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IBM Public Cloud vs Salesforce Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

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 (1st)
Salesforce Platform
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (3rd), Rapid Application Development Software (5th), Low-Code Development Platforms (4th), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.6%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Platform is 3.8%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Platform3.8%
IBM Public Cloud3.6%
Other92.6%
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.
Sharmila-K - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Transformations and Infrastructure Delivery Manager at a university with 10,001+ employees
Integration processes improve but scripting requires effort
The updates, pricing part, and upgrades to the products are some of the most valuable features with the Salesforce Platform.With the Salesforce Platform, I have minimal experience of approximately one and a half years. I get minimal exposure, once every three or two months, especially during holidays. The Salesforce Platform is connected to the cloud, which is beneficial. When it is integrated with different tools such as Microsoft BI Analytics, it helps us analyze much better. Currently, the integration itself is tricky as we have to use extensive scripting. It should be more of a plug-in and use solution. That is the only issue I see, but otherwise, I appreciate it.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"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."
"One of the features that I really like about IBM Cloud is the flexibility where you can order your own hardware."
"There is no installation for this product because it is a cloud product."
"Overall, I would say that IBM Cloud is stable, straightforward, and is a good service."
"On the production side, we are seeing a 200% ROI."
"This product is very good because it is accessible in remote locations, and anyone can deploy from any place."
"In terms of performance, resiliency, and availability, it is second to none."
"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."
"I found the ease of use most valuable in the Salesforce Platform. I also found the platform pretty light."
"The reporting tools are very solid."
"The Salesforce Platform is a massive-sized solution; it's a vast digital platform that you can place all your business processes on and you can make the best use of your data and your customer data all in one place."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its overall ability to manage everything, including the sales pipeline and quick creation of sales reports."
"The Salesforce Platform's most valuable features are everything in one place, perfect reporting, highly customizable, and easy to receive information you need."
"The solution is used to track our customers."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the unit coordination between sales and marketing when it comes to lead management."
"It is a platform that allows you to get applications quickly to the end user in a secure way."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"The initial setup and the pricing are areas that need improvement."
"They could improve on customizing reporting capabilities."
"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."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly deployment process in the next release of this solution."
"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."
"Instead of creating our own template, if we had some nice templates that we could pick up - if there were some Microsoft Word templates or Microsoft Excel templates in a repository in Salesforce, that would be great."
"It could have a lot more customization options in terms of fonts and reports. There should be an even lighter version with just two or three fields. It could be a bit more light if the field guys want to use it on a mobile phone on the road. For deploying it for CRM, maybe we can have our customer database, project funnels, and projects to help us in managing our supply chain business."
"I have found it takes an exceedingly long time to put opportunities or clients in the system. If I have an opportunity that I need to put in the system it could take approximately 10 minutes. This is a lot of time when you have multiple opportunities to put in. There are other tasks to do that are required by supervisors, such as forecasts. What I have done to save time is I did not input as much detail as I could have because I knew it was going to take me an hour to get five leads in."
"Customer Service: A three out of 10. Technical Support: A two out of 10."
"They have some limitations as a cloud solution."
"Some business functionalities could be improved."
"It is very expensive. Its licensing is on a monthly basis."
"In Salesforce, every customer is unique and it's not possible to bundle them together effectively if they are from the same company or move companies, et cetera."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and 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."
"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 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."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"It is an expensive program."
"In general, the price is an area where there is always room for improvement."
"The licensing is on the expensive side, but most clients engage in negotiations to reach a more favorable agreement. For stand-alone or medium-sized clients, it can be relatively costly."
"The product's additional features can be expensive."
"It is a fair price for what it's offering, in comparison with other solutions that are available on the market."
"It is expensive."
"The cost of this solution depends on negotiations. It is somewhere between expensive and reasonable. There is always additional costs for consulting services. It's the kind of solution that requires consulting, but it is not a licensing cost. It is a consulting cost. It is CAPEX versus OPEX."
"rice-wise, the solution is reasonable for what we're getting."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

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 Business40
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise44
 

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 Public Cloud?
The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition.
What is your primary use case for IBM Public Cloud?
Working with cloud solutions in general, specifically AWS ( /products/amazon-aws-reviews ) and Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ).I am completely new to IBM Public Cloud, so it is a learni...
How would you choose between Microsoft PowerApps and Salesforce Platform?
I think it depends on your use case. If your organization uses Microsoft Enterprise products, PowerApps will work better in your environment. Similarly, if you have a Salesforce integration in pla...
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...
Do you build applications using low-code or pro-code builders on Salesforce Platform?
At my organization, we have only used Salesforce Platform's low-code builder. The reason for this is not because we do not like the pro-code option, but because we do not see the need of using it, ...
 

Also Known As

IBM Bluemix
Salesforce1, Force.com, Salesforce App Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County
ADP
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Public Cloud vs. Salesforce Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
912,069 professionals have used our research since 2012.