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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 (3rd)
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 May 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.5%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 12.9%, down from 19.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure12.9%
IBM Public Cloud3.5%
Other83.6%
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

"I've found the stability to be excellent. The performance is good."
"I don't have much experience with this solution, but I would recommend it to others."
"For non-complex applications, the IBM Cloud works fine and the price is much lower than the competitors."
"The platform has everything that I need - or 99% of the requirements we need."
"The availability is second to none. Customer support is very good."
"It provides robust analytics and management tools to give customers complete visibility into their environment and infrastructure."
"One of the features that I really like about IBM Cloud is the flexibility where you can order your own hardware."
"The price of IBM Cloud is most valuable for us."
"The time to market is fast compared back to the traditional on-premise hosting, which is one of the better things I can say because there is no need to worry, as the Pack services will enable it to start immediately."
"The solution's technical support was very good."
"Azure is stable. I don't have any problems with it."
"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."
"We are using Microsoft Azure because our organization uses a lot of Microsoft solutions. We have used Microsoft technology for a long time and we have internal engineers with great capability that understand the technology. This is why Azure is the best for us."
"If you have large traffic amounts, Microsoft Azure will continue to provide our customers with the best storage experience."
"Provides a high level of availability and 99% uptime."
"User interface and portal are great."
 

Cons

"They could improve on customizing reporting capabilities."
"It could be more secure."
"There is not a lot of support for this solution, which is something that needs to be improved."
"The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition."
"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."
"The product should offer more computing, similar to Amazon."
"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 could do better in terms of the pricing model. Its price keeps on changing."
"Stability can suffer in the context of a large architecture."
"Sometimes when you try to connect, it is quite unresponsive. When you want to communicate using the API, you get an internal error."
"Pricing is very difficult to guesstimate."
"In my opinion, what could be improved is making the actual costs more predictable. It is very difficult to estimate the cost or the budget you are going to need to run your environment in Azure Cloud. You have to be a specialist to understand how you will be charged, which constantly changes."
"Talking from a networking perspective, when you create a file or a rule in Azure and you want to view this IP group, sometimes the way it is displayed on the GUI, you don't see the name of the group."
"Stability. Microsoft is implementing changes too fast and sometimes things break."
"They should optimize their pricing so that we can use more features. I would also like to see more auditing and more security for the Blob storage feature. From a technical point, it has very good features for Microsoft products, but for non-Microsoft products, it may have some limitations. I have mostly worked with Windows-based integration, and now I am trying to use it for open-source systems. It is good but not as easy as Microsoft products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"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."
"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."
"Its costing can be improved. Its licensing is monthly. In addition to the standard license fee, there is a transactional cost."
"It is important to consider ROI when looking at the cost of a subscription."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"Price-wise, it is comparable to other solutions for the features that we are using."
"Microsoft Azure is more expensive than other solutions, such as GCP. We have found that GCP offers more utilities at a very reasonable price."
"It's a very expensive machine and I would like for them to improve the price. There are smaller sized competitors who offer cheaper prices."
"Reducing the price would be of benefit to our customers."
"Some services are okay, while others are expensive. Different features within the same service, like Defender, have separate charges. This, combined with the skill shortage in FinOps strategy and management, makes it difficult to control costs."
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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
8%
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 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.
896,034 professionals have used our research since 2012.