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Amazon AWS vs IBM Public Cloud comparison

 

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
7.1
Number of Reviews
259
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (2nd)
IBM Public Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
IoT Platforms (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon AWS is 13.2%, down from 13.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.2%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon AWS13.2%
IBM Public Cloud3.2%
Other83.6%
PaaS Clouds
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Content Manager at PeerSpot
Oct 16, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

Asif  Meem - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Machine Learning Engineer at sportsbet
Managed cloud services have helped accelerate experiments with flexible configuration options
Sometimes the costs associated with spinning up a service, especially managed services, have implications. For example, if I create a Glue job, that will create S3 buckets and other resources that have cost implications, but once I clean up a Glue job, it does not delete the other accessory resources. Sometimes, I have to go hunting for what resources Amazon AWS might have provisioned and how it is costing behind the scenes. It can be complex depending on your level of expertise. It is not as easy to get started, especially when it comes to secure practices. Amazon AWS is more hands-on than other platforms.
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

"It has a dynamic scaling capacity which is very helpful."
"The managed services of Amazon AWS help with getting experiments out faster than it usually would have taken; it mainly provides quick accessibility from idea to execution."
"It has helped reduce the cost by rationing the computing power and paying only on a per usage basis, instead of provisioning unneeded, idle, or unutilized computing power that is used only at 20% of its capacity or time."
"The solution offers a low footprint. We don't have to come up with a data center ourselves. We basically don't have to own any hardware. We just rent a slice of their platform and we have everything we need."
"Amazon AWS is user-friendly and intuitive."
"Macie is great. It is a service that makes recommendations on a data layer for cybersecurity. It is a great service."
"I like that is very easy to use and that it's flexible."
"We deploy our core application and our integration platform on AWS EC2 instances. These applications contain multiple containerized Python Django applications, which need to scale up and down dynamically."
"One of the features that I really like about IBM Cloud is the flexibility where you can order your own hardware."
"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."
"This is a predictable and dependable service."
"The availability is second to none. Customer support is very good."
"For non-complex applications, the IBM Cloud works fine and the price is much lower than the competitors."
"It is a scalable product. You can scale it up and down."
"It provides robust analytics and management tools to give customers complete visibility into their environment and infrastructure."
"It's straightforward, has a good environment and is cost-effective."
 

Cons

"I want to use AWS as a full solution for my website - for domain and website hosting, and everything in between - however, I was not able to find everything together."
"The cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There is a feature called Kinesis, which has to do with image processing. There are a few artificial intelligence tools that Amazon AWS should improve on."
"I would appreciate more direct support from AWS."
"One of the problems that I have seen is that some of the products are not as mature as others."
"Some extensions are better than others."
"In terms of additional features we'd like to see, the one thing that comes to mind is better integration with Oracle. We have a lot of Oracle databases, and there is no other option to either migrate to PaaS, stay on-prem, or use Oracle Private Cloud."
"I'd love to see an Amazon data center here in Peru."
"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."
"The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition."
"The initial setup and the pricing are areas that need improvement."
"Recently, we just faced some issues with the operating system due to the end of life of CentOS 6...So, then the client wanted to try it out under AWS instead of IBM. In short, it has some complexities."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"The product should offer more computing, similar to Amazon."
"The solution needs to be more autonomous. It should let the DL go to allow for more jobs on the cloud. It could have a better interface as well."
"The deployment can be a bit of a pain. There are a lot of packages and a lot of options and it can require complex configuration to get it right."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its pricing model is too complex."
"The pricing is fair."
"It's an expensive product."
"The price is good and licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis."
"They have different pricing models for each suite of services."
"Licensing can be purchased on a yearly basis, which is an auto-renewal. We also have an on-demand on-pay purchase."
"AWS IaaS is a very generic service, which is extremely overpriced.​"
"I think they've done a pretty good job with their pricing."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."
"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."
"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."
"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."
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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
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…
 

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
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
7%
University
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business131
Midsize Enterprise48
Large Enterprise114
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

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Looking to compare Google Firebase, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure
We like Google Firebase hosting and authentication and also the excellent cloud functionality. Our team found the flexibility of handling and dealing with the database through EDL to be very useful...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Public Cloud?
The prices are relatively lower compared to others. It is a good option for medium-sized businesses. However, businesses should also consider other vendors to ensure they meet their specific securi...
What needs improvement with IBM Public Cloud?
The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition.
 

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: February 2026.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.