Cloud Foundry vs IBM Public Cloud comparison

Cloud Foundry and IBM are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Cloud Foundry is ranked #22, while IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 6.3. Cloud Foundry holds a 1.6% mindshare in PSP, compared to IBM’s 3.3% mindshare. Additionally, 33% of Cloud Foundry users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Cloud Foundry

Read 2 Cloud Foundry reviews

718 Views
583 Comparison Views

33% willing to recommend

IBM Public Cloud

Read 17 IBM Public Cloud reviews

3,553 Views
2,683 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Cloud Foundry

IBM Public Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

IBM Public Cloud and Cloud Foundry compete in the cloud services sector. IBM Public Cloud often has the advantage due to its broad range of services and competitive pricing, while Cloud Foundry shines in developer-focused features.

Features: IBM Public Cloud offers a comprehensive infrastructure suite, AI capabilities, and integrated solutions that appeal to businesses needing seamless operations. Cloud Foundry facilitates developer agility with its platform-as-a-service model, supports multiple programming languages, and enables custom development environments, ideal for agile teams.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Public Cloud ensures a streamlined deployment process with robust customer support and detailed documentation, making it accessible for all users. On the other hand, Cloud Foundry emphasizes a developer-centric deployment strategy that enables rapid iteration but involves a learning curve for beginners. IBM's customer service stands out for ease, while Cloud Foundry prioritizes deep customization for experienced developers.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Public Cloud provides scalable pricing options, offering businesses a cost-effective solution with generally favorable ROI for integrated projects. Cloud Foundry's pricing might be higher upfront but empowers developers with customizable development, potentially leading to better ROI for innovation-focused ventures. IBM's affordability contrasts with Cloud Foundry's pricing reflecting its specialized capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud Foundry vs. IBM Public Cloud Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Foundry vs. IBM Public Cloud

April 2025

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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

Cloud Foundry

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

22nd

Average Rating

5.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM Public Cloud

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IoT Platforms (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Cloud Foundry is 1.6%, up from 0.5% 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

Featured Reviews

Carlos Bittrich

Technology Advisor at Fabrik

Quick to deploy but being deprecated by IBM and should be merged with Kubernetes

We enjoy the fast deployment. Cloud Foundry builds the runtime environment directly without requiring dependency management from the developer or administrator. The autoscaling is great. It is just a switch that needs to be turned on, and autoscaling starts working. At this moment, you begin to see different meters about usage that helps you in updating the scaling limits, which help you tune the running instances. Besides this, autoscaling can be scheduled, so in times of low activity, you can have lower limits or increase in advance for special dates. It has good logging. CF has logging events that help identify when a transaction runs and its response time which helps in monitoring execution.

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Shivakumar Kuppannan

Founder & CEO at Star Systems India Private Limited

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM is the only vendor to offer integration with blockchain for smart contract development."

"My favorite component of IBM's solution is Node-RED, which greatly shortens the amount of time required to develop, test, and deploy new applications."

"Cloud Foundry builds the runtime environment directly without requiring dependency management from the user."

"The initial setup was very easy. It's quite straightforward. Deployment took about fifteen minutes. Everything is well organized."

"This product is very good because it is accessible in remote locations, and anyone can deploy from any place."

"It provides robust analytics and management tools to give customers complete visibility into their environment and infrastructure."

"The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations."

"What I like most in IBM Public Cloud is how easy it is to create serverless functions. They are called IBM functions, but in AWS, they are called Lambda functions. Those are pretty standard, and another thing I like the most is that you have fewer restrictions on the amount of data you can transfer across those functions. IBM Public Cloud is way more flexible than AWS. I also like that IBM Public Cloud is pretty straightforward to integrate. As long as you have all the tools IBM provides you, getting everything up and running is straightforward."

"There is no installation for this product because it is a cloud product."

"It is a scalable product. You can scale it up and down."

"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."

More IBM Public Cloud pros

Cons

"In IBM Cloud, the product has been deprecated in favor of Kubernetes, which is a more complicated infrastructure to manage."

"After the initial excitement period with Node-RED is over, you crave the need of additional integrations to third-party services."

"The solution needs to be more autonomous. It should let the DL go to allow for more jobs on the cloud. It could have a better interface as well."

"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."

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."

"Support could be improved."

"It could be more secure."

"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."

"There is not a lot of support for this solution, which is something that needs to be improved."

"It will be challenging to implement if you do not have any experience."

More IBM Public Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You are allocated a minimum amount of resources in the free tier. This seems fair and highly scalable, as you pay per usage as per cloud pricing schemes."

"IBM has a free tier and payment option depending on the products selected."

"The pricing models should be reworked to the needs of a wider range of companies. Some customers will not be able to afford it until quite a few years into production, even after good PoC results and a successful launch."

"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."

"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."

"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."

"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."

"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."

"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."

"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."

"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."

More IBM Public Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

26%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Healthcare Company

University

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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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 ...

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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.

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What do you like most about IBM Public Cloud?

The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations.

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Comparisons

Amazon AWS vs Cloud Foundry

Compared 34% of the time

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Cloud Foundry

Compared 22% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Cloud Foundry

Compared 13% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Cloud Foundry

Compared 11% of the time

SAP Cloud Platform vs Cloud Foundry

Compared 10% of the time

More Cloud Foundry Competitors

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 35% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 33% of the time

Amazon AWS vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 12% of the time

Dell ECS vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Google Cloud vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Public Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

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PaaS Clouds

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

IBM Public Cloud

April 2025

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Also Known As

No data available

IBM Bluemix

Overview

Cloud Foundry, home of the open source application development technologies CF Application Runtime and CF Container Runtime, is more than a platform. It’s a flexible way of embracing digital transformation that helps businesses evolve in the face of constant change. To put it another way, with Cloud Foundry, companies can rest assured they will have the right tool for the right job.

Cloud Foundry

IBM Cloud is a full-stack cloud platform that spans public, private and hybrid environments. Build with a robust suite of advanced data and AI tools, and draw on deep industry expertise to help you on your journey to the cloud.

IBM

Sample Customers

Grape Up, c-Com, KONE, TITAN, CSAA, Bosch, Allstate, Verizon, West Corp., Telstra

Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Foundry vs. IBM Public Cloud

April 2025

Free Report: Cloud Foundry vs. IBM Public Cloud

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