Google Cloud Workstations vs Paperspace Gradient
Google Cloud Workstations
cloud.google.comPaperspace Gradient
paperspace.comSide by side
| Figure | Google Cloud Workstations | Paperspace Gradient |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.05/mo | $8/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 3 | 17 |
| Spec score · Coding Playgrounds | 8.4 (#33) | 9.1 (#10) |
| Compliance | Google announced that Cloud Workstations is covered under the Google Cloud HIPAA BAA on September 24, 2026. | The security page says its datacenters meet SOC 1, SOC 2, PCI-DSS, and ISO 27001 standards. |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Purpose | Cloud Workstations provides fully managed development environments aimed at security-sensitive enterprises. | Gradient is a machine learning platform for developing, tracking, and collaborating on machine learning models. |
Plans
Google Cloud Workstations
- Workstation management fee$0.05 a month
- Control plane$0.20 a month
- Usage-based pricing — e2-standard-2 (us-central1)$0.17 a month
Paperspace Gradient
- Free (Individual)Free
- Pro (Individual)$8 a month
- Growth (Individual)$39 a month
- Free (Team)Free
- Pro (Team)$12 a month
- Growth (Team)$39 a month
- T0Free
- T1$12 a month
- FreeFree
- FreeFree
In their own words
Google Cloud Workstations
Google Cloud Workstations has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
Paperspace Gradient
Paperspace Gradient is a machine learning platform for building, tracking, and collaborating on models. Its browser-based IDE launches GPU-enabled Jupyter notebooks; teams can share projects, invite collaborators, and connect GitHub to manage code and compute resources. Notebook environments run in Docker containers. For deployment, Gradient serves models through API endpoints, with runtime, instance-type, and autoscaling choices. On-demand GPU and IPU instances are available, and paid instance utilization can cost extra beyond plan fees. Gradient supports major machine learning frameworks and libraries. Plans include free options and paid options listed from $8/mo; individual and team plans have different storage allowances, and notebook plans specify limits on notebooks and running sessions. Gradient is offered for beginners, ML/AI engineers, data scientists, researchers, teams, research groups, and startups. Paperspace also lists a Windows, macOS, and Linux beta desktop app, along with centralized permissions and activity logs.