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
255
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (2nd)
IBM Public Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
IoT Platforms (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon AWS is 12.9%, down from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.3%, down from 4.3% 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

"We like the that, within the public subnet of this solution, a new instance of the tool is launched when it detects an issue, in order to prevent interruptions in performance."
"It is intuitive, easy to deploy, and rather quick to deploy and set up. There are a number of native services in the ecosystem. These services are built into the cloud and are mature enough to support you in many ways."
"The price forecasting and billing dashboard by service, with billing budgets and alerts, have helped us shut down resources that were accruing costs that we no longer needed, saving us money."
"I like many features, like the recently released useful analytics features. There are many from the data analytics or database side."
"The storage on offer is excellent."
"It's a flexible solution."
"There's something called EC2, which are application servers. They are automatically scalable. They can increase, for example, during peak times."
"I like the storage, all the codes like Lambda and Amazon EMR."
"It is a scalable product. You can scale it up and down."
"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."
"It's straightforward, has a good environment and is cost-effective."
"The beauty of cloud service providers, especially public cloud service providers, is that they are scalable every time when you need them because their payment model is pay-as-you-go."
"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."
"It is easy to deploy what you need for the initial setup"
"This is a predictable and dependable service."
 

Cons

"The interface is relatively complex."
"Our use case is limited to virtual services and RPA development. We are not using it quite heavily, and there are not many issues or problems so far. However, it would be great if it could be integrated with more AI features and proactive monitoring. It could also have more automatic capacity expansion features. For example, when renting out some space, memory, or computing power, the service can have the capacity to expand by itself without being manually handled by us."
"It has the technical support features, but they need to be improved. It has lots of users, but they need to be managed accordingly."
"There's not much room for improvement but that being said, they can improve the overall process of the overall product features and backend."
"Monitoring still needs to be improved."
"It should be easier to monitor the performance and generate analytic information so that we can determine how to provide better support for our clients."
"More complete and specific training for many of the technologies, specifically with Python Django and the CMS (Mezzanine)."
"When you are first starting, the initial setup can be a bit complex, but it gets easier after that."
"It will be challenging to implement if you do not have any experience."
"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."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly deployment process in the next release of this solution."
"While they have about 99% of what we need, the only exception, perhaps, was the push notification feature that was discontinued. They delayed the replacement product."
"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."
"An area for improvement in IBM Public Cloud is getting up-to-date information on how to set up everything. It's hard to find new documentation."
"The product should offer more computing, similar to Amazon."
"It could be more secure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a monthly subscription for Amazon AWS."
"Amazon AWS is a bit more expensive than Oracle."
"AWS is cost-effective because it saves time. Faster deployments and testing make it very valuable."
"Some customers will provide their own license and others will purchase it directly from AWS."
"As a startup business, it's very well priced, but if a number of transactions go up, clients have voiced that they are in a situation and feel a type of pressure and desire to move out of AWS."
"One of the best thing in Amazon AWS is you are billed for the service you use."
"The prices are somewhat on the higher side. It would help if they can bring it down, especially for the sporting segment and for on-demand instances."
"The pricing may vary and is often influenced by marketing strategies."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."
"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."
"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."
"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."
"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which PaaS Clouds solutions are best for your needs.
845,040 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
27%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.