T3 General Purpose
Balanced compute, memory, and networking for a wide range of workloads.
tBurstable General Purposet = Burstable General PurposeCost-effective instances providing baseline CPU performance with the ability to burst above baseline when workload surges.33rd Generation3 = 3rd GenerationAWS 3rd generation hardware platform with updated CPU/system architecture.Alternatives to t3
| Option | Price vs t3 | Why look at it |
|---|---|---|
| t3aCompare → | -10%-$0.008/hr large, Linux on-demand, us-east-1 | AMD (x86_64), same vCPU and RAM |
| t4gCompare → | -19%-$0.016/hr large, Linux on-demand, us-east-1 | Graviton (arm64), newer generation, same vCPU and RAM |
| t2Compare → | +12%+$0.0096/hr large, Linux on-demand, us-east-1 | Previous generation, same vCPU and RAM |
What to know about T3 General Purpose
Burstable x86 instances that are cheap per hour but meant for workloads that idle most of the time.
The t3 is a burstable general-purpose family on Intel. Instances earn CPU credits while idle and spend them when load rises. It comes in seven sizes from nano to 2xlarge, up to 8 vCPUs.
The hourly price looks good. A t3.large costs $0.0832 in us-east-1 on Linux, about 17% below an m7i.large with the same 2 vCPUs and 8 GiB. That only pays off if the instance is quiet most of the time. Run it hot and the credits drain, and you either get throttled or pay for unlimited mode. Under steady load an m7g or m7i is usually the better deal.
The ceilings are lower too. EBS throughput peaks at 347.5 MB/s, against 1,250 MB/s on the m7 families, and network bandwidth is up to 5 Gbps.
If your software runs on arm64, the t4g is about 19% cheaper at the same size. Windows works on t3, and the large costs about 33% more per hour with a license.
Good for
- Dev and test environments
- Small sites and low-traffic services
- Spiky workloads that idle between bursts
Watch for
- Sustained high CPU exhausts burst credits and slows the instance, or costs extra in unlimited mode
- EBS throughput tops out at 347.5 MB/s and network at up to 5 Gbps
- t4g is about 19% cheaper at the same size if you can run arm64
Common use cases
- Web servers
- Application servers
- Small-to-medium databases
- Development environments
Head-to-Head Architecture Comparisons
View all comparisons →AWS Burstable Comparison: T4g vs T3 vs T3a
Low-cost baseline compute with CPU credit burst mechanics
Compare specifications →AWS Burstable Evolution: T2 vs T3 vs T4g
How AWS burstable compute changed from Xen T2 to Graviton2 T4g
Compare specifications →