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Microsoft Azure vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

Microsoft Azure
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
324
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (1st)
Pivotal Cloud Foundry
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 11.7%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 4.9%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure11.7%
Pivotal Cloud Foundry4.9%
Other83.4%
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2832981 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Cloud migration has reduced hardware dependency and supports secure global access to apps
The best features Microsoft Azure offers are cloud scalability, virtual machines, storage, networking, security, monitoring, and identity management. Scalability is the most valuable to our organization because Microsoft Azure allows businesses to scale resources up or down based on workload demand. This helps manage traffic spikes without buying permanent hardware. Virtual machines are also valuable as Microsoft Azure provides cloud-based Windows and Linux virtual machines to run applications, servers, and workloads. Identity and Access Management is important, as the integration with Microsoft Entra ID helps manage user authentication, role-based access, and MFA. For example, employees access business apps securely using single sign-on. Backup and disaster recovery are also important because they provide automated backups and failover options to ensure business continuity. Microsoft Azure positively impacts my organization by reducing infrastructure dependency, improving availability, and enabling remote access. Teams can access applications globally without on-premises server dependency, and in terms of cost, it is very low-cost.
reviewer2263239 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
PCF allows for fine-grained configuration, especially regarding scaling but routing limitations
Something that can be done better is canary deployment. So, right now, we're using blue-green deployment. The support for canary deployment would be nice. A few things, such as what OpenShift does better are cluster management. Like, you can manage the entire thing together. Currently, it's possible to manage all the clusters, especially when it comes to cluster management using straightforward configuration. As of now, we have to handle each application instance individually, which means servicing them one by one. It would be better if we could perform these actions as a group or in a more streamlined manner. One more downside is actually the cost of this environment. So, major downside of Pivotal, it's the cost. So, the runtime running costs are very high. Extremely high.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It was very user-friendly when setting up the virtual machines and console. It was an easy task for my team to create virtual servers and start replications."
"The solution is similar to a plug-and-play system, it is easy to use."
"The initial setup is straightforward and the deployment can be completed within short time, and now we can deploy most components and services within a day or two."
"Feedback and error messages make much more sense in Azure than in AWS."
"Azure is a platform which allows our organization to be agile, as it very quickly provisions servers, infrastructure, and apps on the fly and complies with security requirements and data safety."
"The solution has enabled us to provide advanced indicators and analytics to the client on their data."
"The product has been quite stable."
"It's a cloud-based application, so installation is straightforward and doesn't take much time."
"The solution is stable, and we have not experienced any infrastructure issues, so it is very good and captures a few metrics, onboarding to App Dynamics."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very easy to use compared to other cloud technologies, and it has very good performance."
"It is a scalable product...We are not facing any particular issues since most of the applications in our company are written in Java and .NET."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to scale. The services that connect to the database are also very good."
"I find the ease of deployment and management of microservices to be the most valuable features. The platform also has good auto-scaling capabilities."
"The solution is stable and resilient. In our company, we do not even see any challenges with the solution."
"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is auto-healing and the plenty of other features that are provided."
"Stability is not a concern with this product."
 

Cons

"The process by which our customers can switch from one subscription to another should be simplified."
"Technically speaking, I'd like to see more flexibility in terms of storage or resource allocation."
"The services from AWS are much more clearly separated. I'm not the best friend of Microsoft Azure."
"This solution is not user friendly to set up and it's difficult to understand, particularly with regard to information protection and the sort of licensing needed to utilize it."
"Stronger R integration in a circular fashion (Azure->R->Azure). Nowadays, it has an unidirectional bias."
"Specifically, I would like to see better Azure Data Analytics and monitoring RF."
"It would be helpful if it offered more integration with other platforms."
"I would prefer to see improvements such as more advanced AI features, lower pricing, and better technical support."
"The Pivotal Cloud Foundry's initial setup has a learning curve for my team, but it was easy to use."
"It should offer more security features."
"The initial setup was not easy, it was a bit complex."
"The user interface should be simpler to navigate because it t can take time for users to learn it."
"I would prefer to use Amazon AWS or Google Cloud Platform rather than Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
"There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
"It is not straightforward to setup."
"In the next release, they should offer additional applications for the databases, and improve the deployment experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Most of the pricing from Microsoft is reasonable."
"The price of Microsoft Azure is reasonable."
"The licensing fees depend on the number of users that we have."
"The solution does not offer very many free services which can become expensive. We are on an annual license."
"Several thousand dollars and counting, we haven't needed to upgrade on premises hardware (In fact we eliminated all of the old on-premises hardware and run 100% on Azure) or pay for it's maintenance, power etc."
"The solution does require a license."
"The licensing fee is quite cheap for what they're offering."
"The subscription models can be confusing and it would be beneficial for them to simplify them. We are on an annual subscription."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve. However, in this category of solutions, they are all expensive."
"We do pay for the licensing cost because we have opted for a private cloud setup. So, it is a cloud setup, and we have to make payments based on the cloud size. I do not consider it very costly when comparing it to the market."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."
"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."
"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
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
Outsourcing Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business141
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise153
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise11
 

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 ...
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...
Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?
Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...
 

Also Known As

Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
PCF, Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Pivotal Container Service (PKS), Pivotal Function Service (PFS)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
Humana, Citibank, Mercedes Benz, Liberty Mutual, The Home Depot, GE, West Corp, Merrill Corporation, CoreLogic, Orange, Dish Network, Comcast, Bloomberg, Internal Revenue Service, Ford Motor Company, Garmin, Volkswagen, Solera, Allstate, US Air Force, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ScotiaBank
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,181 professionals have used our research since 2012.