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Amazon AWS vs DigitalOcean vs Microsoft Azure comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.9
AWS offers cost savings, scalability, and agility with a pay-as-you-go model, attracting clients and reducing overhead.
Sentiment score
6.1
Users generally found DigitalOcean cost-effective, noticing initial savings, though some lacked details to quantify exact financial impact.
Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Azure reduces costs with scalable services, pay-as-you-go model, and improved infrastructure, enhancing long-term returns and performance.
The value for money is good, and Microsoft Azure has positively impacted our operational costs.
When we use Microsoft Azure, it provides enhanced security from our perspective, though I am not certain about the financial return on investment or benefits for our users as I do not have that information.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
AWS is favored for reliable support and problem-solving despite concerns over response times and communication efficiency.
Sentiment score
6.5
DigitalOcean's customer service is responsive yet inconsistent, needing improved technical support and quicker resolutions compared to AWS.
Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft Azure's support is often effective, yet some face delays; higher-tier support and self-help resources improve experiences.
Reaching out to them and talking is different from receiving a complete solution to your problem.
Amazon AWS has good technical engineers available, making their customer service reliable.
DigitalOcean support is rated lower than AWS's because we encounter issues more frequently.
Microsoft needs to engage L3 and L2 in support when specified in service tickets.
The support from Microsoft Azure is good.
Regarding technical support from Microsoft, I find they are responsive and helpful, depending on which support package you're on.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Amazon AWS provides seamless vertical and horizontal scalability, supporting diverse customer needs from startups to large enterprises efficiently.
Sentiment score
7.2
DigitalOcean is highly rated for scalability, offering tools to manage increased loads and easily add resources like RAM or CPUs.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Azure offers scalable solutions, but users face challenges with costs and resource limits, leading some to prefer competitors.
The scalability of Amazon AWS is excellent.
Amazon AWS provides strong scalability features, but the scaling process could be made more straightforward.
I have not tried vertical scaling yet, but from the documentation, it seems very easy to scale the system.
Microsoft Azure is not just one product; it is a platform with multiple products within Microsoft Azure, and I would say it is scalable and would rate it a nine.
The scalability of Microsoft Azure is excellent for growth and adaptation, depending on company requirements.
It has different kinds of designs that allow for management and deployment in multi-zones, offering both scalable and non-scalable options.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Amazon AWS is highly reliable with minimal issues, strong infrastructure, and stability often rated between eight and nine.
Sentiment score
7.8
DigitalOcean offers reliable stability, though some users note occasional downtimes and performance fluctuations based on extended use.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Azure is stable with good uptime, though stability varies by configuration; users generally rate it highly.
DigitalOcean is quite stable, and I would rate its stability at nine out of ten.
It is approximately 50 to 60% stable, reaching 60 to 70% depending on usage levels.
We noticed a few critical servers went down due to a Microsoft Azure-end hardware issue.
We are now migrating clients without the zoning into mandatory multi-zone deployments, so if one zone goes down, their application and database remain live.
Microsoft Azure is quite stable, but recent outages and security issues have slightly decreased my confidence.
 

Room For Improvement

AWS users face challenges in cost, support, complexity, security, documentation, and features, with improvements needed in usability and integration.
DigitalOcean struggles with performance, customer dissatisfaction, and service issues, prompting calls for improved features and better support.
Microsoft Azure users seek simplified pricing, improved security, better integration, enhanced documentation, responsive support, and intuitive management tools.
Amazon AWS could improve its user interface to make it more user-friendly, especially for people who are not highly technical.
When using scripts for APIs to fetch data, they don't match the data exactly with the request.
DigitalOcean could offer a pay-as-you-go model similar to AWS, where I would pay for what I use rather than having fixed payments.
There are issues where even with 8 GB RAM, the performance doesn't meet expectations.
The lack of a proper service provider model ultimately led us to cease operations with DigitalOcean.
Recent outages and security issues are also a concern, causing a decrease in confidence, especially when partnering with third-party companies.
The administrative side is suitable for technical people, but our finance and HR super users find it less user-friendly, as they prefer drag-and-drop features to build their own solutions without contacting IT.
There is still room for improvement in terms of pricing.
 

Setup Cost

AWS offers scalable, flexible pricing suited for enterprises but requires careful management to avoid high costs from storage and data transfer.
DigitalOcean's pricing ranges from $5 to $50 monthly, with costs depending on configuration and perceived as competitive by some.
Microsoft Azure provides flexible pricing with pay-as-you-go, free tiers, and discounts, emphasizing cost-effectiveness despite complexity.
After three to four years, if you are not managing it correctly, you will be paying more than an on-premise solution, which applies to all cloud providers, so you must regularly maintain and manage for efficiency.
Currently, Amazon AWS is known to be on the higher price range because popular and in-demand services often come at a premium.
DigitalOcean offers affordable pricing, especially for startups.
Microsoft solutions might be cheaper than some services like AWS, but some solutions may be more expensive depending on the services compared.
Copilot is expensive based on recent pricing for our POC.
They have discounts and also provide promotions for a three-year reservation which comes with significant discounts on the infrastructure part.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon AWS offers scalable, secure, and flexible cloud services with automation, diverse tools, and excellent support for efficient resource management.
DigitalOcean provides reliable, cost-effective servers with an intuitive interface, database management, flexible hosting, and easy installation.
Microsoft Azure is praised for scalability, ease of use, diverse services, strong security, and seamless integration with various technologies.
Amazon AWS offers flexibility and scalability.
One aspect I appreciate in Amazon AWS is their support team, which is excellent.
The droplet feature is valuable for hosting my applications as it is particularly cost-effective and serves my needs well.
The most significant aspect is that we can connect directly to the system from anywhere.
The team was particularly satisfied with the flexibility of the service and the rules for managing virtual machines on DigitalOcean.
Power BI, another feature of Azure, is extremely elegant and has robust features that support forecasting using R and Python.
If Microsoft gives a report, such as a server performance report in a detailed way, which shows what is consuming more CPU, memory, and disk IO, and network utilization during a particular time, it would be helpful to visualize that information.
What is very interesting in terms of scalability is the automatic possibilities to provision some new machines to be able to absorb the number of users we have in the system.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon AWS is 16.0%, down from 20.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DigitalOcean is 2.1%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 15.5%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure15.5%
Amazon AWS16.0%
DigitalOcean2.1%
Other66.4%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

HarishMahanta - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable cloud service enhances ERP management with advanced security features
I use Amazon AWS for ERP implementation. My responsibility is to integrate our application into the AWS cloud and provide AI solutions to the infrastructure AWS is stable and has provided a reliable infrastructure for my organization. AWS offers add-on services such as security and automated…
Michael Olayemi - PeerSpot reviewer
Enjoy cost-effective hosting with flexible deployment and room for payment model improvement
I use only one feature, which is the droplet, and it has been satisfactory. The droplet feature is valuable for hosting my applications as it is particularly cost-effective and serves my needs well. I also have total freedom over what I use, and I have a better user interface and documentation compared to Oracle.
Syed Abid  - PeerSpot reviewer
Versatile integrations and reliable customer satisfaction elevate cloud service experience
For Microsoft Azure improvement, they need to enhance their support system. The first level of support should be improved in terms of quality and response time. They need more technical support at the first level, as there are currently only one or two technical people among five to ten staff members at this level. They should ensure that the first level support is more technical because we normally provide services to technical users ourselves. When an issue arises, it usually escalates to the second or third level. When facing first level support, they may have limited knowledge and only collect screenshots to forward to their seniors. They should ensure that the first level support is aligned with L2 and L3 to better assist us, especially since we mention in the ticket that our issues are related to specific problems and require that sort of support.
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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
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business131
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise112
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business139
Midsize Enterprise53
Large Enterprise148
 

Questions from the Community

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Looking to compare Google Firebase, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure
We like Google Firebase hosting and authentication and also the excellent cloud functionality. Our team found the fle...
What do you like most about DigitalOcean?
It's been a good choice for us for some services. We generally have several deployments. For instance, for some stati...
What needs improvement with DigitalOcean?
There are disadvantages, such as machines getting stuck or disconnected, requiring restarts. Sometimes we lose connec...
What is your primary use case for DigitalOcean?
We use DigitalOcean mostly for RDS services and cloud-related systems where we want to deploy codes and run them usin...
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 ...
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....
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. ...
 

Also Known As

Amazon Web Services, AWS
Digital Ocean
Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pinterest, General Electric, Pfizer, Netflix, and Nasdaq.
jQuery Foundation, Pertino, TaskRabbit, Compose, InfluxDB, The Able Few
BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Akamai and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS). Updated: August 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.