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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

"This product is very good because it is accessible in remote locations, and anyone can deploy from any place."
"Regarding advice, I would recommend others choose IBM Public Cloud because it's straightforward, has a good environment, and is cost-effective."
"One of the features that I really like about IBM Cloud is the flexibility where you can order your own hardware."
"On the production side, we are seeing a 200% ROI."
"For non-complex applications, the IBM Cloud works fine and the price is much lower than the competitors."
"An advantage of IBM Public Cloud is the bare metal server. We can take the bare metal server. It's not shared with anyone. We can deploy our applications without sharing them with anyone. That is an advantage of IBM Public Cloud."
"The stability is excellent; it's 200% stable with no bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, and it's extremely reliable with great performance."
"I don't have much experience with this solution, but I would recommend it to others."
"Some months ago, we started using Power BI embedded, which helped optimize the number of licenses for our company."
"Some features of Azure are very important for us, you can control access for your company, it's not complicated managing the solution either, I think the solution is very stable, secure and the documentation Microsoft has on their website is complete."
"The technical support has been good."
"I have not had a problem with the stability. It is reliable."
"Azure services like EDM and Batch are all famous, but one of the most popular services for development is Azure Functions, especially the PaaS option. Depending on a customer's environment, they can go for the PaaS."
"It provides a great ROI."
"One of the features I have found to be valuable is the scale set feature."
"It is stable and scalable, and it is useful for many applications and services, such as SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive."
 

Cons

"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 needs to be more autonomous. It should let the DL go to allow for more jobs on the cloud."
"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."
"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."
"They do not have a very good virtual network implemented, and the VPC is the most important feature that needs to be improved."
"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."
"It will be challenging to implement if you do not have any experience."
"The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition."
"Microsoft Azure could improve by having the availability be 100%. Which is difficult, but not impossible."
"We like that they have the new capabilities, but sometimes they're deprecating capabilities faster than we can handle. If we had to improve it, we would want to stay on some of these older capabilities a bit longer."
"Should always go with recommendations provided by Microsoft during the creation of new clusters. Otherwise, stability is an issue."
"They should include a cybersecurity feature to improve the protection of the systems. They could do better in terms of the pricing model. Its price keeps on changing. Their technical support can also be better."
"In the next release, I would like to see better security."
"There are always new features to add in terms of additional indicators, improving the looks of the dashboard and stuff. There are some dashboards that are not attractive, we are looking to make them fancier and nice-looking."
"Some of the capabilities available in an on-premise SQL Server aren't available in Azure. For instance, we found Azure Managed Instance to be lacking in certain aspects. One of our clients decided to stay on-premise rather than migrate to Azure because of this reason."
"The solution should improve the shared cache. For the shared cache, Microsoft uses RADIUS third-party services. We have a lot of trouble with RADIUS and I suppose that is due to the fact that is not owned completely by Microsoft."
 

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."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."
"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."
"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."
"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."
"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"The pricing is cheap."
"The pricing model can be improved because we find that Azure pricing is a bit high."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Licensing costs for Enterprise are on an annual basis."
"I pay a yearly subscription fee for the solution."
"The pricing is relatively high."
"It’s necessary to use third party products or to use good self-management economic tools"
"We're paying in dollars, and it's very expensive for us because of the exchange rates."
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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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
University
11%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
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.
896,563 professionals have used our research since 2012.