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IBM Public Cloud vs Microsoft Azure comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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 (8th)
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 September 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.1%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 18.4%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure18.4%
IBM Public Cloud3.1%
Other78.5%
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.
Nicolas Chabrier - PeerSpot reviewer
Promotes clear, logical structures preventing impractical configurations and offers seamless integration
The only thing is regarding the management of multi-cloud environments. That's not really possible. So basically, it's wonderful if you manage Microsoft clearly and if you manage Microsoft Azure, but if you need to consume external services and have a global overview of all your consumption, it's not the case. Google, for instance, has tools that help you manage multiple environments, which makes sense because Google is really the cloud provider. So that's why they need to be compliant with the others. But for sure, Microsoft's approach is different, and it's wonderful when you're one hundred percent on Azure. But if you'd like to have something more of a multi-cloud strategy, that's a bit of a gap where they could improve.

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."
"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 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."
"What I like most in IBM Public Cloud is how easy it is to create serverless functions. They are called IBM functions, but in AWS, they are called Lambda functions. Those are pretty standard, and another thing I like the most is that you have fewer restrictions on the amount of data you can transfer across those functions. IBM Public Cloud is way more flexible than AWS. I also like that IBM Public Cloud is pretty straightforward to integrate. As long as you have all the tools IBM provides you, getting everything up and running is straightforward."
"This product is very good because it is accessible in remote locations, and anyone can deploy from any place."
"I've found the stability to be excellent. The performance is good."
"It provides robust analytics and management tools to give customers complete visibility into their environment and infrastructure."
"I am very much satisfied with the technical support team at IBM Public Cloud."
"It's very scalable. We can scale up to 80-85% without issues."
"Storage has made remote access to files much more painless and easy."
"Azure virtual machines are stand-out."
"Azure is a good networking solution from a WAN perspective."
"Microsoft Azure is scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the virtual machine."
"Some months ago, we started using Power BI embedded, which helped optimize the number of licenses for our company."
"User interface and portal are great."
 

Cons

"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."
"It will be challenging to implement if you do not have any experience."
"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’s pricing could be improved."
"Support could 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."
"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."
"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."
"I think Azure Active Directory and also the backup solutions provided in Azure need to be improved by Microsoft. The backup solution is not a very enterprise solution, and it is very simple. I think in comparison with other backup solutions like Nakivo and Veeam Backup, it can be improved to have a lot of options."
"It is pretty secure, but it can always be more secure."
"One area for enhancement could be in the realm of big data and unstructured data storage."
"There should be more language options for the Azure Functions apps. It supports programming languages, but there are only a few options. It could have more programming languages."
"Microsoft Azure is so complicated inside. If you should do something internally, if you have to configure something, the opinion about Azure is that it is a little complicated inside. That's why the end users and clients are looking for help and why we help them configure and do anything inside of Azure. That is why we offer other tools to optimize the Azure environment."
"We have reported some bugs we encountered, and it would be good if those bugs were resolved more quickly."
"There are a number of services offered by AWS that are not yet available on Azure."
"I would like to see this solution support integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."
"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"I believe that we have a three-year license, and I'm happy with the pricing."
"I would like to see it more easily accessible."
"Be careful with Azure Cool storage accounts; if you are dealing with high object counts, then it can be more economical to use Hot storage because of the high storage access costs associated with Cool."
"We're paying in dollars, and it's very expensive for us because of the exchange rates."
"The cost of the solution could be reduced. However, I am using the free version."
"This is an expensive product."
"We have a subscription and the price is reasonable."
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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
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business136
Midsize Enterprise52
Large Enterprise146
 

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.
866,391 professionals have used our research since 2012.