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Stratusphere™ FinOps vs. AWS Cost Explorer | StratusGrid

Written by Leila Scola | May 30, 2024 2:32:00 PM

Understanding and managing your AWS spending helps you to understand your cloud environment. In this article, we’ll explore different software tools: AWS Cost Explorer, an AWS native solution, and Stratusphere™, an independent software created by AWS experts. 

Stratusphere™ FinOps vs. AWS Cost Explorer: Cost Management Tool Overview

Stratusphere™ FinOps

Stratusphere™ is a comprehensive FinOps software. It has a unique approach to cost optimization, with prioritized action based on the level of effort and impact. With this approach, you get easily actionable insights. Stratusphere™ is a solution that provides visibility across multiple AWS accounts at once. 

AWS Cost Explorer

AWS Cost Explorer is a native Amazon tool. It focuses on visualizing and understanding your AWS spending. It looks at past and present costs and shows you predictive future spending. 

It gives you granular detail by filtering and creating personalized dashboards.

Stratusphere™ FinOps vs. AWS Cost Explorer

Key Differences between Stratusphere™ FinOps vs. AWS Cost Explorer

The biggest difference between the two tools is that AWS Cost Explorer provides you with your past and future spending.  Stratusphere™, on the other hand, gives you an understanding of your spending and how to optimize it.

 

Stratusphere™ FinOps

AWS Cost Explorer

Reporting data

View unlimited data across accounts with multiple levels of customization, including Level of Effort (which changes are easiest to make)

View the last 13 months and predictive spending for the next 12 months

Set-Up Requirements

Immediately accessible within AWS

Requires an AWS Administrator to access Stratusphere and 24 hours for the first dashboard data to populate

Enable Cost Explorer in the AWS Cost Management console

Cost

Paid plan with a 30-day free trial

  • The AWS Cost Explorer API costs $0.01 per request

  • Cost Explorer offers hourly granularity at a daily charge of $0.00000033 per usage record (which is $0.01 per 1,000 usage records monthly).

Pros

  • Multi-account dashboard

  • Clear data and reporting available

  • Insights into how to optimize costs

  • The only native way to visualize your Cost and Usage data

  • Predictive analytics on spending

Cons

  • Requires a paid plan

  • Takes up to 24 hours to populate data on the first installation

  • Unless you pay for hourly updates it only updates every day

  • Forecasts don’t account for changes

  • You can only see a 12-month history

  • It doesn’t offer cost-reduction suggestions

Primary Focus and Functionality: Analysis vs Action

There are two key differences between Stratusphere™ and AWS Cost Explorer:

  1. AWS Cost Explorer only analyzes your costs. Stratusphere™ provides you with a plan of action.
  2. The AWS tool focuses on one account at a time. But Stratusphere can pull data from all your AWS accounts and it gives you comparative insights.

Facts and Priorities for Your Cost Efficiency

AWS Cost Explorer provides you with the information for you to identify cost optimization opportunities. It provides you with color-coded target utilization in your account.

Whereas Stratusphere tells you exactly where costs can be optimized, and gives you recommendations in order of effort it will take.

Target Audiences: Large Companies & AWS Accounts

AWS Cost Explorer can be activated for any AWS account. So if you want to keep a close eye on spending, it’s a good tool to use.

Stratusphere provides clarity to complex AWS environments. It was made to give Privaty Equity firms and large enterprises with multi-account AWS users visibility. You gain a comprehensive shared view of AWS cloud cost across all environments in your portfolio. With this understanding you gain control over all cloud environments, enhancing trust, efficiency, and performance.

Pros and Cons of AWS Cost Explorer

Pros

  • The only native way to get Cost and Usage Reports (CUR)

  • Predictive analytics on spending

  • Customizable dashboards and filters

  • A great deep dive to understand your AWS spending

Cons

  • Unless you pay for hourly updates it only updates every day

  • Forecasts don’t account for changes

  • You can only see a 12-month history

  • It doesn’t offer cost-reduction suggestions

Experience the Power of Stratusphere™ FinOps!

Gain a full understanding and visibility of your entire cloud environment using Stratusphere. Our unique, prioritized insights help you to control your cloud costs.

Book a demo to discover how Stratusphere works and learn how you can revolutionize your AWS strategy!  

BONUS: Download Your FinOps Guide to Effective Cloud Cost Optimization Here ⤵️