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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 (1st)
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 April 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.4%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 13.5%, down from 20.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure13.5%
IBM Public Cloud3.4%
Other83.1%
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

"In terms of performance, resiliency, and availability, it is second to none."
"I don't have much experience with this solution, but I would recommend it to others."
"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."
"This is a predictable and dependable service."
"We deploy all of our developments and production environments for deploying microservices and APIs on the 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."
"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."
"Azure Active Directory and Azure Active Directory Domain Services make it possible to have Azure VM's join a domain without the need for additional domain controllers."
"Microsoft Azure has thousands of services and products."
"The solution is user-friendly and compatible."
"I think the most useful feature has been the remote desktop. It has been very helpful when customers have old applications that are not architected to run remotely."
"The organization can focus more on real business problems instead of IT problems, reduce the time spent setting up the infrastructure, and become more agile and, in many cases, more reliable by using the public cloud."
"We have found the scalability of the solution to be good."
"I have found the solution to be flexible, easy to use, and the documents are straightforward to understand."
"The best features of Microsoft Azure are the interface and the ease of use of that interface, which is very friendly."
 

Cons

"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 could be more secure."
"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."
"While they have about 99% of what we need, the only exception, perhaps, was the push notification feature that was discontinued. They delayed the replacement product."
"The product should offer more computing, similar to Amazon."
"It will be challenging to implement if you do not have any experience."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly deployment process in the next release of this solution."
"It could be more secure."
"Maybe Microsoft could improve its monitoring around the networking."
"The level of authorization or authorization cascading can be improved. We have the most powerful admins and then we have sub-admins, but the level of authorization is not that easy to handle or manage."
"Use of the solution could be easier. It is too complex."
"A problem with Azure is that the architecture that they have is not really compliant — not really connecting with the endpoint Cloud."
"Azure was pretty bad in terms of the recent service off-time for Microsoft Azure and AWS. They didn't complete 99.99% of service they provide to the customers as compared to AWS."
"The pricing needs to be a bit lower. It's an expensive solution right now."
"Their backup strategy is a little complex which racks up the VM to other sole storage areas. This should be improved."
"In the next release, I would like to see better security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."
"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."
"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."
"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."
"Several thousand dollars and counting, we haven't needed to upgrade on premises hardware (In fact we eliminated all of the old on-premises hardware and run 100% on Azure) or pay for it's maintenance, power etc."
"There are added costs to the company or for scaling for most premium products."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The price of the solution could be less expensive and the pricing model could be less confusing."
"The solution does not offer very many free services which can become expensive. We are on an annual license."
"The pricing is fine."
"There is a license for the solution."
"The license cost could be reduced."
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
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
Financial Services Firm
13%
University
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business141
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise149
 

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.
886,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.