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Microsoft Azure vs Salesforce Platform 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

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)
Salesforce Platform
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (3rd), Rapid Application Development Software (7th), Low-Code Development Platforms (5th), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 20.1%, up from 20.0% 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

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.
Yasser_Anter - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Azure is very user friendly. I was able to create some database servers really fast. The user interface is intuitive."
"The solution is very simple to set up."
"It is so huge and so powerful. The best thing is the possibilities of things that you can actually do with it. If you do it right, you can work or host your stuff a lot cheaper than traditionally. Its security is good, and it also reduces the strain on internal IT."
"The data factory feature."
"With the Azure solution, you can get more value from your cloud investment no matter what your future goals are. It depends on your level of familiarity with the cloud you are using or with your computing. Azure helps you with every stage of the cloud."
"The solution is useful for handling large amounts of data."
"Offers many data security features including securing network access."
"The most valuable features are the interface and customizability."
"I found the ease of use most valuable in the Salesforce Platform. I also found the platform pretty light."
"The product is pretty responsive."
"The scalability of the Salesforce Platform is good."
"It is very user-friendly, and intuitive, it will lead you and take you to the next steps."
"What functions we don't get out of Salesforce, we typically receive from third-party applications that extend the capabilities. We integrate a lot of different products with Salesforce."
"It is very modular in approach. It is very light, and it can be used on various devices. It could be used on an Android phone or a laptop, which makes it good for the sales team on the road."
"The solution is easy to use."
"What we like the most about it is the fact that it helps us track the record of our projects. It keeps everything on one interface, facilitating the operations and planning."
 

Cons

"The solution is less mature than AWS."
"The technical support is good, but the response time is poor."
"The tool should add an interface that is similar to AWS."
"The interface for configuring the environment is not very intuitive. Certain things are at different places, and it is not easy to navigate. They should have a more transparent licensing model. Currently, Microsoft's licensing is a bit clunky, and it keeps changing depending on the type of subscription you have. Different features are included, and sometimes, it is very hard to figure out the right licensing. So, the commercial aspect of the licensing can be improved, and they can make it easier to understand all the features that are included."
"Pricing is one area where Azure has room for improvement. There should be some due consideration. Azure has solved some issues with pricing from the development team's standpoint, but it is still quite costly. They should also offer a trial period for the individual platform solutions. I think that would be pretty handy for the developers."
"I don't understand why we spend so much time and money on Azure when Microsoft relies on third-party companies for support in the CSP model. I don't know how the support model works within Microsoft, but giving it to poor-performing third-party companies is not ideal."
"It would be nice if there was an on-premises version of the solution, and it wasn't just cloud-based."
"The design of the platform is not so easy to navigate. It's not very user-friendly."
"A company needs to carefully consider how they set up Salesforce in order to ensure it benefits them."
"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."
"The management of Salesforce could be quite a task. Old and unusable contacts can add up over time. If I could wave a magic wand, it would be to initiate a self-cleaning feature."
"The initial setup is rather complex."
"I think the search needs to be improved so as to allow for a broader keyword search."
"What could be improved in the Salesforce Platform is the price. The platform is too expensive. The implementation time for the platform is also longer than expected, so that's another area for improvement."
"Easier process to move to Lightning Components."
"I would like to see the organizational details improved to make it less difficult to bring new clients on board."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"With adequate knowledge, I think you can come up with a good model where the pricing won't be a constraint."
"The licensing fees are more than $1,000,000 USD annually."
"The price of this solution is one of the things that attracted us to it."
"We pay yearly for the license."
"The cost could definitely be lower."
"Microsoft Azure overall is an expensive solution."
"If you are not aware of costs, pricing, etc., you can end up with a hefty bill. However, I found that the Azure price calculator is a valuable tool to use before starting to deploy VMs in Azure. This tool will give you an overview of the costs you should expect on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis."
"Price could always be cheaper. Its licensing and usage aren't always cheap. We pay monthly."
"The product's additional features can be expensive."
"Salesforce is cheap."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"rice-wise, the solution is reasonable for what we're getting."
"I have heard that it is fairly priced. It offers ROI."
"Pricing and license differ and depend on how much license you are purchasing from them."
"It is quite expensive. Its developers come at a premium cost, which makes it expensive."
"The licensing is per user per month, which we took out a contract on a long time back. It's really an okay price for what solutions are available and for how many features and what kind of functionality you get."
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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
Educational Organization
46%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 ...
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 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...
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...
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, ...
 

Also Known As

Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
Salesforce1, Force.com, Salesforce App Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure vs. Salesforce Platform and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.