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Amazon AWS vs IBM Public Cloud 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

Amazon AWS
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
260
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (2nd)
IBM Public Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
IoT Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon AWS is 13.3%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.4%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon AWS13.3%
IBM Public Cloud3.4%
Other83.3%
PaaS Clouds
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Content Manager at PeerSpot
Oct 16, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

MM
Data Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Cloud training has boosted my data analytics skills and simplifies building small projects
One area that could be improved in Amazon AWS is its learning curve. The large number of services and configuration options can be overwhelming, especially for new users. Understanding its pricing can also be challenging, as costs can add up unexpectedly if resources are not monitored carefully. For data analytics, setting up and integrating services such as S3, Glue, and Athena sometimes requires a good understanding of permissions, data formats, and service configurations. More guided, simplified onboarding for analytics use cases would make the platform more accessible. One additional area for improvement is documentation and service selection. Amazon AWS offers many services with overlapping capabilities, and it can sometimes be difficult for users to determine which service is the best fit for a particular use case. More decision support tools and guided recommendations would help reduce this complexity. From a data analytics perspective, cost visibility could also be improved since analytics workloads can scale quickly. Having more proactive cost forecasting and optimization recommendations would help teams manage budgets more effectively. Another challenging area is IAM and permission management. While Amazon AWS provides strong security controls, configuring permissions correctly can be complex, especially when multiple analytics services need to interact with one another. Simplifying permissions while maintaining security would enhance the overall user experience. The other area I would mention for improvement is the overall user experience. Given the huge number of services, which are truly excellent, it can sometimes feel overwhelming to navigate, especially for a new user that requires much training. A more streamlined interface and clearer recommendations between similar services would make it easier to get started. I would also like to see more built-in cost optimization guidance and cost management tools. Other than that, Amazon AWS is a very good and mature platform. Most of my feedback is about making it easier to learn, manage, and optimize rather than adding new capabilities.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The bundle of services provided by them such as CloudFront, CloudWatch, EC2, Simple Storage service etc undoubtedly cover all the aspects needed by the developers and system administrators to match infrastructure and scalability issues for the growing demands."
"Yes I used Microsoft Azure but it only provides a free trial for one month, so I switched to AWS as Amazon provides AWS cloud as a free trial for one year, which is an ample amount of time to grasp the cloud concepts and gain hands-on experience."
"The solution works very quickly compared to the SQL Server on Tran, and we can access it from anywhere."
"The storage on offer is excellent."
"The product is nice and stable. Its performance is great."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Friendly console for implementation."
"We have many projects where we can resolve a lot of issues with Amazon AWS. It has given customers a lot of visibility with their data. Many customers do not know what they can learn from their data and I provide them with this using useful information using Amazon AWS."
"Overall, I would say that IBM Cloud is stable, straightforward, and is a good service."
"In terms of performance, resiliency, and availability, it is second to none."
"The availability is second to none. Customer support is very good."
"I am very much satisfied with the technical support team at IBM Public Cloud."
"Anytime I need something they are dependable and willing to help me out."
"What I like most in IBM Public Cloud is how easy it is to create serverless functions. They are called IBM functions, but in AWS, they are called Lambda functions. Those are pretty standard, and another thing I like the most is that you have fewer restrictions on the amount of data you can transfer across those functions. IBM Public Cloud is way more flexible than AWS. I also like that IBM Public Cloud is pretty straightforward to integrate. As long as you have all the tools IBM provides you, getting everything up and running is straightforward."
"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."
"An advantage of IBM Public Cloud is the bare metal server. We can take the bare metal server. It's not shared with anyone. We can deploy our applications without sharing them with anyone. That is an advantage of IBM Public Cloud."
 

Cons

"Monitoring still needs to be improved."
"However, if I'm a multi-billion dollar retailer and I need to depend on something, how do I trust a company that can shut me down on a whim? That's a real problem."
"It could be cheaper, and Amazon could also be more transparent with its pricing. I would first expect any product vendor to give me the utmost transparency on pricing information."
"The security right now needs improvement. It's not bad, per se. It's just that there's always room for improvement in security."
"Support response times can be improved, especially in areas where faster assistance is crucial."
"Viewing a build could also be improved. It's not easy to follow up on your consumption and see how much you're paying and how much you will be paying."
"There are numerous use cases, and the setup varies from complicated to very simple in some cases."
"IaaS is sometimes way too complicated to complete one task."
"Normally, for any cloud, we get a lot of information on the web, but that is missing in the case of IBM Public Cloud. We need some technical support documents. That is the only thing missing in IBM Public Cloud."
"The product should offer more computing, similar to Amazon."
"An area for improvement in IBM Public Cloud is getting up-to-date information on how to set up everything. It's hard to find new documentation."
"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."
"Support could be improved."
"There is not a lot of support for IBM Cloud. The response from them and the ETA for resolving issues is too slow, and also, the SLA is too expensive."
"The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In comparison to Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, the database offered by Amazon AWS is relatively expensive. However, the database also offers rich features."
"The prices are somewhat on the higher side. It would help if they can bring it down, especially for the sporting segment and for on-demand instances."
"The pricing of Amazon is higher than that of SalesForce."
"The price can be better."
"Be careful with your consumption, especially when you are testing things. Costs can creep up on you relatively fast, without even noticing."
"A few of our customers pay for it yearly and monthly. Sometimes, when it's related to the data, the pricing seems to be high. It could be cheaper on a transactional basis."
"Reasonably priced and comparable to similar services."
"Billing for cloud services can be difficult at times."
"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."
"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."
"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."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"IBM Public Cloud is pretty cheap. They have an ongoing free tier that basically won't expire, so as long as your solution is small enough, you can have a test set that you can use for demos, which will cost you almost nothing."
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Aug 14, 2013
Amazon vs Rackspace vs Microsoft vs Google: Cloud Hosting Services Comparison
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Answers from the Community

NC
Content Manager at PeerSpot
Oct 16, 2021
Oct 16, 2021
I agree with Vik and Marcelo. AWS cloud is more matured, but you would like to run some specific IBM business tools like document management, IBM Watson for AI, SPSS analytics then IBM Cloud should be preferred.
2 out of 3 answers
VD
CEO at a tech company with 11-50 employees
Oct 12, 2021
Amazon AWS is superior to IBM public for several reasons.  The most important reason is the diversity of software tools, the geographic diversity and availability, lower operating costs and excellent customer service. All cloud companies are simply playing catch-up to AWS. 
MJ
Works at SoftwareONE
Oct 14, 2021
AWS, the main reason is the number of DC distributed arround the world
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business131
Midsize Enterprise48
Large Enterprise120
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
 

Also Known As

Amazon Web Services, AWS
IBM Bluemix
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pinterest, General Electric, Pfizer, Netflix, and Nasdaq.
Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon AWS vs. IBM Public Cloud and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.