Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Amazon AWS vs IBM Public Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon AWS
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
254
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (2nd)
IBM Public Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
IoT Platforms (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon AWS is 13.5%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.2%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Oct 16, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

Arun Srivastav - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows for automatic scaling of resources and provides built-in firewalls and security features, eliminating the need for external security solutions
One thing that's a bit different is that we're still accustomed to speaking to someone directly. AWS doesn't offer that kind of support. It's only through bots. You're speaking to chatbots, and that can sometimes be frustrating because there's no person on the other side. AI is not a substitute for a person. AWS marketplace is very strong, but somehow AWS doesn't promote it much. They have a huge customer base across the globe, and if products were launched in their marketplace, they could sell like hotcakes. They should improve their marketplace and promote the same product across the globe. They can take a cut, but they should promote it. That's something they don't do very much. So, AWS should promote its marketplace software. The company should promote it aggressively. Currently, they keep it very subtle. If you ask for it, they'll help you out. But they don't seem to advertise, "You're building a product on our platform? Why don't you sell it in our marketplace?" Improvement in AI: AWS is a little behind Microsoft Azure in terms of AI. AWS is still getting there, but the kind of examples and help files available in Azure for AI are much better. So AWS still needs to work on its AI functionality.
Shivakumar Kuppannan - PeerSpot reviewer
No hidden charges, 100% stable, and allows us to have bare metal servers for dedicated workload
It pretty much has all the features. There are many applications and features, and because of that, we need to walk through or study all the material and do hands-on. We need clear documentation or support for using IBM Public Cloud. The UI is fine, and everything else in terms of usability and configuring the cloud is also fine. The only thing is that when we're stuck or get an error, we need some technical support. Normally, for any cloud, we get a lot of information on the web, but that is missing in the case of IBM Public Cloud. We need some technical support documents. That is the only thing missing in IBM Public Cloud.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The technical support is good."
"We have seen an improvement in our infrastructure, as the code makes it very easy to deploy quickly to AWS."
"The most useful feature of Amazon AWS is it can be accessed from anywhere."
"Setting up AWS was pretty easy. It was straightforward to set up, and it took us a year to develop and migrate our mobile banking solution to the AWS cloud. Our migration experience was quite positive."
"The services that we are using have frequent updates, at least twice a year. They provide a new version that has more capabilities or features that fit our process and procedures."
"Since AWS came a bit later to the market, they are always improving and upgrading their platform."
"The performance of AWS is excellent."
"There is less work for the DBAs. Everything is handled in AWS itself."
"For non-complex applications, the IBM Cloud works fine and the price is much lower than the competitors."
"The initial setup was very easy. It's quite straightforward. Deployment took about fifteen minutes. Everything is well organized."
"One of the features that I really like about IBM Cloud is the flexibility where you can order your own hardware."
"An advantage of IBM Public Cloud is the bare metal server. We can take the bare metal server. It's not shared with anyone. We can deploy our applications without sharing them with anyone. That is an advantage of IBM Public Cloud."
"I've found the stability to be excellent. The performance is good."
"This is a predictable and dependable service."
"It provides robust analytics and management tools to give customers complete visibility into their environment and infrastructure."
"It is a scalable product. You can scale it up and down."
 

Cons

"User personalization and robotic process automation services need to be mature enough. More APIs are required for robotic process automation services. Azure is more mature in terms of user personalization and robotic process automation services. The document processing can also be better. Whenever we want to do any kind of document management, I try to do OCR, ICR, etc. The functionality in AWS has to be more like that."
"We don't know whether to increase server capacity or alert notifications. We don't know which hard disc to purchase or what the next recommended CPU is. There should be an indicator. We would like to have more guidance."
"There is a feature called Kinesis, which has to do with image processing. There are a few artificial intelligence tools that Amazon AWS should improve on."
"There are some limitations for certain applications that happen regionally and it is an issue for us."
"AWS could be more scalable."
"The price could be better. Support for data analytics could be better. I don't see much support for data analytics. They have a lot of support in Azure, but I don't see a lot of innovation on the data analytics side in AWS."
"Amazon AWS would be improved if it were more stable and if customer support's responses were faster."
"The price needs improvement."
"They could improve on customizing reporting capabilities."
"Recently, we just faced some issues with the operating system due to the end of life of CentOS 6...So, then the client wanted to try it out under AWS instead of IBM. In short, it has some complexities."
"Normally, for any cloud, we get a lot of information on the web, but that is missing in the case of IBM Public Cloud. We need some technical support documents. That is the only thing missing in IBM Public Cloud."
"The initial setup and the pricing are areas that need improvement."
"The product should offer more computing, similar to Amazon."
"Support could be improved."
"The deployment can be a bit of a pain. There are a lot of packages and a lot of options and it can require complex configuration to get it right."
"It could be more secure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When we shifted the load to AWS we paid a high cost as the mail stores were hosted on EBS. The storage cost drastically reduced after moving to S3."
"The pricing of Amazon is higher than that of SalesForce."
"It is very expensive, you have to be very cautious."
"Amazon AWS has pay-as-you-go options available."
"We are on an annual subscription for Amazon AWS."
"​AWS is much too expensive compared to current on-premises solution for this type of work."
"From a cost perspective, Amazon AWS is excellent. You need to pay for a license to use AWS, and the license could be cheaper, but in each of the cases and instances I've used AWS, there has been a good chance to save money."
"We need to pay for everything. If someone is a personal user, they get one year free. But if you are using this as a professional or enterprise solution, then your company has to pay. The license pricing is comparable to that of competitors'."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."
"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."
"IBM Public Cloud is pretty cheap. They have an ongoing free tier that basically won't expire, so as long as your solution is small enough, you can have a test set that you can use for demos, which will cost you almost nothing."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which PaaS Clouds solutions are best for your needs.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 14, 2013
Amazon vs Rackspace vs Microsoft vs Google: Cloud Hosting Services Comparison
Amazon Web Services, Rackspace OpenStack, Microsoft Windows Azure and Google are the major cloud hosting and storage service providers. Athough Amazon is top of them and is oldest in cloud market, Rackspace, Microsoft and Google are giving tough competition to each other and to Amazon also for…
 

Answers from the Community

NC
Oct 16, 2021
Oct 16, 2021
I agree with Vik and Marcelo. AWS cloud is more matured, but you would like to run some specific IBM business tools like document management, IBM Watson for AI, SPSS analytics then IBM Cloud should be preferred.
2 out of 3 answers
VD
Oct 12, 2021
Amazon AWS is superior to IBM public for several reasons.  The most important reason is the diversity of software tools, the geographic diversity and availability, lower operating costs and excellent customer service. All cloud companies are simply playing catch-up to AWS. 
MJ
Oct 14, 2021
AWS, the main reason is the number of DC distributed arround the world
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
30%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does OpenShift compare with Amazon AWS?
Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderful dashboard mechanism to alert us in case the application is over-committing or ...
How is SAP Cloud Platform different than Amazon AWS?
How is SAP Cloud Platform different than Amazon AWS? Amazon AWS offers options both in terms of upgrading and expanding capabilities as well as acquiring greater storage space. These upgrades can ...
Looking to compare Google Firebase, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure
We like Google Firebase hosting and authentication and also the excellent cloud functionality. Our team found the flexibility of handling and dealing with the database through EDL to be very useful...
Which is preferable - IBM Public Cloud or Microsoft Azure?
IBM Public Cloud is IBM’s Platform-as-a-Service. It aims to provide organizations with a secure cloud environment to manage data and applications. One of the features we like is the cloud activity ...
What needs improvement with IBM Cloud?
The front end is not pervasive, so it is very difficult get the status of your current services or account from a mobile device.
What do you like most about IBM Public Cloud?
The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Web Services, AWS
IBM Bluemix
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pinterest, General Electric, Pfizer, Netflix, and Nasdaq.
Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon AWS vs. IBM Public Cloud and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.