a handy table that highlights the various types of instances.

Amazon EC2 Instance Types
General Purpose	Compute Optimized	Memory Optimized	Storage Optimized	Accelerated Computing
Mac, T, M, A	C, Hpc	R, X, High Memory, Z	I, D, H	P, DL, Trn, Inf, G, F, VT
Mac T2 T3a T3 T4g M4 M5zn M5n M5a M5 M6a M6i M6g A1	C4 C5n C5a C5 Hpc6a C6a C6i C6gn C6g C7g	R4 R5n R5b R5a R5 R6i R6g R6a X1 X1e X2iezn X2iedn X2idn X2gd High Memory z1d	I3en 13 I4i Is4gen Im4gn D2 D3 D3en H1	P2 P3 P4 Inf1 Trn1 DL1 G3 G4ad G4dn G5g G5 F1 VT1

Amazon EC2 offers multiple instance sizes within each family, allowing you to match capacity to workload requirements.

What Are The EC2 Instance Sizes?

Amazon EC2 instance sizes specify the amount of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity allocated to an instance within a given instance family.

Most EC2 families offer sizes that scale predictably, including:

nano · micro · small · medium · large · xlarge · 2xlarge

(Some families extend beyond these sizes.)

The goal is rightsizing, choosing the smallest instance that meets performance requirements to avoid wasted spending. AWS predefines the vCPU, memory, storage, and networking for each size, so scaling up or down is consistent within a family.

We’ve outlined the characteristics, size, and best use cases for each EC2 instance type below.

1. T2 instance type

T2 instances are burstable, general-purpose EC2 instances, and are now considered legacy by AWS. They remain available but are not recommended for new workloads.

T2 instances use CPU credits:

In Unlimited Mode, a T2 instance can continue bursting after credits are exhausted, but additional charges apply for sustained CPU usage above baseline.

T2 Instance Size	vCPU	Memory in GiB	Networking Performance	Credits Generated per hour of baseline performance
t2.nano	1	0.5	Low	3
t2.micro	1	1	Low to moderate	6
t2.small	1	2	Low to moderate	12
t2.medium	2	4	Low to moderate	24
t2.large	2	8	Low to moderate	36
t2.xlarge	4	16	moderate	54
t2.2xlarge	8	32	moderate	81

2. T3 instance type

Amazon EC2 T3 instances are burstable, general-purpose EC2 instances designed for workloads with variable CPU usage.

They provide balanced CPU, memory, and networking, with Unlimited Mode enabled by default to allow short bursts of higher performance.

Both support Amazon EBS, enhanced networking, and CPU credit–based bursting. They are best suited for low- to moderate-traffic applications, development environments, small databases, and workloads with occasional CPU spikes.

T3 Instance Size	vCPU	Memory in GiB	Networking Performance	Credits Generated per hour of baseline performance
t3.nano	2	0.5	Up to 5GHz	6
t3.micro	2	1	Up to 5GHz	12
t3.small	2	2	Up to 5GHz	24
t3.medium	2	4	Up to 5GHz	24
t3.large	2	8	Up to 5GHz	36
t3.xlarge	4	16	Up to 5GHz	96
t3.2xlarge	8	32	Up to 5GHz	192

3. T4g instance type

This is a newer generation of the T family instance that features AWS’s own Arm-based Graviton 2 processors (64-bit), which deliver up to 40% better price-performance over T3 instances.

T4 Instance Size	vCPU	Memory in GiB	Networking Performance	Baseline performance to earn credits	Credits Generated per hour of baseline performance
t4.nano	2	0.5	Up to 55GHz	5%	6
t4.micro	2	1	Up to 5GHz	10%	12
t4.small	2	2	Up to 5GHz	20%	24
t4.medium	2	4	Up to 5GHz	20%	24
t4.large	2	8	Up to 5GHz	30%	36
t4.xlarge	4	16	Up to 5GHz	40%	96
t4.2xlarge	8	32	Up to 5GHz	40%	192

4. Amazon EC2 M instance types

With M family instances, you get balanced CPU, RAM, and network capacity, along with support for EBS and Enhanced Networking. In some instances, such as M4, Intel Xeon processors (scalable and clocked at 2.5 GHz) are used, whereas in others, such as M6g, AWS Arm Graviton 2 processors are used.

Newer M instances offer more size options than M4 instances (which were limited to six sizes). Common use cases for M instances include:

M4 Instance Type	vCPU	Memory in GiB	Networking Performance
m4.large	2	8	Moderate
m4.xlarge	4	16	High
m4.2xlarge	8	32	High
m4.4xlarge	16	64	High
m4.10xlarge	40	160	10 Gbps
m4.16xlarge	64	256	25 Gbps

5. A1 instance type

This instance uses AWS Graviton processors, supports Enhanced Networking and EBS storage, and combines lightweight hypervisors with dedicated hardware. There are six sizes to choose from:

A1 Instance Type	vCPU	Memory in GiB	Networking Performance
a1.medium	1	2	Up to 10 Gbps
a1.large	2	4	Up to 10 Gbps
a1.xlarge	4	8	Up to 10 Gbps
a1.2xlarge	8	16	Up to 10 Gbps
a1.4xlarge	16	32	Up to 10 Gbps
a1.metal	16	32	Up to 10 Gbps

6. Amazon EC2 C instance types

The C family of instances offers high-performance processing power for compute-intensive workloads. You can expect the Intel Xeon (C4), AMD SYNC (C5), and AWS Graviton3 (C7g) processors, enhanced networking, and EBS support. 

The baseline C4 instances have the following sizes:

C4 Instance Type	vCPU	Memory in GiB	Networking Performance
c4.large	2	3.75	Moderate
c4.xlarge	4	7.5	High
c4.2xlarge	8	15	High
c4.4xlarge	16	30	High
c4.8xlarge	36	60	10 Gbps

7. Amazon EC2 R instance types

These memory-optimized instances support DDR4 memory, Enhanced Networking, and high-frequency processors for running memory-intensive applications.

R6a instances, powered by AMD EPYC processors, deliver up to 60% better price-performance than R4 instances, which are clocked at 2.3 GHz.

Between the two, R5 instances offer the following sizes:

R5 Instance Type	vCPU	Memory in GiB	Networking Performance
r5.large	2	15.25	Up to 10 Gbps
r5.xlarge	4	30.5	Up to 10 Gbps
r5.2xlarge	8	61	Up to 10 Gbps
r5.4xlarge	16	122	Up to 10 Gbps
r5.8xlarge	32	244	10 Gbps
r5.16xlarge	64	488	25 Gbps

8. Amazon EC2 X instance types

Like R instances, these memory-optimized instances exhibit varying performance across sizes within the X1, X1e, and X2 series. For example, X2gd instances offer a 55% better price-to-performance ratio, seven additional sizes, and higher network bandwidth than X1 instances.

As a middle ground, X2iezn instances are available in the following sizes:

X2iezn Instance Type	vCPU	Memory in GiB	Networking Performance
x2iezn.large	8	256	Up to 25 Gbps
x2iezn.xlarge	16	512	Up to 25 Gbps
x2iezn.2xlarge	24	768	50 Gbps
x2iezn.4xlarge	32	1024	75 Gbps
x2iezn.8xlarge	48	1536	100 Gbps
x2iezn.16xlarge	48	1536	100 Gbps

9. Amazon EC2 Z1d instances

If you require both high compute and memory performance, Z1d instances deliver the fastest instance types in the AWS cloud (up to 4.0 GHz across all Intel Xeon cores), up to 384 GiB of RAM, and up to 1.8 TB of storage per instance.

The following sizes are available:

Z1d Instance Type	vCPU	Memory in GiB	Networking Performance
z1d.large	2	16	Up to 10 Gbps
z1d.xlarge	4	32	Up to 10 Gbps
z1d.2xlarge	8	64	Up to 10 Gbps
z1d.3xlarge	12	96	Up to 10 Gbps
z1d.6xlarge	24	192	10 Gbps
z1d.12xlarge	48	384	10 Gbps
z1d.metal	48	384	25 Gbps

10. Amazon EC2 P instance type

These Accelerated Computing instances provide high-performance graphics processing.

P2 instances are ideal for general-purpose GPU workloads; P3 instances are suitable for high-performance compute; and P3 are the latest-generation instances, supporting the highest performance among GPU-based instances.

Here are the size options for P3 instances, as an example:

P3 Instance Type	GPU	GPU Memory	vCPU	Memory in GiB	Networking Performance
p3.2xlarge	1	16	8	61	Up to 10 Gbps
p3.8xlarge	4	64	32	244	10 Gbps
p3.16xlarge	8	128	64	488	25 Gbps
p3.24xlarge	8	256	96	768	100 Gbps

When to use Amazon EC2 P instances: Machine Learning, high-performance computing, and more.

Like P instances, G, F1, VT1, DL1, Trn1, and Inf1 instance types are all optimized for GPU-intensive applications. The best thing to do is to evaluate each instance type individually to see if it suits your needs.

When choosing the right EC2 instance type, you can either do so manually or automate the process.

How To Choose The Best EC2 Instances For Your Needs

More than any other AWS service, Amazon EC2 gives you the most choice in the type of instances you choose to launch, run, and maintain your applications.

Configuring EC2 instance types incorrectly wastes resources and increases costs. Overprovisioning by even one instance size can:

It’s a downward spiral that no company wants to experience. You can avoid that with intelligent tools, like CloudZero Advisor.

CloudZero Advisor is a free tool that provides recommendations on the best Amazon EC2 instances for a specific workload, based on compute instance type, pricing, name, release date, architecture, region, compute capacity, and additional filters. You can even add a custom filter for even more personalized results.

You can also track Amazon EC2 costs by customer, service, feature, team, project, and more with CloudZero — down to the hour to know who, what, and why your Amazon EC2 costs are changing. This empowers you to tell exactly where to cut costs — or increase investment to maximize ROI.

to see all this in action within days — not months!