AWS Outposts vs Azure Stack comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #4 with an average rating of 9.3, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.8. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 15.4% mindshare in HCCP, compared to Microsoft’s 28.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

AWS Outposts

Read 8 AWS Outposts reviews

2,475 Views
1,625 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Azure Stack

Read 66 Azure Stack reviews

3,791 Views
2,703 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

AWS Outposts

Azure Stack

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Azure Stack and AWS Outposts both compete in the hybrid cloud solutions category, bringing cloud computing capabilities to on-premises setups. Azure Stack seems to have an edge in integration with Microsoft products, which benefits users familiar with their ecosystem, while AWS Outposts offers strong AWS service integration, which is valuable for AWS-centric environments.

Features: Azure Stack supports PaaS, IaaS, and hybrid cloud capabilities, allowing for a mix of public and private cloud strategies. It integrates effortlessly with Microsoft tools, offering a seamless experience for users familiar with these products. It also provides good flexibility for developers to create and manage applications. AWS Outposts brings native AWS services to local data centers, offering easy deployment with its rack form factor and a comprehensive integration of AWS services. It includes foundational management features like EC2 for computing, EBS for storage needs, and supports Kubernetes management with EKS.

Room for Improvement: Azure Stack could expand its features to level with public Azure and improve multi-scale support, alongside better integration with third-party tools. Technical support can be slow, and pricing is a concern for smaller businesses. AWS Outposts' users highlight its high costs and limited container service integrations as primary areas for enhancement. Both would benefit from more flexible pricing and advanced cost management solutions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure Stack provides robust deployment options for on-premises and hybrid clouds, fitting well for organizations utilizing Microsoft's ecosystem. Customer support experiences vary, with differences tied to subscription layers. AWS Outposts offers straightforward deployment due to its alignment with AWS infrastructure, but the high initial costs can be challenging. Both services provide substantial value, but Azure Stack's support variability and AWS Outposts' pricing create notable impacts on user experience.

Pricing and ROI: Azure Stack can be pricey, factoring in licensing and support costs, yet provides value through Microsoft integration and flexibility. Users report a mix of experiences regarding ROI, with benefits often materializing over time. AWS Outposts is considered cost-effective for large enterprises thanks to its full AWS service integration, although its substantial costs can be prohibitive for smaller companies. Azure Stack offers pay-as-you-go options for added flexibility. ROI depends on usage and organization size, with larger companies likely seeing more advantages from AWS Outposts due to economy of scale.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Outposts vs. Azure Stack Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Outposts vs. Azure Stack

March 2025

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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

AWS Outposts

Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms

4th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Azure Stack

Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms category, the mindshare of AWS Outposts is 15.4%, down from 19.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Stack is 28.9%, down from 31.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms

Featured Reviews

PraveenS

Design Engineer at Cyient Limited

Has the ability to provide interfaces for events and allows you to work both offline and online

Providing online support has proven to be quite valuable. However, it's important to note that this isn't so much an improvement, but rather a standard practice for solutions like Azure Stack or AWS Outpost. Typically, the respective companies send their engineers for installation at the customer's premises, ensuring on-site support. I recall a similar instance when we requested on-site support for one of our locations in Hyderabad, and Amazon agreed to send their engineers to set up the solution in our office environment. That said, in terms of potential improvements, it would be beneficial to have the option for capacity expansion. When customers opt for a solution like Outpost, they receive a fixed set of capacities in terms of storage, network, and hardware. As design engineers, it's crucial to consider use cases and plan for scalability and sustainability. Having the flexibility to extend these capacities could be valuable. Some engineers may not be aware of future needs, and if there's an opportunity to expand capacity without the need for additional functionality, it would be a helpful feature. This way, we can cater to various needs and ensure the solution remains adaptable in the long run.

Read full review

Sarath-Boppudi

Data Strategist, Cloud Solutions Architect at Strategic Architects

Seamless integration and impressive scaling capabilities for efficient architectural solutions

The scalability of Azure Stack is commendable. It can scale up within two to three minutes upon request. SQL Server is a good use case for data warehouses. It is scalable and can be set to serverless to reduce costs when not in use. Power BI Fabric offers a useful way to stack data in data warehousing solutions. Azure Stack provides federated authentication which is seamless with on-premise infrastructure, offering good performance and throughput. The integration with Microsoft's environment is also efficient.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable aspect is its ability to provide interfaces for events."

"I think the keys to success for the solution is the easy-to-use user interface and the fact that the development team really likes the platform."

"If you compare with the full bundle of these services, you can see the difference. This is enough for these locations in private data centers. Because the main reasons why the customers want to have it on their side are for the low latency and the security of their critical data."

"Outposts allows you to isolate your private environment from the public cloud provider while enabling almost all the features that are available on public cloud services. That is the beauty of this service. It's an infrastructure that you can put in your data center and seamlessly connect to the public cloud."

"With AWS, we've had seamless integration and support for many of our applications."

"The most valuable aspect is that it comes in a rack form factor which makes it incredibly easy to use and deploy various AWS services."

"AWS Outposts brings native AWS services, infrastructure, and API to our on-premises data center or co-location facilities."

"AWS can manage services when deployed on customer sites due to Outposts' capability of being installed in on-premises environments."

"We use Azure Stack for migration, application modernization, and cloud-native modernization."

"Azure Stack is like a hybrid model with a CI/CD pipeline. The IaaS and PaaS model works well with a hybrid type of connectivity."

"Azure is less complex and easier to use than AWS."

"Azure Stack provides us with computational power. We also get an option to have it with Azure Cloud, which is beneficial. We don't need to buy any other extra servers or any virtual machines with high-end graphics."

"The admin dashboard is the main feature of the solution."

"We have found the Kubernetes version is one of the key components which we are using heavily."

"It is probably the best solution out there."

"The beauty of Azure is that most of the features are easily accessible. It is user-friendly. Almost all resources in Azure are very easily accessible. For example, you can access a virtual machine, and you can scale it up. You can go ahead with different infrastructure-as-a-service in Azure for the platform or for the cloud. Different levels of development could be done using it."

More Azure Stack pros

Cons

"The pricing model needs improvement because right now it's very expensive. All of these solutions are very expensive and it prevents other customers or owners of data centers from buying it."

"Depending on the installation process, we have found some bugs and issues with the solution when the same platform is not used."

"It would be beneficial to have the option for capacity expansion."

"The product is heavy to ship and can be difficult to handle logistically."

"It would be great if it could support Glue services."

"Also, it would be beneficial if AWS allowed for more granular and customizable pricing options."

"The platform needs to spend more time investing in strengthening its governance and information tools and consider the real needs of its customers."

"Outposts supports elastic coordinator services, but not elastic container services, which is the native service for containers in AWS. That is something missing in this product."

"Technical support is very poor. When we meet Microsoft in the coming weeks to discuss expansion, we'll be speaking to them directly about this."

"Some tools do not run without the internet."

"The technical support team's response time needs improvement."

"If I were to mention an area that could be enhanced, it might be technical support, as there have been observations that the response time is not as fast as some of its competitors like Google."

"Normally, in many countries, especially in the Middle East, there are government regulations for information technology itself. If government organizations want to host the cloud, they cannot take it from Microsoft directly; they must go through the local internet service providers, ISPs, or cloud solution providers locally."

"I would only recommend this solution to smaller organizations like ours because I cannot really speculate what big issues that the bigger organizations will face."

"Azure Stack is an expensive product that should be made more cost-effective."

"If you look at the documentation set, there are rims and rims of it. You try to drive something from the console, and it's quite complex. It's not it's not easy and straightforward. You've gotta sit down and review it, look at the documentation, and work your way through it. It's not intuitive."

More Azure Stack cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Outposts is a cheap solution."

"Customers should consider the high cost, which can range from $10,000 to hundreds of thousands depending on the components."

"The pricing of Outposts needs to be evaluated from the standpoint of what's cost-effective at your company: How are you going to use it? How much money will it save for your products or applications? Is it worth it? I would say it's probably too expensive for small or medium-sized companies. However, big companies might find it to be highly cost-effective depending on their respective cloud strategies."

"While the longer-term pricing is suitable for enterprise contracts, it can be on the higher side, especially when organizations don't utilize all the services included in the bundles."

"Pricing could be improved so I rate it an eight out of ten."

"It is not a cost-friendly solution."

"The premium version is too costly."

"IaaS’s pricing is high."

"The pricing is very expensive."

"Azure Stack is expensive."

"Azure has a subscription version. It has a pay-as-you-go subscription with a subscription ID. So, you have your particular subscription with an enterprise agreement. There is a dev-type subscription for development and testing. The pricing seems pretty reasonable. The pricing could be per resource."

"The product is expensive, but it is fine for the value that the solution produces."

More Azure Stack pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Outposts?

With AWS, we've had seamless integration and support for many of our applications.

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Outposts?

Outposts is not a simple solution to implement as it needs to be shipped from the US and involves high delivery costs and running costs. The product is heavy to ship and can be difficult to handle ...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering AWS Outposts?

I rate AWS Outposts a nine out of ten, indicating room for some improvement.

See all answers

What do you like most about Azure Stack?

For hybrid cloud operations, the seamless transition it enables is key. Most enterprises have a lot of workloads on-premises, and they want a smooth way to move into the cloud. Some things are on...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Stack?

Azure Stack pricing is generally reasonable, though it has been getting expensive recently due to inflation and changes in Microsoft’s charging strategy to US dollar-based billing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Stack?

More integration with AI capabilities would be beneficial, along with improvements in monitoring and cost management. Reducing costs slightly would also be desirable.

See all answers

Comparisons

VMware Cloud Foundation vs AWS Outposts

Compared 18% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) vs AWS Outposts

Compared 17% of the time

Google Anthos vs AWS Outposts

Compared 3% of the time

High Performance Computing (HPC) vs AWS Outposts

Compared 2% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs AWS Outposts

Compared 2% of the time

More AWS Outposts Competitors

VMware Cloud Foundation vs Azure Stack

Compared 44% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) vs Azure Stack

Compared 15% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Azure Stack

Compared 3% of the time

VMware Cloud on AWS vs Azure Stack

Compared 2% of the time

VMware Software Defined Data Center vs Azure Stack

Compared 1% of the time

More Azure Stack Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Outposts

March 2025

Download AWS Outposts product report

Buyer's Guide

Azure Stack

March 2025

Download Azure Stack product report

Overview

AWS Outposts bring native AWS services, infrastructure, and operating models to virtually any data center, co-location space, or on-premises facility. You can use the same APIs, the same tools, the same hardware, and the same functionality across on-premises and the cloud to deliver a truly consistent hybrid experience. Outposts can be used to support workloads that need to remain on-premises due to low latency or local data processing needs.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Information not available

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Philips, Morningstar

Weblink, Fathym, Sage, CFD Support Ltd, The UberCloud Inc.

Buyer's Guide

AWS Outposts vs. Azure Stack

March 2025

Free Report: AWS Outposts vs. Azure Stack

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