Choose an AlloyDB machine type

Choosing the right machine shape for your AlloyDB for PostgreSQL cluster is critical for getting the best performance and cost efficiency for your database workload. This document helps you choose the right machine type by describing the AlloyDB machine series, their intended use cases, and how Google determines where to launch the machine series.

Having a diverse set of machine types lets you customize your AlloyDB instance for your use case, whether you have a massive dataset that benefits from a huge cache, or you have a high-concurrency transactional workload that benefits from the highest number of cores. This flexibility ensures that AlloyDB can support everything from massive, very large database workloads to standard, mission-critical applications.

Machine series overview

AlloyDB offers the following machine series, each built on a different underlying Google Cloud compute platform and optimized for specific performance characteristics.

Machine series availability for AlloyDB clusters

You can choose one of the following machine series:

• N2: this machine series provides a balanced price-to-performance ratio for a variety of AlloyDB workloads.
• C4A Axion-based: this machine series provides optimized price-performance and delivers predictable high performance for high demand AlloyDB workloads.
• C4: this machine series provides excellent performance, and the largest vertical scale in AlloyDB.

• Z3: this machine series is optimized for storage-dense, I/O-intensive workloads.