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IBM Public Cloud vs Microsoft Azure 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

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)
Microsoft Azure
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
312
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.2%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 20.1%, up from 20.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Nicolas Chabrier - PeerSpot reviewer
Promotes clear, logical structures preventing impractical configurations and offers seamless integration
The only thing is regarding the management of multi-cloud environments. That's not really possible. So basically, it's wonderful if you manage Microsoft clearly and if you manage Microsoft Azure, but if you need to consume external services and have a global overview of all your consumption, it's not the case. Google, for instance, has tools that help you manage multiple environments, which makes sense because Google is really the cloud provider. So that's why they need to be compliant with the others. But for sure, Microsoft's approach is different, and it's wonderful when you're one hundred percent on Azure. But if you'd like to have something more of a multi-cloud strategy, that's a bit of a gap where they could improve.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like most in IBM Public Cloud is how easy it is to create serverless functions. They are called IBM functions, but in AWS, they are called Lambda functions. Those are pretty standard, and another thing I like the most is that you have fewer restrictions on the amount of data you can transfer across those functions. IBM Public Cloud is way more flexible than AWS. I also like that IBM Public Cloud is pretty straightforward to integrate. As long as you have all the tools IBM provides you, getting everything up and running is straightforward."
"There is no installation for this product because it is a cloud product."
"For non-complex applications, the IBM Cloud works fine and the price is much lower than the competitors."
"I've found the stability to be excellent. The performance is good."
"The price of IBM Cloud is most valuable for us. The service is personable and gives us a good rapport. I can't say it's the best, but it was enough for our needs."
"This product is very good because it is accessible in remote locations, and anyone can deploy from any place."
"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 stable solution because it depends on the workload you expect. Based on that data, you can configure how many users it can handle."
"Infrastructure as a service is most valuable."
"The ability to scale down is a big thing."
"It is a reliable solution that is easy to set up."
"It is quick and easy to deploy. It is flexible, and we can deploy a resource anytime. We like and prefer the pay-as-you-go model."
"Managed storage capabilities, which create a very simple way to create, copy, and replicate local or geo-replicate, it's very simple to assign workloads."
"The application services are the most valuable in Microsoft Azure. I'm not using them directly but I am using the function and the web applications. I don't need to pay a lot for the maintenance. I do not need to have a DevOps employee."
"Microsoft has a lot of partners in this area, and they have a lot of information available online, so it's easy to get support."
 

Cons

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"They do not have a very good virtual network implemented, and the VPC is the most important feature that needs to be improved."
"The initial setup and the pricing are areas that need improvement."
"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."
"It will be challenging to implement if you do not have any experience."
"Support could be improved."
"Maybe performance enhancers and reports could be better improved. If they do so, it would be better. Of all the drawbacks I saw, this would be the biggest enhancement."
"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."
"For deploying multiple resources in a big number, such as in hundreds, we need a streamlined process and more user-friendly scrips. The scripts have to be more user-friendly, and they should also supply some standard templates to deploy multiple resources at a time. Currently, it is very easy to deploy a couple of resources, but if you want to deploy multiple resources, it becomes complex. The material that they provide for integration with an existing on-prem data center is complex. They have to make them user-friendly. The scripts related to resource management need to be simplified."
"In a month, there is a plan to increase pricing, which is something we are not looking forward to."
"It can be improved in terms of ease of billing or monitoring of the billing. That gets to be a little difficult."
"The level of authorization or authorization cascading can be improved. We have the most powerful admins and then we have sub-admins, but the level of authorization is not that easy to handle or manage."
"They need to make storage easy and offer more interconnectivity between solutions."
"I think it would be good to keep making progress on giving users the ability to do action calls on Data Factory. Right now, it's mostly local. Perhaps Microsoft could add the ability to put some calls in the workflow."
"Price could always be better. The features come in quickly, so we're comfortable with the feature set that is available to us."
"Virtual networks might be improved by adding more rules for the validation of protocols and peripheral elements in security assurance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."
"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."
"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 has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."
"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."
"Be careful with Azure Cool storage accounts; if you are dealing with high object counts, then it can be more economical to use Hot storage because of the high storage access costs associated with Cool."
"The product is expensive."
"The license cost could be reduced."
"The price is good, but it can always be cheaper."
"The price of the solution could be reduced. There should be a loyalty cost reduction model. If customers have been using the service year after year they should receive a discount."
"Its price should be optimized so that we can use more features."
"We have approached our clients about using Kubernetes or Docker because it's cheaper when inflation is considered."
"Monthly billing convenience reduced cost overheads up to 70 percent."
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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
University
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
46%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
Which is better - SAP Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure?
One of the best features of SAP Cloud Platform is that it is web-based and you can log in from anywhere in the world. SAP Cloud Platform is suitable for companies of any size; it works well with bo...
How does Microsoft Azure compare to Google Firebase?
I would recommend Google Firebase instead of Microsoft Azure, simply for the array of features that it has to offer. In particular, the Firebase library grants you access to a shared data structure...
How does Salesforce Platform compare with Azure?
Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform is not easy or intuitive to deploy. The difficulty will be impacted by the type of application that you are trying to use the platform to build. Organizations tha...
 

Also Known As

IBM Bluemix
Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County
BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Public Cloud vs. Microsoft Azure and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.