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IBM Public Cloud vs Microsoft Azure 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

IBM Public Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
IoT Platforms (6th)
Microsoft Azure
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
316
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.3%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 19.2%, down from 19.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Premnath Jaganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
SubodhThakar - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates various functionalities and have good documentation but have high pricing
Cosmos DB offered better scalability. In Azure SQL, we had to carefully manage the storage tier, switching back and forth based on needs. But when we first implemented Cosmos DB, we had a good understanding of the required data volume over the past three months. This helped us select the appropriate tier because we had those figures. If we had done it the other way around, it would have been much harder to estimate the data accurately. While you can get a rough idea, whether it works out in practice is more of a hit-and-miss approach, which we have already experienced with Cosmos DB. We applied the knowledge gained from that exercise to build a similar solution over Azure SQL. On the DevOps side, our team consisted of five members, ranging from senior to junior roles. We would raise requests for specific services needed in the development environment. The process typically takes three to five business days, including all necessary approvals, from submitting the request to receiving the resources and verifying access.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It provides robust analytics and management tools to give customers complete visibility into their environment and infrastructure."
"I've found the stability to be excellent. The performance is good."
"The initial setup was very easy. It's quite straightforward. Deployment took about fifteen minutes. Everything is well organized."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations."
"One of the features that I really like about IBM Cloud is the flexibility where you can order your own hardware."
"It is easy to deploy what you need for the initial setup"
"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."
"The data factory feature."
"It is so huge and so powerful. The best thing is the possibilities of things that you can actually do with it. If you do it right, you can work or host your stuff a lot cheaper than traditionally. Its security is good, and it also reduces the strain on internal IT."
"The solution is secure and easy to use."
"It is stable and collaborative."
"The scalability is good."
"The tool’s stability is good."
"Feature-wise, I like its stability. Also, it is easy to access the solution and its options."
"I come from the DBA side so for me it's the easy maintenance; backups are very easy as well."
 

Cons

"The initial setup and the pricing are areas that need improvement."
"The product should offer more computing, similar to Amazon."
"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 connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition."
"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."
"Support could be improved."
"They do not have a very good virtual network implemented, and the VPC is the most important feature that needs to be improved."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly deployment process in the next release of this solution."
"I would like to see Internet content filtering included."
"Technical support needs improvement."
"With Microsoft, our only concern is exchange rates because we're paying in dollars. It's very expensive for us because of the exchange rates. It would help if they partnered with someone locally so we can pay in our local currency."
"Azure's security and compliance tools are not enough."
"Microsoft Azure could improve by having the availability be 100%. Which is difficult, but not impossible."
"Dashboards and reporting could be improved."
"The process by which our customers can switch from one subscription to another should be simplified."
"I would like to see improvement in the technical support. Sometimes it takes a long time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."
"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."
"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."
"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."
"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."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"It is not an expensive product and is adaptable to various requirements. It offers a free tier for small-scale usage and the ability to scale up as needed when requirements grow."
"The pricing is cheap."
"We have approached our clients about using Kubernetes or Docker because it's cheaper when inflation is considered."
"It is affordable, but its subscription price could be cheaper."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"It's a pay-as-you-go subscription."
"The long-term cost is higher than if you set up the servers on-premises, which is something that could be improved through more competitive pricing."
"The pricing for the end-user packages is a bit high. It is full of very interesting services, but I would still like it to be less expensive."
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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
University
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 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.
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: July 2025.
862,077 professionals have used our research since 2012.