Q: How does the OpenMetal XL v4 compare to AWS i4i instances?
The OpenMetal XL v4 provides 64 dedicated physical cores, 1TB of persistent DDR5 RAM, and 25.6TB of persistent NVMe storage on single-tenant hardware at a fixed monthly rate, while AWS i4i.metal offers 128 vCPUs on a shared hypervisor with 30.72TB of ephemeral NVMe that is lost on instance stop — at variable hourly pricing currently around $10–$13/hr on-demand.
The most operationally significant difference is storage persistence. AWS i4i NVMe is instance storage — it does not survive a stop or termination event. Workloads that need durable local NVMe (database storage, persistent container volumes, write-ahead logs) must pair i4i instances with EBS volumes, which adds cost and introduces network storage latency. On the XL v4, all four Micron 7500 MAX drives are persistent across reboots and OS reinstalls, with 1.1M random read IOPS per drive available to workloads without an additional storage bill.
Intel TDX is active by default on the XL v4 — no opt-in, no separate service required. AWS i4i instances do not offer TDX; AWS Nitro Enclaves provide a different confidential computing model with different trust boundaries and isolation guarantees. For workloads that require hardware-encrypted memory isolation from the infrastructure operator, bare metal TDX provides a stronger isolation posture than enclave services on a shared hypervisor stack.
On pricing model, the XL v4 operates at a fixed monthly rate with 95th-percentile egress billing — sustained high-bandwidth workloads do not accumulate per-GB charges for traffic below the 95th percentile threshold. AWS charges $0.09/GB for public egress, making high-egress workloads disproportionately expensive at scale. For organizations able to commit to monthly infrastructure, the XL v4’s fixed cost model simplifies financial planning compared to i4i on-demand or Reserved Instance pricing.
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