Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Amazon AWS vs IBM Public Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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

Amazon AWS
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
255
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (2nd)
IBM Public Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
IoT Platforms (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon AWS is 12.7%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.3%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Oct 16, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

Arun Srivastav - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows for automatic scaling of resources and provides built-in firewalls and security features, eliminating the need for external security solutions
One thing that's a bit different is that we're still accustomed to speaking to someone directly. AWS doesn't offer that kind of support. It's only through bots. You're speaking to chatbots, and that can sometimes be frustrating because there's no person on the other side. AI is not a substitute for a person. AWS marketplace is very strong, but somehow AWS doesn't promote it much. They have a huge customer base across the globe, and if products were launched in their marketplace, they could sell like hotcakes. They should improve their marketplace and promote the same product across the globe. They can take a cut, but they should promote it. That's something they don't do very much. So, AWS should promote its marketplace software. The company should promote it aggressively. Currently, they keep it very subtle. If you ask for it, they'll help you out. But they don't seem to advertise, "You're building a product on our platform? Why don't you sell it in our marketplace?" Improvement in AI: AWS is a little behind Microsoft Azure in terms of AI. AWS is still getting there, but the kind of examples and help files available in Azure for AI are much better. So AWS still needs to work on its AI functionality.
Shivakumar Kuppannan - PeerSpot reviewer
No hidden charges, 100% stable, and allows us to have bare metal servers for dedicated workload
It pretty much has all the features. There are many applications and features, and because of that, we need to walk through or study all the material and do hands-on. We need clear documentation or support for using IBM Public Cloud. The UI is fine, and everything else in terms of usability and configuring the cloud is also fine. The only thing is that when we're stuck or get an error, we need some technical support. Normally, for any cloud, we get a lot of information on the web, but that is missing in the case of IBM Public Cloud. We need some technical support documents. That is the only thing missing in IBM Public Cloud.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It integrates well."
"Scalability is one of the biggest benefits we have."
"It is quite easy to provision new virtual services for our use. The procedures are quite straightforward and simple as compared to other competitors, such as Microsoft or Huawei. This is what we are happy about with Amazon AWS. It is pretty mature in terms of the availability of most of the infrastructure components. If you want to deploy a server on your platform, everything is already there in terms of the operating system, network components, securities, and data encryption. It is also quite scalable and stable."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"A scalable and secure product"
"You can build and release applications quickly with AWS instead of waiting for months to get the necessary hardware. That's the real benefit. The time-to-market for developing applications is much shorter."
"It is highly available and on-demand. So, you can scale up and scale down whenever required."
"The solution has very good Lambda functions within AWS."
"It's straightforward, has a good environment and is cost-effective."
"For non-complex applications, the IBM Cloud works fine and the price is much lower than the competitors."
"The beauty of cloud service providers, especially public cloud service providers, is that they are scalable every time when you need them because their payment model is pay-as-you-go."
"This product is very good because it is accessible in remote locations, and anyone can deploy from any place."
"This is a predictable and dependable service."
"It is a scalable product. You can scale it up and down."
"The price of IBM Cloud is most valuable for us. The service is personable and gives us a good rapport. I can't say it's the best, but it was enough for our needs."
"It is easy to deploy what you need for the initial setup"
 

Cons

"I think the price can be improved."
"The interface is relatively complex."
"The price could be better."
"Its subscription model or pricing model is too complex, which should be improved."
"Price is an area with a shortcoming in the solution that has a scope for improvement"
"I generally don't like the user experience of Amazon. It's not the best."
"One problem is that the AWS public cloud doesn't have shared storage capabilities. The second thing is the cloud performance versus on-prem."
"It can be daunting because of the number of AWS products there are."
"The deployment can be a bit of a pain. There are a lot of packages and a lot of options and it can require complex configuration to get it right."
"Maybe performance enhancers and reports could be better improved. If they do so, it would be better. Of all the drawbacks I saw, this would be the biggest enhancement."
"The initial setup and the pricing are areas that need improvement."
"An area for improvement in IBM Public Cloud is getting up-to-date information on how to set up everything. It's hard to find new documentation."
"Recently, we just faced some issues with the operating system due to the end of life of CentOS 6...So, then the client wanted to try it out under AWS instead of IBM. In short, it has some complexities."
"There is not a lot of support for this solution, which is something that needs to be improved."
"It could be more secure."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is not an expensive product but it would be an improvement if the price were cheaper."
"The solution is expensive, and I rate it an eight out of ten."
"The price is quite good; it is a pay-as-you-go option."
"The price tends to be higher, but that is a usual case when prioritizing reliable backup solutions for servers and other infrastructure."
"The solution is on a subscription-based model, and it is pay-as-you-go. The price could be cheaper."
"Licensing is on a yearly basis. I believe we are satisfied with the current pricing. Otherwise, we would have switched to another vendor."
"Amazon AWS has pay-as-you-go options available."
"Monthly licensing fee."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."
"IBM Public Cloud is pretty cheap. They have an ongoing free tier that basically won't expire, so as long as your solution is small enough, you can have a test set that you can use for demos, which will cost you almost nothing."
"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."
"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which PaaS Clouds solutions are best for your needs.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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…
 

Answers from the Community

NC
Oct 16, 2021
Oct 16, 2021
I agree with Vik and Marcelo. AWS cloud is more matured, but you would like to run some specific IBM business tools like document management, IBM Watson for AI, SPSS analytics then IBM Cloud should be preferred.
2 out of 3 answers
VD
Oct 12, 2021
Amazon AWS is superior to IBM public for several reasons.  The most important reason is the diversity of software tools, the geographic diversity and availability, lower operating costs and excellent customer service. All cloud companies are simply playing catch-up to AWS. 
MJ
Oct 14, 2021
AWS, the main reason is the number of DC distributed arround the world
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does OpenShift compare with Amazon AWS?
Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderful dashboard mechanism to alert us in case the application is over-committing or ...
How is SAP Cloud Platform different than Amazon AWS?
How is SAP Cloud Platform different than Amazon AWS? Amazon AWS offers options both in terms of upgrading and expanding capabilities as well as acquiring greater storage space. These upgrades can ...
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 flexibility of handling and dealing with the database through EDL to be very useful...
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 ...
What needs improvement with IBM Cloud?
The front end is not pervasive, so it is very difficult get the status of your current services or account from a mobile device.
What do you like most about IBM Public Cloud?
The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Web Services, AWS
IBM Bluemix
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pinterest, General Electric, Pfizer, Netflix, and Nasdaq.
Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon AWS vs. IBM Public Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.