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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
19th
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
323
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.3%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 14.5%, down from 20.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure14.5%
IBM Public Cloud3.3%
Other82.2%
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."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations."
"On the production side, we are seeing a 200% ROI."
"Overall, I would say that IBM Cloud is stable, straightforward, and is a good service."
"This is a predictable and dependable service."
"Regarding advice, I would recommend others choose IBM Public Cloud because it's straightforward, has a good environment, and is cost-effective."
"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."
"We deploy all of our developments and production environments for deploying microservices and APIs on the IBM Public Cloud."
"The product is valuable if you don't want to spend a lot of money configuring your own devices on different machines, and I like that if I only want to use limited features, I don't have to pay for it."
"We really like the infrastructure as a service and the data center as a service solution functionality."
"I like the ExpressRoute because that makes it easy to configure connectivity to Azure-hosted services."
"The solution does a lot of coding and customization, and can go live quickly."
"In terms of managing and configuring infrastructures, Azure is fairly good."
"The most valuable features I have found to be the auto-scaling feature and the interface."
"It is a stable solution because it depends on the workload you expect. Based on that data, you can configure how many users it can handle."
"It comes with a lot of ready-made studies that we can connect with other existing Microsoft applications, for example, Office, Outlook, Chatline, and OneDrive. Everything is behind the scenes running with Azure. It's easy to build the connectors."
 

Cons

"They could improve on customizing reporting capabilities."
"It will be challenging to implement if you do not have any experience."
"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."
"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."
"The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition."
"It will be challenging to implement if you do not have any experience."
"An improvement that I would like to see is better configuration capability."
"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."
"Sometimes when you try to connect, it is quite unresponsive. When you want to communicate using the API, you get an internal error."
"I would like to see more advanced functionality in terms of information security."
"I've been in touch with technical support and I haven't found them to be overly helpful."
"Auto ML could be improved technically."
"The solution could use mutual segmentation for servers. It would be ideal if you could constitute something like five or 15 groups among the groups of different computers inside Azure."
"I think Azure Active Directory and also the backup solutions provided in Azure need to be improved by Microsoft."
"It seems to me that Azure is a little less stable than AWS but not so that it makes a difference, given how much time you save doing other stuff like configuring, etc."
"I would say an improvement could be allowing for more external, third-party tools. However, I think that's their vision, how they develop the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"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."
"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."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"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 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."
"The cost is something that could be improved."
"Price-wise, it is comparable to other solutions for the features that we are using."
"The current pricing is on a pay-as-you-go subscription."
"The pricing is fair and it was actually just reduced. My organization is paying approximately $100,000 annually with close to one thousand users. There are no additional fees."
"The solution's licensing costs are yearly."
"It is important to consider ROI when looking at the cost of a subscription."
"The cost-benefit equation for Azure is very good, particularly for small applications. However, Microsoft should do much, much more to improve how costs are communicated and how to forecast them. The Azure Pricing Calculator is not useful."
"The price is good, but it can always be cheaper."
report
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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
University
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
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 Business140
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: March 2026.
885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.