Microsoft Azure vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Microsoft and Broadcom are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4, while Broadcom is ranked #16. Microsoft holds a 11.3% mindshare in PSP, compared to Broadcom’s 4.8% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Azure

Read 325 Microsoft Azure reviews

50,256 Views
25,631 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Read 15 Pivotal Cloud Foundry reviews

6,338 Views
6,211 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Microsoft Azure and Pivotal Cloud Foundry are competitors in the cloud services industry. Azure stands out for its vast integration with Microsoft products and global infrastructure, whereas Pivotal Cloud Foundry shines through its ease of deployment, particularly for Spring Boot applications, and open-source environment.

Features: Microsoft Azure offers robust integration with Microsoft products, a global data center presence, and extensive support for both Microsoft and non-Microsoft services. Pivotal Cloud Foundry focuses on an efficient, open-source platform with smooth application run-time, and provides straightforward CI/CD integration for rapid deployment pipelines.

Room for Improvement: Azure needs improvements in pricing transparency, user interface navigation, and security features. Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve its documentation, enhance support for public cloud migration, and address concerns over future viability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure provides diverse deployment options suitable for public and hybrid clouds but faces criticisms over inconsistent customer support. Pivotal Cloud Foundry offers efficient private cloud deployments with a strong focus on rapid app development, though its customer support could be more seamless.

Pricing and ROI: Azure's pricing is competitive with options like pay-as-you-go and reserved instances, though users find the cost model complex. It delivers significant ROI through reduced hardware costs and scalability. Pivotal Cloud Foundry, despite high costs, offers a favorable ROI due to streamlined deployment and resource efficiency in its open-source environment.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry Report (Updated: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

November 2026

Download the complete report

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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

Microsoft Azure

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

325

Ranking in other categories

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (1st)

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

16th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 11.3%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 4.8%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure	11.3%
Pivotal Cloud Foundry	4.8%
Other	83.9%

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

Rafath Noor

Lead DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Cloud platform has supported reliable growth and collaboration but customer support still needs improvement

In my opinion, the best features Microsoft Azure offers are the scalable solutions and serverless solution, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service. There are categorized services I can get. Based on my need, I can use and get most of those things. Regarding Microsoft Azure's AI capabilities, I think the governance and security are fine and the AI is consistent and I was able to get reliable outputs. Governance and security-wise, I was also satisfied with the performance, encryption-wise and the data transmission, transparency-wise. Regarding Microsoft Azure's AI capabilities, output-wise, the outputs are very much reliable, so I can depend on those things. There's nothing more to add and I am satisfied with the accuracy because it's more than 90% accuracy that I can find. That's fine for me.

Read full review

reviewer2263239

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.

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

"Azure is good for monitoring for a small to mid-size organization."

"Virtual machines, Azure Web Applications, MS SQL DB, DNS, Azure Active Directory, etc. are some of the most valuable features, as it is quite easy to learn to start working with them and they are composite enough to use in many different scenarios."

"The solution is stable."

"The most valuable features of the solution are for management, such as dashboards."

"Customer service is very good."

"Azure is a PaaS whereas AWS is a server stack environment and thus AWS does not provide the OpEx cost reductions that Azure does."

"We have found the stability and performance to be quite good."

"The solution is similar to a plug-and-play system, it is easy to use."

More Microsoft Azure pros

"The most valuable features of Pivotal Cloud Foundry are its ease of use and the command line interface has the ability to push instances to the cloud easily."

"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."

"It provides a set of developer-friendly tools that simplify application deployment."

"It supports CI/CD, and is integrated with the CI/CD very well."

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very easy to use compared to other cloud technologies, and it has very good performance."

"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 most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is auto-healing and the plenty of other features that are provided."

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry pros

Cons

"The cost calculation for the services can be an unclear aspect which makes it difficult to estimate the expenses incurred accurately."

"We use Microsoft Server 2019 and 2016. And I didn't like the 2019 client, so we had to downgrade back to 2016. The main issue there was its monitoring system. Our client needed an alternative, and if they were using more Windows products, they also needed to make that downgrade."

"I would prefer Microsoft Azure to increase the free trial, then developers can take advantage, and it could increase their sales."

"The support subscription models need improvement."

"I would like to see Internet content filtering included."

"Microsoft's technical support could be improved. There are certain areas on the Level 1 to Level 2 support-side that are not exactly great."

"There are times when using a service in Microsoft Azure can be confusing because you have four or five options that do similar operations. It would be helpful if there was a clear decision tree around those features. Microsoft does provide a lot of decision trees around a lot of their services, but it's not for everything."

"For deploying multiple resources in a big number, such as in hundreds, we need a streamlined process and more user-friendly scripts."

More Microsoft Azure cons

"It should offer more security features."

"It is not straightforward to setup."

"I'd like to see a larger service offering."

"The initial setup was not easy, it was a bit complex."

"In the next release, I would like to see easy integration with external tools."

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry doesn't have certain advanced features."

"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."

"The Pivotal Cloud Foundry's initial setup has a learning curve for my team, but it was easy to use."

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"Pricing is very difficult to guesstimate. With so many a la carte options and individual pricing it can be a hassle to understand."

"The licensing fee is quite cheap for what they're offering."

"The cost is a little high and can be more competitive."

"It is competitive with other public cloud providers, and its price is very close to different cloud providers. There is not a noticeable difference between different cloud providers. Otherwise, it would be a risk for them to have services that were much more expensive than their competition. They're pretty much neck to neck on pricing."

"I pay for a yearly subscription."

"Monthly billing convenience reduced cost overheads up to 70 percent."

"The pricing is fine."

More Microsoft Azure pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."

"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve. However, in this category of solutions, they are all expensive."

"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."

"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."

"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."

"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."

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Comparison Review

it_user8586

Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Aug 14, 2013

Amazon vs Rackspace vs Microsoft vs Google: Cloud Hosting Services Comparison

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Outsourcing Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

24%

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	142
Midsize Enterprise	54
Large Enterprise	153

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Large Enterprise	11

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 ...

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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...

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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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Firebase vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 5% of the time

Alibaba Cloud vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 4% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Competitors

Amazon AWS vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 18% of the time

Google Cloud vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 8% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 5% of the time

Cloud Foundry vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 5% of the time

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure

October 2026

Download Microsoft Azure product report

Buyer's Guide

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

October 2026

Download Pivotal Cloud Foundry product report

Also Known As

Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure

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

Overview

Microsoft Azure is a versatile cloud platform known for its scalability, flexibility, and ease of use, offering comprehensive solutions like virtual machines, identity management, and data storage with robust security measures and global data centers.

Azure provides a straightforward setup with dynamic scaling and seamless integration with existing tools. Its robust security, compliance with privacy laws, and global data center presence make it a trusted choice for enterprises. With features supporting DevOps, IoT, AI/ML, and hybrid cloud environments, Azure facilitates efficient cloud migration and modernization, enhancing operational efficiency.

What are some of the key features of Microsoft Azure?

Scalability: Adjust resources automatically to meet demand.
Flexibility: Support for hybrid cloud setup and smooth integration with existing tools.
Virtual Machines: Extensive support for VMs to run various workloads.
Active Directory: Robust identity and access management services.
Data Storage: Diverse storage options for different data management needs.
Security Measures: Comprehensive security protocols and compliance support.

What benefits and ROI should users consider when evaluating Microsoft Azure?

Cost Efficiency: Managed services that reduce operational costs.
Reliability: High availability with global data center coverage.
Ease of Migration: Facilitates transition from on-premises solutions to the cloud.
Operational Efficiency: User-friendly interface and extensive training resources.

Organizations primarily use Azure for infrastructure services, application hosting, and data management across industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail. Resellers deploy cloud services for clients in private, public, and hybrid clouds, supporting enterprise applications and digital transformation projects.

Microsoft

Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a scalable cloud platform known for its deployment ease, monitoring, and auto-healing capabilities. It supports Java and Spring Cloud frameworks, offering a stable environment for microservices and seamless CI/CD integration.

Pivotal Cloud Foundry facilitates cloud-based application development, focusing on private cloud security and developer-friendly tools. Open-source advantages lead to enhanced performance and innovation, providing robust deployment crucial for enterprise environments. While integration and documentation need improvement, its strength lies in microservice management, application hosting, and compliance with data residency regulations. The platform addresses migration and security challenges within enterprises, particularly in financial services, by supporting cloud transitions.

What key features does Pivotal Cloud Foundry offer?

Scalability: Dynamically adjust resources to meet demand.
Auto-healing: Automatically recover from system failures, ensuring stability.
CI/CD Integration: Streamlined processes for continuous delivery.
Microservice Management: Efficiently handle application components.
Security Features: Protect data in private cloud environments.
Developer Tools: Simplify application development with open-source resources.

What benefits should users expect from Pivotal Cloud Foundry?

Increased Stability: Reliable and consistent platform performance.
Reduced Deployment Time: Quick setup and initiation of services.
Enhanced Security: Robust measures for data protection.
Cost Efficiency: Optimizes operational expenses for cloud transitions.

Pivotal Cloud Foundry is implemented widely in industries for deploying web and financial services applications, enabling microservices architecture within banking and enterprise environments. Its cloud diagnostic tools facilitate transitioning from on-premise to cloud-based systems, ensuring compliance with regulations and streamlined application hosting.

Broadcom

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

November 2026

Free Report: Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.

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