Machine series (E2, N-series, C-series, M-series)

Compute Engine machine series encode a trade-off. E2 is the cost-optimized general-purpose line (lowest price, flat rate, no SUD). The N-series (N2, N2D, N4) are balanced general-purpose; N2/N2D earn sustained-use discounts, N4 is a newer flat-priced Titanium generation. The C-series (C2, C3, C3D, C4, C4A) are compute-optimized for consistently high performance. The M-series (M3) is memory-optimized for large in-memory databases.

Within a name, the number is the generation and a trailing letter marks the vendor: "d" is AMD (N2D, C3D), "a" is Arm (C4A on Google Axion). This explorer covers the current-generation members of each family.