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Amazon AWS vs IBM SoftLayer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
254
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (2nd), PaaS Clouds (2nd)
IBM SoftLayer
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Public Cloud Storage Services (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Cloud Services solutions, they serve different purposes. Amazon AWS is designed for Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) and holds a mindshare of 15.3%, down 22.8% compared to last year.
IBM SoftLayer, on the other hand, focuses on Public Cloud Storage Services, holds 0.2% mindshare, up 0.2% since last year.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

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.
reviewer1032702 - PeerSpot reviewer
Stable with excellent speed and agility
The most valuable aspect of the solution is simply to have the ability to host in a cloud form and out of the data center - the IBM big iron solution. It's the speed and the agility that really sell SoftLayer. The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer. The ability to extract act from your current location, load into your future location, with limited change, and then be able to take the transfer actions slowly and methodically after you're in your new location is the part that really makes this awesome. The stability and scalability are quite good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For testing, it is a cheap alternative to having to build your own labs."
"The cloud storage based on S3 is one the most valuable services we have deployed since it allows us infinite scale in storage and extremely high durability."
"The installation and initial setup are easy."
"The installation is quite straightforward."
"The solution also helps organizations to move applications to a containerized platform."
"With the pay-as-you-go model, we don't have to predict future IT needs. We can just scale up as we want. That helps with a lot of agility in deploying stuff in our IT infrastructure."
"They integrate well with various other solutions."
"There are a lot of features that I really like including ease of deployment, ease of build and release, and also that it is heavily focused on a PaaS or SaaS model."
"The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer."
"The stability is the solution's most valuable aspect for our organization."
 

Cons

"There's not much room for improvement but that being said, they can improve the overall process of the overall product features and backend."
"It has the technical support features, but they need to be improved. It has lots of users, but they need to be managed accordingly."
"They do not yet have a complete solution for APM monitoring. But this, along with real user monitoring, is something that they are actively working on improving."
"Recently we had a long conversation about functionality that is missing in Alexa — in Mexico, specifically. Alexa for Business is a service and platform that Americans can use to make a call to an Amazon Echo device or a telephone via the app. But in Mexico, we are not allowed to use that technology. This is a significant disadvantage of AWS for those living in Mexico."
"They have a low code platform, but it is for intervention."
"Integration with in-house applications could be simplified."
"This solution would be improved with the inclusion of hybrid Kubernetes management."
"There is a bit of a learning curve. That said, it's likely no different than learning any other cloud."
"For us, the versioning was an issue."
"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Much faster than other solutions at a super low cost."
"Amazon AWS is really cost-effective."
"For our infrastructure, the cost is approximately $25 per device, and you have to include the other tools that we have in the cloud, for a total of approximately $200,000 per year."
"The tool’s pricing is reasonable."
"When it comes to professional certification in AWS, I implore others to study hard before your exams because $300 is a painful waste of money if you fail."
"Pricing is good. It's average."
"Licensing fees depend on the contract. It can be monthly or on-demand resources."
"The pricing is one of the best in the segment."
Information not available
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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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
30%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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Comparisons

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Also Known As

Amazon Web Services, AWS
CloudLayer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pinterest, General Electric, Pfizer, Netflix, and Nasdaq.
Whogohost Ltd., Skypicker, Infinity Computers and Communications Company, Grace Co. Ltd., Keyword, Uvionics Tech, Tennis Australia, immixGroup, Salesbox, Cxense ASA, Avnet Inc., Komsomolskaya Pravda, Seekr
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS). Updated: January 2025.
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