GCE Servers Lineup at Cloudways

Google Compute Engine (GCE) is a powerful Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering from Google Cloud Platform (GCP), designed to deliver fast, reliable, and scalable cloud hosting solutions.

At Cloudways, you can launch and manage GCE servers easily through our Managed Hosting Platform — combining Google’s world-class infrastructure with Cloudways’ performance stack, intuitive controls, and 24/7 expert support.

This article explains the GCE servers lineup at Cloudways, their features, and performance benchmarks. It also provides step-by-step guidance on how to launch, upgrade, or migrate your application to a GCE server.

Whether you're building a simple website or running compute-intensive applications, this guide will help you choose the right GCE server for your needs.

Google Compute Engine (GCE) is an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) part of the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). With Cloudways, you can build and deploy high-performance and scalable applications on GCP with simplicity and freedom.

Cloudways Managed Hosting Platform + Google’s infrastructure — is a formula that guarantees unmatched performance, reliability, and choice with 24/7 support that acts as your extended team.

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Cloudways offers a wide range of GCE servers to suit different types of workloads, from general-purpose to compute-optimized and high-CPU instances.

This lineup lets you choose the best server for your application’s performance and scalability needs, all with the simplicity of Cloudways' Managed Hosting Platform.

To provide you with the best possible hosting experience, Cloudways offers three distinct GCE server families, each optimized for different workload requirements:

Each server family is designed to meet specific needs, whether you're hosting a content-rich website, running complex data processing, or supporting large-scale applications.

Choosing the right GCE server type is key to your application's performance and scalability. Let’s explore what each server family offers.

The Standard Series is the first-generation, general-purpose family of Google Compute Engine (GCE) servers, designed to support a wide range of everyday applications.

These servers are powered by Intel Skylake, Broadwell, Haswell, Sandy Bridge, or Ivy Bridge CPUs, depending on regional availability. They include local SSD storage with faster throughput and lower latency compared to standard disks — helping improve application responsiveness.

A notable option in this family is the “Small” instance, which offers 1.70 GB RAM and 1 shared vCPU, ideal for lightweight workloads or short bursts of activity. However, the Small instance does not include local SSD storage.

The Standard Series is a great fit for:

The Compute-Optimized (CO) Series is purpose-built for compute-intensive workloads that demand maximum processing power per core.

These instances are powered by the latest generation Intel Cascade Lake processors, with a base frequency of 3.1 GHz and up to 3.8 GHz sustained all-core turbo.

Combined with robust local SSD drives (offering superior throughput and lower latency compared to standard disks), the CO Series delivers exceptional performance for demanding tasks.

Thanks to the high clock speeds of these CPUs, CO servers provide faster content delivery and more efficient script execution — perfect for workloads where processing power is critical.

Additionally, Cloudways ThunderStack and advanced caching techniques further optimize these servers, helping you get the best possible performance from your applications.

The CO Series is ideal for:

The General Purpose High-CPU (HC) Series offers an excellent price-to-performance ratio for workloads that benefit from increased CPU resources relative to memory.

These instances are powered by the latest-generation Intel Cascade Lake processors, delivering a base frequency of 2.8 GHz and up to 3.4 GHz sustained all-core turbo.

Each server is equipped with local SSD drives, providing faster throughput and lower latency compared to standard disks — ideal for accelerating application performance.

The HC Series is designed for CPU-intensive tasks that don’t require large amounts of memory but benefit from higher per-thread performance and fast execution.

Applications running on HC servers also take advantage of the Cloudways ThunderStack and advanced caching optimizations for even greater speed and efficiency.

The HC Series is a great choice for:

The availability of the GCE servers lineup at Cloudways depends on the underlying Google Cloud Platform (GCP) infrastructure. GCP currently operates in 14+ global data centers, giving you flexibility to deploy servers close to your users for lower latency and improved performance.

Please note: The Mumbai, India data center does not currently offer General Purpose High-CPU (HC) instances.

If you are scaling your server in a region where your desired instance type is not available, you can simply clone your server to another region where the machine is supported.

This ensures you can always access the server type that best fits your workload needs.

To help you choose the right server for your workload, we benchmarked several GCE server instances available on Cloudways. These tests compare page response performance and processing power across different server families.

The benchmark includes servers from the following series:

These benchmarks provide useful insights into how different GCE servers perform under load, helping you make an informed decision based on your application’s performance needs.

All the benchmarks were carried out using the same testing conditions for each machine.

The first benchmark compared server performance with Varnish Cache disabled, providing a more direct view of each server’s raw processing capabilities.

Results showed that Compute-Optimized (CO) servers consistently handled a higher number of requests under load, delivering strong performance even at larger instance sizes. After CO 7XL and HC 8XL, the rate of increase in request handling began to level off — as reflected on the graph.

Meanwhile, Standard Series servers performed well up to 4XL, but gains in response capacity flattened beyond that point.

These results suggest that for applications requiring high throughput and fast response times, the CO series offers the best scaling potential, while Standard Series is better suited for smaller to mid-size workloads.

The second benchmark compared the Coremark scores of the selected GCE servers to evaluate their CPU performance and efficiency.

Overall, the results were strong across all machines — with both the Compute-Optimized (CO) and General Purpose High-CPU (HC) series demonstrating consistent and impressive performance. Both families are well-suited for compute-heavy applications.

However, it is important to consider the memory configuration of each instance type when selecting a server. While CO and HC servers offer comparable CPU performance, CO servers provide significantly more memory per instance.

If your application requires a combination of high processing power and larger memory capacity, the CO series will likely be the better choice.

Follow these simple steps to quickly launch a new GCE server and deploy your application on the Cloudways Platform.

Log in to your Cloudways Platform using your credentials.

8. Scroll down and select the storage size for application web files.

9. Next, choose the storage size for the database.

10. Choose your server location from the list.

11. Finally, click Launch Now.
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That’s it! Your new GCE Instance will be deployed in a few minutes.

Once your server and application(s) are created, then don’t forget to follow the take site live checklist to take your website online.

If you’re already using Google Cloud Platform (GCP), you can easily upgrade to a newer GCE server family using the Vertical Scaling feature within the Cloudways Platform.

If you are currently hosted on another cloud provider and wish to switch to GCP, you can simply clone your existing server to a new GCE server — ensuring a smooth migration with minimal downtime.

You can easily scale up your current GCE instance to the latest-generation servers using the Vertical Scaling feature on the Cloudways Platform.

Please note that the scaling process will temporarily take your server offline while new resources are allocated.

Although the process is typically fast, we recommend performing scaling operations during off-peak hours to minimize any potential impact on your website visitors.

Log in to your Cloudways Platform using your credentials.

3. Under Server Management, select Vertical Scaling.

4. Under server size, hover over different server sizes to get more information. Once decided, you can select that server size.

5. Finally, click Scale Now.

6. You will be prompted with some warnings about the scaling process. Once you are ready, you can click Proceed.

It may take a few minutes to get your server up and running again with new specifications.

Upgrading from other cloud providers to a new GCE server is possible by cloning the server.

Log in to your Cloudways Platform using your email address and password.

4. You will be prompted for the cloning process. Click Yes.

5. Select the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) as your infrastructure provider.

6. Next, select your desired server size.

7. Choose the storage size for application web files.

8. Next, choose the storage size for the database.

9. Select your server location.

10. Finally, click the Clone Server.

Your new GCE server instance will be deployed within a few minutes.

Please note that the cloning process only copies your website’s content and data — it does not carry over previously applied server configurations or platform settings.

After the cloning process is complete, be sure to follow the Take Site Live Checklist and update your DNS records to bring your website online smoothly.

Looking for a flexible, high-performance alternative to Bluehost? With Cloudways, you can host your applications on the top five cloud providers, including Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) — all with the simplicity of managed hosting.

That’s it! We hope this article was useful.

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