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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

"The solution has enabled us to provide advanced indicators and analytics to the client on their data."
"Features such as Azure object storage, IaaS, Azure System Center, Azure SQL Database are valuable to me."
"This is definitely a product that I recommend, but it has to be done smartly."
"Microsoft Azure is built for scalability; it's perfect."
"Microsoft Azure is a good service and I recommend it."
"The most valuable feature is the instant availability of resources."
"Active Directory is a good feature, and the infrastructure features that Azure provides are also good."
"From a compliance perspective, these things are much more user-friendly compared to other clouds."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring and that the deployment is easier."
"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."
"It is a scalable product...We are not facing any particular issues since most of the applications in our company are written in Java and .NET."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very easy to use compared to other cloud technologies, and it has very good performance."
"The solution is stable and resilient. In our company, we do not even see any challenges with the solution."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very robust, especially for building Java."
"It provides a set of developer-friendly tools that simplify application deployment."
 

Cons

"The security must be improved."
"Azure could be made more user-friendly."
"The solution should be more intuitive and provide better support. We often do not receive frequent updates or comprehensive support, even as partners."
"I would prefer to see improvements such as more advanced AI features, lower pricing, and better technical support."
"Stability can suffer in the context of a large architecture."
"It was quite frustrating that an issue with their product required an upgrade to get serviced when it was a failure that they were responsible for."
"The design of the platform is not so easy to navigate. It's not very user-friendly."
"Auto ML could be improved technically."
"Scalability is terrible. So far we have not been able to scale it up."
"There are no synthetic application monitoring and real-time monitoring features and they should be included."
"The initial setup was not easy, it was a bit complex."
"It is not straightforward to setup."
"Regarding the setup phase, every step is a hurdle. With Pivotal Cloud Foundry, I won't get any proper resources for that. Even if I Google it, there is no proper solution for Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve on the technology, it is a bit complex."
"In the next release, I would like to see easy integration with external tools."
"There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would like to see it more easily accessible."
"Software licensing models can be expensive depending on what you need compared to open source solutions, for example. However, if you don't have the technical skills, you may be better off paying for a license and support instead of trying to use open source solutions."
"Pricing is very difficult to guesstimate. With so many a la carte options and individual pricing it can be a hassle to understand."
"Keep to PaaS to gain the optimal benefits from an OPEX finance and resource perspective."
"We pay for the license on a monthly basis."
"The licensing fees are more than $1,000,000 USD annually."
"Customers need to purchase additional services because of the complexity of it."
"With adequate knowledge, I think you can come up with a good model where the pricing won't be a constraint."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."
"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."
"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."
"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."
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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
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Manufacturing Company
10%
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.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.