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Azure Stack vs VMware Cloud Foundation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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
5.7
Azure Stack showed mixed results, benefiting large user bases with quick returns, user-friendliness, and cost-effectiveness over alternatives.
Sentiment score
5.1
Transitioning to VMware Cloud Foundation offers 30-40% savings through reduced tickets and improved stability, despite limited immediate ROI.
VMware Cloud Foundation allows cost and time savings by quickly deploying infrastructure requests and integrating automatic ticketing and backup services.
In terms of ROI, although VMware Cloud Foundation is expensive, it saves time in most cases, which indirectly saves costs for users.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Azure Stack support varies; enterprise customers with high-tier support report better experiences, while others face challenges.
Sentiment score
7.0
VMware Cloud Foundation's support is responsive and expert, though improvements in speed and product familiarity are desired.
The technicians handling the tickets do not seem very technical.
Any support we receive is through Dell EMC, as that's a policy from Microsoft itself.
There are times when support is unclear, and even VMware support personnel may lack familiarity with certain parts, causing difficulties.
Based on my nine years of experience with VMware, I would evaluate their technical support as effective.
Support was reliable and responsive before the acquisition by Broadcom.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Azure Stack offers scalable solutions from small to large deployments, praised for flexibility despite some challenges in integration and scaling.
Sentiment score
7.8
VMware Cloud Foundation is versatile and scalable, highly rated but dependent on licensing and hardware for optimal performance.
Monitoring, changing plans, and consolidating things are necessary parts of the process to avoid excessive costs.
Our company seeks cost-effective and more flexible open systems, and we find it difficult to integrate with third-party hardware.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the scalability of Azure Stack as eight.
VMware Cloud Foundation supports scalability and company growth.
When more hosts are added, performance goes slow.
In terms of scalability, I also rate VMware Cloud Foundation as an eight out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Azure Stack is praised for stability and reliable support, offering strong service availability despite minor, manageable issues.
Sentiment score
7.7
Users rate VMware Cloud Foundation highly for stability, noting minor migration challenges but appreciate its reliable performance and regular updates.
If one component fails to operate in a timely manner, the entire infrastructure can go down because everything is interconnected.
The stability of VMware Cloud Foundation is very high.
I am currently satisfied with the stability of VMware Cloud Foundation, though having started only two to three months ago, I am still in the monitoring phase.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Stack users seek enhanced feature parity, cost management, integration, technical support, AI capabilities, and user-friendly interfaces.
VMware Cloud Foundation faces pricing, licensing complexities, integration challenges, and high costs, needing enhancements in customization and support services.
The precision of anonymous activity tracking should be improved, particularly in identifying the correct location because IP information is sometimes inaccurate.
Management looks for a balanced product that utilizes existing hardware, fulfills external customer demand, and leverages the scalability of the cloud model.
Many resources get created in Azure Stack, and managing those resources can be challenging.
VMware Broadcom needs to include auto resource allocation at the VM levels.
Each user needs deep knowledge of every aspect of virtualization.
VMware Cloud Foundation is complex, and there are always updates regarding security features, accessibility, and the user interface.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Stack pricing varies widely, with mixed cost perceptions influenced by deployment specifics, service requirements, and regional complexities.
VMware Cloud Foundation pricing is seen as high but is justified by reliability and features, impacting affordability variably.
If Microsoft lowers the price, more small businesses would be able to adopt the Enterprise E5 license.
The cost has become very high, especially after Broadcom's acquisition, altering the licensing model to a more expensive core-based system.
The price is quite higher than some other vendors.
VMware Cloud Foundation is quite expensive when compared to its competitors, but it does save time, which in turn saves money.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Stack offers scalable, flexible solutions with integration, AI tools, and hybrid cloud features, enhancing deployment and development efficiency.
VMware Cloud Foundation excels in automation, scalability, and user-friendly management, enhancing efficiency with seamless integration and advanced features.
I am very much impressed with Azure Stack, especially regarding security, complete compliance, data sovereignty, and data security.
They allow me to track all user activities.
We wanted to proceed with an integrated solution from the same cloud provider, so we are using Azure Stack.
With VMware Cloud Foundation, auto-deployment is possible by simply right-clicking and assigning a specific DHCP IP, enabling physical to vCenter level communication for automatic VM deployment.
All features of VMware Cloud Foundation are valuable to us, as it covers every industry standard protocol and requirement protocol.
VMware Cloud Foundation allows for extensive customization, aligning with our customer requirements.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Stack
Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (2nd)
VMware Cloud Foundation
Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms category, the mindshare of Azure Stack is 24.3%, down from 29.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Cloud Foundation is 19.6%, down from 24.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Azure Stack24.3%
VMware Cloud Foundation19.6%
Other56.099999999999994%
Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

MohammedAbdulAleem - PeerSpot reviewer
Security and compliance shine but integration and pricing need work
The difficulties we face involve the lack of support, which is one reason the product isn't selling well in the market. Perhaps it relates to our sales team's strategy, but management looks for a balanced product that utilizes existing hardware, fulfills external customer demand, and leverages the scalability of the cloud model. An improvement for Azure Stack would be in third-party integration; it feels very restricted and closed concerning hardware. For example, I have Dell EMC hardware, but I want to integrate it with other major hardware such as Cisco, IBM, Lenovo, or Supermicro, and I can't do that. They should also improve third-party integration regarding security and new services such as AI as a service. I expect more towards AI-enabled models, and GPU as a service is also not offered.
Narasimha Reddy Illuri - PeerSpot reviewer
There is progress in performance and stability, but further advancements are needed for end-user satisfaction
VMware Cloud Foundation's best features include its advanced capabilities, security purposes, and performance levels. The solution offers efficient licensing options. Previously, vSphere essential was available, but now it has moved to VMware Cloud Foundation 8.0. It includes advanced features such as lifecycle manager, patching level, and cluster level patching options. The solution now offers auto-deployment of VMs. Previously, I had to use the content library, right-click, and create VMs manually. With VMware Cloud Foundation, auto-deployment is possible by simply right-clicking and assigning a specific DHCP IP, enabling physical to vCenter level communication for automatic VM deployment. The workload portability feature in VMware Cloud Foundation provides good workload balance. For instance, in a cluster level with four to five ESXi hosts, each host has minimum resources allocated for CPU and memory, resulting in significantly reduced utilization at the VMware Cloud Foundation level.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure Stack?
For hybrid cloud operations, the seamless transition it enables is key. Most enterprises have a lot of workloads on-premises, and they want a smooth way to move into the cloud. Some things are on...
What needs improvement with Azure Stack?
We would appreciate a more competitive pricing model, as many new features are being introduced that we are not always aware of. The autoscaling functionality could be simplified. Many resources ge...
What do you like most about VMware Cloud Foundation?
VMware Cloud Foundation provides us with the vSphere dashboard through which we can manage, monitor, schedule, and spin up your virtual machines. We can manage, monitor, and get reports of your inf...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Cloud Foundation?
Regarding pricing, VMware Cloud Foundation includes normal licensing costs. Since VMware's move to Broadcom, the pricing has increased significantly. Compared to Nutanix, which many people consider...
What needs improvement with VMware Cloud Foundation?
Regarding improvements in VMware Cloud Foundation, stability has significantly improved, and many issues have been resolved. The efficiency, stability, scalability, and advanced level features have...
 

Overview

Information not available
 

Sample Customers

Weblink, Fathym, Sage, CFD Support Ltd, The UberCloud Inc.
ricoh, dell technologies, sky
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Stack vs. VMware Cloud Foundation and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.