Comparing Running Costs: Hosting Static Websites on Cloud Run vs. Firebase Hosting

📅 Created: 2022/05/08, Updated: 2022/05/08 ⏱️ Estimated reading time ~3 mins (535 words)

Detailed cost simulation and operational trade-offs comparing Google Cloud Run serverless containers against Firebase Hosting CDN for static websites across multiple payload scenarios.

Table of Contents

Prerequisites & Assumptions
[Conclusion First] Firebase Hosting Delivers Significantly Lower Operational Costs
Free Tier Allowances
Reference Links

Prerequisites & Assumptions

Comparison modeled across three content payload scenarios: 1.0 MB, 2.0 MB, and 3.0 MB per page across 100 pages.
Assumed baseline traffic: 10,000 daily visits (approx. 300,000 monthly requests).
Architecture ①: Cloud Run Configuration
- Deployed in Tokyo region ( asia-northeast1 ).
- No external HTTP(S) Load Balancer or Cloud Armor in front (direct custom domain routing).
- Lightweight Nginx container image.
- Minimum 1 warm instance (Always-on CPU allocation, 1 vCPU, 256 MiB memory).
- Standard tier network egress.
- Artifact Registry storage cost omitted (within 0.5 GB/month free quota).
Architecture ②: Firebase Hosting Configuration
- Blaze (Pay-as-you-go) pricing plan.
- Standalone Firebase Hosting (global CDN distribution, SSD storage).

[Conclusion First] Firebase Hosting Delivers Significantly Lower Operational Costs

Based on the cost simulations below, Cloud Run only becomes marginally cheaper at exceptionally high outbound bandwidth thresholds, whereas Firebase Hosting remains vastly more cost-effective for standard traffic profiles.
Furthermore, Cloud Run’s baseline assumes fixed minimum instances; under fluctuating traffic or autoscaling spikes, compute overhead will rise substantially.
For purely static web assets, using specialized storage-and-CDN hosting platforms (like Firebase Hosting) is overwhelmingly superior in both simplicity and monthly infrastructure spend compared to running server containers.

Free Tier Allowances

Architecture ①: Cloud Run Free Quota
- Storage: None
- CPU: First 180,000 vCPU-seconds per month free
- Memory: First 360,000 GiB-seconds per month free
- Invocations: First 2,000,000 requests per month free
- Egress: 1 GiB/month outbound within North America free (not applicable to Tokyo region)
Architecture ②: Firebase Hosting Free Quota
- Storage: 10 GB free
- Data Transfer: 360 MB/day (approx. 10.8 GB/month) free

Scenario A: Average Page Size 1.0 MB

Architecture ①: Cloud Run
- CPU: ((2,592,000 s × 1 CPU) - 240,000 CPU free tier) × $0.00001800 / vCPU-s = $42.33
- Memory: ((2,592,000 s × 256 MB) / 1024 - 450,000 GiB free tier) × $0.00000200 / GiB-s = $0.40
- Requests: (300,000 reqs - 2,000,000 reqs free tier) / 1,000,000 × $0.40 = $0.00
- Data Transfer: (1.0 MB × 300,000 requests) / 1024 × $0.085/GB = $24.90
- Total: $67.63 / month
Architecture ②: Firebase Hosting
- Storage: ((1.0 MB × 100 pages) / 1024 - 10 GB free tier) × $0.026/GB = $0.00
- Data Transfer: (1.0 MB × 10,000 requests - 360 MB free tier) × 30 days / 1024 × $0.15/GB = $42.36
- Total: $42.36 / month

Scenario B: Average Page Size 2.0 MB

Architecture ①: Cloud Run
- CPU: $42.33
- Memory: $0.40
- Requests: $0.00
- Data Transfer: (2.0 MB × 300,000 requests) / 1024 × $0.085/GB = $49.80
- Total: $92.53 / month
Architecture ②: Firebase Hosting
- Storage: $0.00
- Data Transfer: (2.0 MB × 10,000 requests - 360 MB free tier) × 30 days / 1024 × $0.15/GB = $86.30
- Total: $86.30 / month

Scenario C: Average Page Size 3.0 MB

Architecture ①: Cloud Run
- CPU: $42.33
- Memory: $0.40
- Requests: $0.00
- Data Transfer: (3.0 MB × 300,000 requests) / 1024 × $0.085/GB = $74.70
- Total: $117.43 / month
Architecture ②: Firebase Hosting
- Storage: $0.00
- Data Transfer: (3.0 MB × 10,000 requests - 360 MB free tier) × 30 days / 1024 × $0.15/GB = $130.20
- Total: $130.20 / month