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 8.4, while Broadcom is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.5. Microsoft holds a 18.4% mindshare in PSP, compared to Broadcom’s 9.2% 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 321 Microsoft Azure reviews

19,910 Views
11,747 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Read 15 Pivotal Cloud Foundry reviews

5,723 Views
5,666 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Microsoft Azure and Pivotal Cloud Foundry compete in cloud computing, with Azure having the upper hand due to its extensive features and global reach.

Features: Microsoft Azure supports various programming languages and frameworks, offers global data centers for geographic spread, and provides seamless integration with Microsoft tools. Pivotal Cloud Foundry excels due to its open-source nature, ease of use, and strong CI/CD support. However, Azure's wide range of services and geographic reach give it an edge over PCF, which has fewer service offerings but includes automatic healing and ease of microservice deployment.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Azure needs improvements in pricing structure complexity, scalability, security, and support. The user interface and cost prediction also require enhancements. Pivotal Cloud Foundry could expand its service offerings, improve support for migration processes, and enhance documentation, especially in transitioning to public cloud environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Azure and Pivotal Cloud Foundry offer public and hybrid cloud solutions, with Azure being suited for large-scale deployments due to its extensive services. Azure's customer service can be delayed if not in the correct support queue, whereas PCF provides good customer service but lacks the scale and breadth of resources found in Azure.

Pricing and ROI: Azure offers diverse pricing models with pay-as-you-go and enterprise options, though predicting costs can be challenging. However, leveraging Azure's full services can result in substantial ROI. Pivotal Cloud Foundry’s pricing is generally higher but tailored to customer needs. Azure provides more flexible pricing options and has partnerships that may offer significant cost efficiencies over time.

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 867,676 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

321

Ranking in other categories

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (1st)

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

11th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 18.4%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 9.2%, up from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Azure	18.4%
Pivotal Cloud Foundry	9.2%
Other	72.4%

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

Stephen Hack

Web App developer at FDIC

Easy to use, simple to sign-in, but lacking graphical interface

Pivotal Cloud Foundry is used as a cloud platform Pivotal Cloud Foundry has helped our organization by the way we've set it up, it's easy to sign in, bind services, push services, and create YAML files. The most valuable features of Pivotal Cloud Foundry are its ease of use and the command line…

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

"Technical support has been good over the years."

"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."

"In terms of computer resource management and reduced cost, it is very, very effective. In large environments, it gives you a lot of flexibility to provide different services, like disaster recovery and business continuity with simple and great options because you don't have to spend a lot of time for maintenance, upgrades, and security."

"I have found all the features to be good."

"Active Directory is a good feature. The infrastructure features that Azure provides are also good."

"The solution is secure and easy to use."

"I have found the solution to be flexible, easy to use, and the documents are straightforward to understand."

"It is stable and scalable. It is useful for many applications and services, such as SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive."

More Microsoft Azure pros

"PCF is open, so the applications run really smoothly and with little downtime."

"It supports CI/CD, and is integrated with the CI/CD very well."

"We find its stability and scalability valuable."

"Stability is not a concern with this product."

"I find the ease of deployment and management of microservices to be the most valuable features. The platform also has good auto-scaling capabilities."

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

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to scale. The services that connect to the database are also very good."

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

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry pros

Cons

"Their backup strategy is a little complex which racks up the VM to other sole storage areas. This should be improved."

"The interface is not easy to use. I'd like to see them develop a better interface, more graphical information about the resource and the consumer."

"We use Microsoft Server 2019 and 2016. And I didn't like the 2019 client, so we had to downgrade back to 2016. The main issue there was its monitoring system. Our client needed an alternative, and if they were using more Windows products, they also needed to make that downgrade."

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

"From a security perspective, there is always something that can be improved as we serve our customers."

"Azure could be improved with better security. The world is changing and their security could be better. Compared to five years ago, many of these cloud systems are a lot better, especially since you can set up a private cloud and configure your services to make it more secure."

"The solution could improve by simplifying network management."

"I would like to see it more easily accessible."

More Microsoft Azure cons

"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."

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is not scalable, infinitely, because when you install it on a set of virtual machines it is very hard to scale. It's easy to scale on an application level, but not it is not similar to if you were using Amazon. Amazon you can scale thousands of applications."

"In the next release, I would like to see easy integration with external tools."

"There are no synthetic application monitoring and real-time monitoring features."

"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."

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve on the technology it is a bit complex."

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"It is important to consider ROI when looking at the cost of a subscription."

"Price is good and many free features available"

"The price of the solution can be expensive."

"The monthly costs become very reasonable because of the discounts you get on longer reserved instances."

"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."

"Microsoft Azure is a cost-effective solution where you use it as per your requirement and pay for it."

"We have approached our clients about using Kubernetes or Docker because it's cheaper when inflation is considered."

More Microsoft Azure pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

867,676 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

10%

University

Financial Services Firm

37%

Manufacturing Company

17%

Insurance Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	139
Midsize Enterprise	53
Large Enterprise	148

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 13% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 8% of the time

SAP Cloud Platform vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 8% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Competitors

Red Hat OpenShift vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 33% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 11% of the time

Google Cloud vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 7% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 5% of the time

Heroku vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 4% of the time

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure

August 2025

Download Microsoft Azure product report

Buyer's Guide

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

August 2025

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

September 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: September 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

867,676 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.