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IBM Public Cloud vs Microsoft Azure comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

IBM Public Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
IoT Platforms (2nd)
Microsoft Azure
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
324
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.5%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 12.4%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure12.4%
IBM Public Cloud3.5%
Other84.1%
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Premnath Jaganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at Uop Ipl
Affordability and security improve our cloud experience while learning new systems
I'm not working with any AI features in IBM Public Cloud, but they are in the process of building it.I am very satisfied with the security that IBM Public Cloud provides. I would rate IBM Public Cloud eight out of ten, where one is worst and ten is the best.
Syed Abid  - PeerSpot reviewer
Snr. Infrastructure Architect (Data Centre) at LogicEra
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"IBM Public Cloud is a stable solution; it gives you SLA notifications all the time of what could be done, what is going to happen in the next hour regarding downtime, or anything that affects you, and so far I never noticed any issue, so I'm very happy with the solution."
"Anytime I need something they are dependable and willing to help me out."
"For non-complex applications, the IBM Cloud works fine and the price is much lower than the competitors."
"There is no installation for this product because it is a cloud product."
"On the production side, we are seeing a 200% ROI."
"It provides robust analytics and management tools to give customers complete visibility into their environment and infrastructure."
"The platform has everything that I need - or 99% of the requirements we need."
"It is so huge and so powerful; the best thing is the possibilities of things that you can actually do with it, and if you do it right, you can work or host your stuff a lot cheaper than traditionally."
"The solution is very simple to use, is pretty dynamic, and has a lot of great practical applications we really appreciate, from quickly configuring our environment and adding notes to leveraging powerful testing capabilities like load balancing and scenario testing from an infrastructure point of view."
"Microsoft Azure is a good service and I recommend it."
"It very quickly provisions servers, infrastructure, and apps on the fly and complies with security requirements and data safety."
"The pricing is quite good, and it is designed as pay-per-use."
"Microsoft Azure is flexible and the performance is great."
"Databricks is really nice because you have the power to process lots of data and you can create queries and provide big analysis for the business using a robust cluster."
"We are using Microsoft Azure because our organization uses a lot of Microsoft solutions, we have used Microsoft technology for a long time, and we have internal engineers with great capability that understand the technology, which is why Azure is the best for us."
 

Cons

"The product should offer more computing, similar to Amazon."
"There is not a lot of support for this solution, which is something that needs to be improved."
"Support could be improved."
"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."
"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."
"They could improve on customizing reporting capabilities."
"An improvement that I would like to see is better configuration capability."
"Use of the solution could be easier."
"More integration with other platforms is what I would like included in the next release for this solution."
"Pricing is very difficult to guesstimate."
"Something that could be added to the solution is the use of deep learning, which is going to grow in the near future."
"Microsoft is not an innovator for this cloud computing platform."
"The tool needs to improve its navigation."
"Predictability and quality need improvement. Make sure things work predictably, as expected, and are documented."
"We have faced some issues on the pricing side, but it has improved lately."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."
"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."
"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."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"Microsoft Azure comes with a long-term license and trial licenses as well."
"Related to pricing and licensing, you have to be careful how you operate with the concept."
"Microsoft Azure is more expensive than other solutions, such as GCP. We have found that GCP offers more utilities at a very reasonable price."
"The licensing fees are more than $1,000,000 USD annually."
"It's an OPEX model, you pay as you go, or you can reserve funds."
"Customers pay for our software and use our solution as a service through monthly payments. They don't pay the licensing fee directly to Microsoft."
"We pay our bill in a monthly or 6 monthly billing cycle. The cost depends on how much you use during the period."
"The pricing model can be improved because we find that Azure pricing is a bit high."
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Aug 14, 2013
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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
13%
University
11%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business141
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise153
 

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Public Cloud?
The prices are relatively lower compared to others. It is a good option for medium-sized businesses. However, businesses should also consider other vendors to ensure they meet their specific securi...
What needs improvement with IBM Public Cloud?
The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition.
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...
How does Salesforce Platform compare with Azure?
Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform is not easy or intuitive to deploy. The difficulty will be impacted by the type of application that you are trying to use the platform to build. Organizations tha...
 

Also Known As

IBM Bluemix
Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County
BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Public Cloud vs. Microsoft Azure and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
896,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.