Microsoft Azure vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry comparison

Microsoft and Broadcom are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3, while Broadcom is ranked #13. Microsoft holds a 15.7% mindshare in PSP, compared to Broadcom’s 7.2% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Azure

Read 323 Microsoft Azure reviews

18,565 Views
10,953 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Read 15 Pivotal Cloud Foundry reviews

4,913 Views
4,864 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Microsoft Azure and Pivotal Cloud Foundry compete in cloud computing services and platform solutions. Microsoft Azure appears to have an advantage due to its scalability, flexibility, and comprehensive infrastructure that supports hybrid and public cloud environments.

Features: Microsoft Azure offers robust scalability, stability, and a vast array of security tools. It integrates Azure Arc for seamless hybrid cloud management and supports various programming languages, enhancing flexibility. Its AI capabilities, including Azure GitHub Copilot, enhance operations. Pivotal Cloud Foundry provides user-friendly deployment tools with features like CI/CD integration, auto-healing, and dedicated Java support.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Azure's complexity and customization needs pose challenges. Its pricing structure and documentation need refinement, and some users face technical support issues. Enhancements in AI and real-time data analytics are desired. Pivotal Cloud Foundry would benefit from improved security features and more effective public cloud migration tools. Its high pricing and limited configurative capabilities are noted concerns.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Azure provides extensive support and assistance for hybrid and public clouds, yet its complex setup can challenge new users. Pivotal Cloud Foundry offers straightforward deployment, especially for private cloud hosting. However, its support depends more on dedicated technical advice than a community forum, unlike Azure.

Pricing and ROI: Azure offers competitive pricing models, including pay-as-you-go, leading to potential cost savings with strategic use. Discounts on reserved instances and promotional credits enhance value. Pivotal Cloud Foundry is generally pricier, with costs varying by deployment size and feature requirements. Over time, Microsoft Azure tends to offer better ROI owing to its scalability and operational expenditure model, reducing long-term costs compared to on-premise setups.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 880,954 peers since 2012

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

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)

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

13th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 15.7%, down from 20.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 7.2%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Azure	15.7%
Pivotal Cloud Foundry	7.2%
Other	77.1%

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

Syed Abid

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.

Read full review

reviewer2263239

Head of Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

PCF allows for fine-grained configuration, especially regarding scaling but routing limitations

Something that can be done better is canary deployment. So, right now, we're using blue-green deployment. The support for canary deployment would be nice. A few things, such as what OpenShift does better are cluster management. Like, you can manage the entire thing together. Currently, it's possible to manage all the clusters, especially when it comes to cluster management using straightforward configuration. As of now, we have to handle each application instance individually, which means servicing them one by one. It would be better if we could perform these actions as a group or in a more streamlined manner. One more downside is actually the cost of this environment. So, major downside of Pivotal, it's the cost. So, the runtime running costs are very high. Extremely high.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has made my applications easier to use and has improved the development process."

"I use a virtual machine for remote desktop and Microsoft Azure is user-friendly."

"We've found the solution to be extremely flexible."

"Microsoft Azure is an optimized solution when we compare it to any other particular cloud solution."

"Azure has improved my organization because it is a new technology and so the customers who don't have enough knowledge about the cloud delegate the administration of their cloud infrastructure to us. We incorporate and add a new service to our product lineup about how to manage their Azure. It impacts our business because we're able to incorporate this new service."

"Azure has the best website amongst all cloud computing platforms. It is simple to utilize, and one can release nearly anything, from app services to host sites."

"The Azure Portal has an advantage in terms of UX making buying resources or downgrading is really easier to understand. AWS has micro, smaller functionalities whereas Azure has more end-to-end focus which makes it easier saving you time and money."

"I like that it is user-friendly and flexible."

More Microsoft Azure pros

"The most valuable features are the monitoring and the deployment is easier."

"We find its stability and scalability valuable."

"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is auto-healing and the plenty of other features that are provided."

"Stability is not a concern with this product."

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very robust, especially for building Java."

"It provides a set of developer-friendly tools that simplify application deployment."

"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is the UI, it is easy to use."

"The most valuable features of Pivotal Cloud Foundry are its ease of use and the command line interface has the ability to push instances to the cloud easily."

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry pros

Cons

"The security feature in the solution is an area that needs to be improved."

"The solution must improve its pricing."

"There were also a lot of constraints with the serverless parts."

"We need more security to be available on our smartphones and mobile devices."

"There needs to be better data security. There are organizations that do not want their data to be submitted to Microsoft, they should have strong encryption."

"The main issue is the lack of notifications for updates. Processes for certain operations, like connecting to Git repositories, have changed without sufficient communication. A system to announce or update users about these changes would be very helpful."

"As compared to AWS, Azure can improve its functionality. In terms of the feature list, it is still lacking a bit as compared to AWS. AWS supports lots of types of operating systems, which Azure is still catching up with. Azure is mainly focused on the Windows system, and it is not yet there in terms of integration with other operating systems like Linux, Unix. Azure is slowly catching up."

"Pricing is high if you plan to use it on a larger scale."

More Microsoft Azure cons

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve the documentation. They are good, but they could improve more. Additionally, it would be beneficial if there were more use case examples."

"Something that can be done better is canary deployment. So, right now, we're using blue-green deployment. The support for canary deployment would be nice."

"It should offer more security features."

"In the next release, they should offer additional applications for the databases, and improve the deployment experience."

"The Pivotal Cloud Foundry's initial setup has a learning curve for my team, but it was easy to use."

"There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Pivotal Cloud Foundry."

"I'd like to see a larger service offering."

"The user interface should be simpler to navigate because it t can take time for users to learn it."

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."

"Make use of Azure pricing calculator and you will find out that Azure Is still more reasonable that the competition and do your research, when unclear speak with your MS support."

"It's an OPEX model, you pay as you go, or you can reserve funds."

"Azure is cheaper than solutions from other cloud vendors like AWS or Google."

"It is operational expenditure (OPEX). There is no cost upfront. When you start using it, you have to pay the charges. Initially, the cost is less, but after you start using it more and more, the cost will go higher. It is a little bit costly, but that is okay because you get better resources. You also get better support in terms of how you create the resources. Documentation is available, and the SLAs are met."

"The pricing is very competitive."

"The pricing for the end-user packages is a bit high. It is full of very interesting services, but I would still like it to be less expensive."

"The price of the solution can be expensive."

More Microsoft Azure pricing and cost advice

"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve. However, in this category of solutions, they are all expensive."

"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."

"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."

"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."

"We do pay for the licensing cost because we have opted for a private cloud setup. So, it is a cloud setup, and we have to make payments based on the cloud size. I do not consider it very costly when comparing it to the market."

"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which PaaS Clouds solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

880,954 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user8586

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

University

Financial Services Firm

38%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	140
Midsize Enterprise	53
Large Enterprise	150

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Large Enterprise	11

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?

Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...

See all answers

Comparisons

Alibaba Cloud vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 6% of the time

SAP Cloud Platform vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Competitors

Red Hat OpenShift vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 20% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 14% of the time

Google Cloud vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 5% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 5% of the time

Cloud Foundry vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 4% of the time

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure

January 2026

Download Microsoft Azure product report

Buyer's Guide

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

January 2026

Download Pivotal Cloud Foundry product report

Also Known As

Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure

PCF, Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Pivotal Container Service (PKS), Pivotal Function Service (PFS)

Overview

Microsoft Azure integrates services and offers flexibility, ensuring compatibility with diverse environments. Its scalability, security, and cost-efficient features enhance deployment and management, making it ideal for infrastructure services and application hosting.

Azure provides a comprehensive suite of tools for application deployment, virtual machine management, and data analytics. It allows seamless integration with Power BI and offers a user-friendly interface supported by detailed documentation and technical support. Though users appreciate its capabilities, they sometimes face challenges with costs, setup, and interface complexity, alongside integration and performance issues. Frequent updates and a learning curve are also noted, though Azure's cloud-based security and scalability remain critical for disaster recovery and business continuity.

What are Azure's key features?

Integrated Services: Ensures compatibility with Microsoft and non-Microsoft environments.
Scalability: Supports growing business demands with flexible computing power.
Security: Offers robust cloud-based security features for data protection.
Cost Efficiency: Provides options that optimize costs for diverse requirements.
Application Deployment: Facilitates quick rollout of apps and services.

What benefits should users expect from Azure?

Operational Optimization: Allows companies to streamline processes effectively.
Innovative Efficiency: Empowers businesses to innovate with powerful tools.
Reliable Support: Backed by strong technical support and comprehensive documentation.
Flexible Cloud Solutions: Offers a range of options for cloud migrations and infrastructure management.

Microsoft Azure is widely implemented in industries like financial services, healthcare, and logistics for hosting enterprise applications and vital services. Companies utilize its capabilities for IoT applications, DevOps, and Kubernetes clusters, benefiting from its cloud migrations, data analytics, and active directory support.

Microsoft

Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) is the leading enterprise PaaS, powered by Cloud Foundry. PCF provides a cloud-native application platform that allows you to continuously deliver any app to every major private and public cloud with a single platform. PCF is proven to accelerate feature delivery with higher developer productivity and a 200:1 developer to operator ratio. PCF's built-in security and self-healing capabilities reduce risk in your app portfolio while maintaining high-availability at scale to keep customer facing systems online even in the most challenging circumstances. pivotal.io

Broadcom

Sample Customers

BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.

Humana, Citibank, Mercedes Benz, Liberty Mutual, The Home Depot, GE, West Corp, Merrill Corporation, CoreLogic, Orange, Dish Network, Comcast, Bloomberg, Internal Revenue Service, Ford Motor Company, Garmin, Volkswagen, Solera, Allstate, US Air Force, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ScotiaBank

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

December 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

880,954 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry report.

See our list of best PaaS Clouds vendors.

We monitor all PaaS Clouds reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.