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Microsoft Azure vs Virtustream xStream comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
324
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (1st)
Virtustream xStream
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
26th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 8.4%, down from 15.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Virtustream xStream is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure8.4%
Virtustream xStream0.8%
Other90.8%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

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.
RH
Business Systems Manager at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Improves efficiencies, has encryption, and great mission-critical customer support
Previously we had an amateur solution where we were managing on our own data center but we had the management in-house. It was a strategic move to give people who were more competent and with business focus other core initiatives. It was a strategic outsource model. The equipment we were using was out date and at the end of its life cycle, we had to make some transitions, do a hardware replacement, or move on. We moved on to this solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is definitely a product that I recommend, but it has to be done smartly."
"Technical support, from what I understand, is quite helpful and we speak with them regularly."
"Microsoft Azure is a very good product."
"In terms of computer resource management and reduced cost, it is very, very effective, and in large environments, it gives you a lot of flexibility to provide different services, like disaster recovery and business continuity with simple and great options because you don't have to spend a lot of time for maintenance, upgrades, and security."
"We are going to use Microsoft Azure to move some on-premise servers into the cloud so that our data can be held there."
"We use the solution to manage and secure my users' email for the Active Directory."
"I have found all the features to be good."
"One of the best features is the last package security of upgrades to Microsoft Azure. Also, we like Azure's compatibility with other operating systems."
"The solution has encryption which we did not have before."
"Once we made the move to this solution, we received efficiencies, 100%, 200%, even up to 1000%, depending on some processes."
 

Cons

"The response time and stability of Microsoft Azure need to be improved."
"Onboarding customers is a challenge. Sometimes our customers don't know how to deal with the cloud environment. Maybe the customers are more comfortable with the old-fashioned on-premise environment."
"The solution could improve by having more security features around my data and the platform."
"As the project I am engaged in is very large, we have experienced some episodes of instability."
"I haven't checked the console for some time, however, compared to the AWS console, the interaction console of the web part, the web services, it's not so easy."
"I don't like their support so much. The support of Microsoft is not fast enough and should be faster."
"They should include a cybersecurity feature to improve the protection of the systems. They could do better in terms of the pricing model. Its price keeps on changing. Their technical support can also be better."
"The system has some limitations on resource use, such as number of cores, max transactions, I/O, maximum number of VMs etc. These limits make some things very difficult, and could be improved."
"Our account representative was inexperienced, they could improve on how they are managing accounts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's licensing costs are yearly."
"The pricing for us is higher because we are using IaaS."
"The pricing is cheap."
"I believe that we have a three-year license, and I'm happy with the pricing."
"Pricing is very difficult to guesstimate. With so many a la carte options and individual pricing it can be a hassle to understand."
"The tool is cheap."
"The price needs to be lower because they're competing with AWS."
"The cost structure is like most cloud-based services. The solution could be cheaper, it is always better to be cheaper."
"The solution is a bit expensive, we are still negotiating the price."
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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
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business141
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise153
No data available
 

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...
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Also Known As

Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
Continental, Domino Foods, Florida Crystals, Intel, Lanx, UOL Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS). Updated: September 2026.
913,654 professionals have used our research since 2012.