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Microsoft Azure vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry comparison

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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

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)
Pivotal Cloud Foundry
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 12.0%, down from 18.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 5.0%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure12.0%
Pivotal Cloud Foundry5.0%
Other83.0%
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2832981 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Cloud migration has reduced hardware dependency and supports secure global access to apps
The best features Microsoft Azure offers are cloud scalability, virtual machines, storage, networking, security, monitoring, and identity management. Scalability is the most valuable to our organization because Microsoft Azure allows businesses to scale resources up or down based on workload demand. This helps manage traffic spikes without buying permanent hardware. Virtual machines are also valuable as Microsoft Azure provides cloud-based Windows and Linux virtual machines to run applications, servers, and workloads. Identity and Access Management is important, as the integration with Microsoft Entra ID helps manage user authentication, role-based access, and MFA. For example, employees access business apps securely using single sign-on. Backup and disaster recovery are also important because they provide automated backups and failover options to ensure business continuity. Microsoft Azure positively impacts my organization by reducing infrastructure dependency, improving availability, and enabling remote access. Teams can access applications globally without on-premises server dependency, and in terms of cost, it is very low-cost.
reviewer2263239 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have installed many competitive products, such as Appigee and IBM, but Microsoft Azure is the easiest one to install."
"In my experience, Microsoft support is outstanding."
"We've got multiple tools on Azure, which is a very good feature of Azure."
"We use the cognitive service, virtual machines, and customer DB, and we like that Microsoft Azure is scalable and easy to install as well."
"For me and many other people, the general view is that Azure is very stable."
"The best features of Microsoft Azure are the interface and the ease of use of that interface, which is very friendly."
"We have received very good support from Azure here in Jordan."
"The solution is fantastic, with Teams, the works."
"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is the UI, it is easy to use."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very easy to use compared to other cloud technologies, and it has very good performance."
"Stability is not a concern with this product."
"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."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very robust, especially for building Java."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring and that the deployment is easier."
"It provides a set of developer-friendly tools that simplify application deployment."
"We find its stability and scalability valuable."
 

Cons

"Pricing is high if you plan to use it on a larger scale."
"Azure does not handle scalability as well as its competitors. Sometimes a 10 percent increase in a server with 20 percent of CPU usage pushes the server up to 100 percent load, and you start having performance issues."
"Something that could be added to the solution is the use of deep learning, which is going to grow in the near future."
"The solution could be easier to use. However, when comparing it to AWS it is a bit easier."
"It would be advantageous if the dashboard had more clarity, in terms of the visibility that it provides."
"It is pretty secure, but it can always be more secure."
"The solution should have better interface capabilities. There should be better support for microservices and containers."
"Microsoft Azure could improve by having more virtual machine operating systems available."
"I would prefer to use Amazon AWS or Google Cloud Platform rather than Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve on the technology, it is a bit complex."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry doesn't have certain advanced features."
"I'd like to see a larger service offering."
"The Pivotal Cloud Foundry's initial setup has a learning curve for my team, but it was easy to use."
"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."
"The initial setup was not easy, it was a bit complex."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Its pricing model can be improved. It is variable, and if you do a simulation now, within a few months, the price can change, and your simulation would no longer be valid."
"We pay yearly for the license."
"With adequate knowledge, I think you can come up with a good model where the pricing won't be a constraint."
"The pricing for us is higher because we are using IaaS."
"The cost of the solution could be reduced. However, I am using the free version."
"We have an annual license subscription to use the solution."
"We are on an annual subscription. However, there are other options available."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve. However, in this category of solutions, they are all expensive."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."
"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."
"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."
"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Aug 14, 2013
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business141
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise153
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise11
 

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 ...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
912,818 professionals have used our research since 2012.