IBM Public Cloud vs Salesforce Platform comparison

IBM and Salesforce are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 6.3, while Salesforce is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 3.2% mindshare in PSP, compared to Salesforce’s 2.8% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

IBM Public Cloud

Read 17 IBM Public Cloud reviews

4,665 Views
3,181 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Salesforce Platform

Read 92 Salesforce Platform reviews

2,571 Views
2,316 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

IBM Public Cloud

Salesforce Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Salesforce Platform and IBM Public Cloud are key competitors in the tech industry with distinct strengths. Salesforce Platform holds an edge in features tailored for sales and marketing, while IBM Public Cloud offers competitive pricing and customization.

Features: Salesforce Platform is renowned for its agility, ease of integration, and advanced configuration options, supporting wide-ranging business processes. It provides a robust partner ecosystem, enabling scalability and a multitude of free applications. IBM Public Cloud excels in offering bare metal server options, comprehensive AI integrations, and flexible architecture akin to AWS, ideal for businesses seeking simplicity and customization.

Room for Improvement: Salesforce is encouraged to simplify reporting, improve back-office integration, and streamline interface transitions like Lightning Components. Cost-effective data storage and pricing adjustments are necessary for scaling businesses. IBM Public Cloud requires a more user-friendly interface, enhanced speed, comprehensive documentation, and easier configuration and deployment processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Salesforce Platform and IBM Public Cloud are praised for deployment versatility. Salesforce offers varied cloud options with mixed customer support reviews, while IBM Public Cloud is noted for its hybrid and public cloud strengths accompanied by responsive support and effective issue resolution, though it can improve in escalation speed.

Pricing and ROI: Salesforce is considered costly, particularly for startups, yet it delivers substantial ROI through improved productivity and sales attributed to its CRM features. IBM Public Cloud provides a more affordable pricing model, especially against AWS or Azure, offering free developer tiers and reduced costs in remote data centers, appealing to medium enterprises seeking cost-effectiveness.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Public Cloud vs. Salesforce Platform Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Public Cloud vs. Salesforce Platform

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

IBM Public Cloud

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IoT Platforms (7th)

Salesforce Platform

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Mobile Development Platforms (3rd), Rapid Application Development Software (6th), Low-Code Development Platforms (5th), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.2%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Platform is 2.8%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

Shivakumar Kuppannan

Founder & CEO at Star Systems India Private Limited

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.

Read full review

Yasser_Anter

Independent Business Consultant at Freelance

Has customization and integration capabilities which increase efficiency

Salesforce could improve by offering AI features or functionalities to help business decision-makers analyze business history, suggest forward strategies, and participate in events. The previous version had a complicated interface where multiple pages and data entries were required, which was not pleasant for sales teams or business users. Also, deploying Salesforce took a long time, about four to five months, which is not ideal for any business.

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

"It is a scalable product. You can scale it up and down."

"The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations."

"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."

"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 is a predictable and dependable service."

"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."

"For non-complex applications, the IBM Cloud works fine and the price is much lower than the competitors."

"It provides robust analytics and management tools to give customers complete visibility into their environment and infrastructure."

More IBM Public Cloud pros

"The Salesforce Platform's most valuable features are everything in one place, perfect reporting, highly customizable, and easy to receive information you need."

"The standard sales and marketing tools that Salesforce provides on the platform are the most valuable."

"The solution can scale."

"The most valuable features of the Salesforce Platform are the ability to manage customers' data, many report filtering options, and consolidation."

"A very flexible solution."

"It is an easy product to use and does great things for our company. It keeps track of all of our sales activity."

"There are no major performance issues in the solution."

"Salesforce is a phenomenal application. It's very diverse."

More Salesforce Platform pros

Cons

"There is not a lot of support for this solution, which is something that needs to be improved."

"They could improve on customizing reporting capabilities."

"I would like to see a more user-friendly deployment process in the next release of this solution."

"The solution needs to be more autonomous. It should let the DL go to allow for more jobs on the cloud. It could have a better interface as well."

"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."

"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."

"It could be more secure."

"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."

More IBM Public Cloud cons

"We have a lot of strategic accounts and large accounts that are tied with all the growth and acquisitions across North America, being able to tag parent-child accounts in an easier fashion would be better. This is the biggest pain point is associating parent to child and being able to align and manage it better. Overall a better parent-child relationship between accounts would be a benefit."

"It would be better if they can add more from the pricing and functionality perspective. It is very expensive. I would be more than happy if they drop the prices. From the licensing perspective, if they can add more functionality, I would be more than happy."

"One area that could use improvement is the approval mechanism in the authenticator, which is unstable."

"An expensive solution requiring a lot of configuration."

"In Salesforce, every customer is unique and it's not possible to bundle them together effectively if they are from the same company or move companies, et cetera."

"The solution's UI is horrible."

"Salesforce Platform is a bit expensive compared to other CRM products, which is a drawback."

"Salesforce also did not integrate well with some of the other systems that we had."

More Salesforce Platform cons

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."

"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."

"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."

"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."

"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."

"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."

More IBM Public Cloud pricing and cost advice

"Pricing and license differ and depend on how much license you are purchasing from them."

"The solution is a bit expensive."

"rice-wise, the solution is reasonable for what we're getting."

"It is expensive."

"Salesforce charges double the rates, or almost three times, compared to its competitors. Our company does incur additional charges for maintenance and support."

"I have heard that it is fairly priced. It offers ROI."

"Pricing for the Salesforce Platform is too expensive."

"For the number of people that are using Salesforce Platform in my organization, I feel the price is reasonable."

More Salesforce Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

University

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

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 ...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Public Cloud?

The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations.

See all answers

How would you choose between Microsoft PowerApps and Salesforce Platform?

I think it depends on your use case. If your organization uses Microsoft Enterprise products, PowerApps will work better in your environment. Similarly, if you have a Salesforce integration in pla...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Do you build applications using low-code or pro-code builders on Salesforce Platform?

At my organization, we have only used Salesforce Platform's low-code builder. The reason for this is not because we do not like the pro-code option, but because we do not see the need of using it, ...

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Comparisons

Microsoft Azure vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 36% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 33% of the time

Amazon AWS vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 14% of the time

Dell ECS vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Public Cloud Competitors

Appian vs Salesforce Platform

Compared 17% of the time

Oracle Application Express (APEX) vs Salesforce Platform

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Power Apps vs Salesforce Platform

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Salesforce Platform

Compared 10% of the time

ServiceNow vs Salesforce Platform

Compared 6% of the time

More Salesforce Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Public Cloud

March 2025

Download IBM Public Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Platform

March 2025

Download Salesforce Platform product report

Also Known As

IBM Bluemix

Salesforce1, Force.com, Salesforce App Cloud

Overview

IBM Cloud is a full-stack cloud platform that spans public, private and hybrid environments. Build with a robust suite of advanced data and AI tools, and draw on deep industry expertise to help you on your journey to the cloud.

IBM

Salesforce Platform is a tool that provides application building with open application programming interfaces (APIs), integration tools, back-end services, starter templates, and developer environments. With a low-code interface, users are able to build applications and benefit from automated processes. The product helps customers to increase work productivity and save on IT costs through efficient, easy-to-understand, methods for creating applications.

Salesforce Platform allows companies to build and operate intelligent applications at scale and share them with employees and customers in real time. The tool secures companies' data while connecting and synchronizing it simultaneously across their Customer 360 accounts. The main components of the product are:

Application development: With low code, companies can build applications faster and automate their businesses.
Automation: The product can connect with Salesforce Genie, allowing employees to create seamless processes.
Security: The Shield component allows companies to secure their data and build applications.
Hyperforce: Companies have the option to scale globally and serve customers locally, providing secure, private, and agile solutions.
Einstein Intelligence: Organizations can utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to create personalized experiences for customers, potentially increasing companies’ growth.
Sandboxes: Salesforce Platform offers developers secure development environments where they can test, build, and deploy changes before rolling out final products.

Salesforce Platform Features

Also referred to as a “drag and drop app builder," this solution offers various features for customers to create intelligent applications and build personalized services for clients, partners, and employees within the apps.

Mobile feature: The mobile feature of Salesforce Platform allows users to build applications for mobile as well as turn already-made apps into mobile apps instantly.
AI: Through AI, users are able to personalize their applications, utilizing the smart assistant of the platform (called Einstein). The creation of customized services for clients can drive engagement and scale customer experience.
Vision feature: The Vision feature also utilizes Einstein Platform, where users can take advantage of Einstein Prediction Builder, Bots, Vision, and Language to create AI-powered applications.
Data protection: Salesforce Platform offers a data protection feature called Salesforce Shield. With it, companies can monitor app and data use, automate security policies, run compliance audits, and encrypt sensitive data.
Privacy and identity feature: Salesforce Customer Identity is a feature for privacy that offers user access through a single login. The feature provides a seamless user experience while maintaining a high level of security.
Community feature: The community feature of the product offers a digital experience platform where companies can create secure portals, applications, and websites.
Builder feature: The application building feature of Salesforce Platform offers various ways for users to create apps, including through low-code builders and pro-code tools.

Salesforce Platform Benefits

The benefits of using Salesforce Platform include:

Compared to manual coding products, Salesforce Platform is simpler for beginner users who want to develop a product.
The tool requires a low amount of coding, making it a quick and agile way to develop applications.
The adaptable design of the platform offers multi-layered security which maintains data accessible to users while protecting it from outside sources.
The product can be incorporated with various platforms and coding languages for application development.
The platform can be used to create applications compatible with large database systems like MySQL and Oracle.
Salesforce Platform allows collaboration between users, as it offers simultaneous access to various users at the same time.
Salesforce Platform is compatible with desktop databases such as Microsoft Access.

Reviews from Real Users

A vice president at a healthcare company values Salesforce Platform because it is flexible and user-friendly with helpful pre-built schemas.

Peter G., a senior technical consultant at a tech services company, rates Salesforce Platform highly because it is intuitive, quite easy to learn, and stores all kinds of relevant sales information.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County

ADP

Buyer's Guide

IBM Public Cloud vs. Salesforce Platform

March 2025

Free Report: IBM Public Cloud vs. Salesforce Platform

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Public Cloud vs. Salesforce Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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