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Amazon AWS vs IBM SoftLayer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
259
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (2nd), PaaS Clouds (2nd)
IBM SoftLayer
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Public Cloud Storage Services (23rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Cloud Services solutions, they serve different purposes. Amazon AWS is designed for Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) and holds a mindshare of 17.1%, up 15.4% compared to last year.
IBM SoftLayer, on the other hand, focuses on Public Cloud Storage Services, holds 1.3% mindshare, up 0.2% since last year.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon AWS17.1%
Microsoft Azure10.2%
Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)9.8%
Other62.9%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
Public Cloud Storage Services Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM SoftLayer1.3%
Amazon S313.4%
Amazon S3 Glacier10.9%
Other74.4%
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

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.
reviewer1032702 - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Principal Cloud Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Stable with excellent speed and agility
The most valuable aspect of the solution is simply to have the ability to host in a cloud form and out of the data center - the IBM big iron solution. It's the speed and the agility that really sell SoftLayer. The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer. The ability to extract act from your current location, load into your future location, with limited change, and then be able to take the transfer actions slowly and methodically after you're in your new location is the part that really makes this awesome. The stability and scalability are quite good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The AWS feature that I most enjoy is Lambda functions. I primarily use serverless components because they allow you to process things without having to compromise on resources like when running EC2 instances or virtual machines. With minimal effort, you can scale up an unlimited number of processes, even concurrently, to process things. I frequently work with web APIs, so I use Lambda a lot in this area."
"The solution also helps organizations to move applications to a containerized platform."
"The documentation is very good."
"The scalability is a valuable feature."
"We use AWS for multiple purposes, such as developing APIs and API integration using API Gateway. We use API Gateway, Python Combinator, Lambda Glue, and ETL Process. We have used EMR for big data processing. If we need a tool for computing, we go with the Lamda DMS. There are many services available in AWS that meet our needs."
"The best thing is scalability."
"Cloud Management has been a valuable feature."
"It is flexible. It is quite comfortable to use for organizations."
"The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer."
"The stability is the solution's most valuable aspect for our organization."
 

Cons

"More complete and specific training for many of the technologies, specifically with Python Django and the CMS (Mezzanine)."
"The pricing is expensive"
"The problem with AWS is you have to keep up with the technology. If you don't stay up to date with the technology and its latest changes then you won't know what to use in your infrastructure."
"The price could be better."
"Faster API response times and an improved console experience would be better. Enhanced performance across APIs and the console would streamline our workflows."
"The customization could be improved."
"The feedback we are getting from our customers, especially here in Turkey where the exchange rate fluctuates regularly, is that the solution is quite expensive."
"They can launch the Oracle service in Azure, and we expect that this should be possible in Amazon AWS as well."
"For us, the versioning was an issue."
"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon AWS could have more options and transparency in its pricing model. You need in-depth knowledge to adopt AWS. So someone without that knowledge base might not understand all of the costs associated with AWS."
"One of the best-kept ways to reduce costs is to develop it on serverless technologies with AWS Lambda, SNS, DynamoDB, and S3."
"The tool is expensive."
"The pricing of Amazon AWS is high compared to any other cloud provider."
"The solution is on a pay-as-use pricing model. The price of the solution could always be better but it is priced competitively."
"AWS is scalable depending on your needs so pricing is dependant on what you use."
"It can get quite pricey at times."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
Information not available
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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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business131
Midsize Enterprise48
Large Enterprise114
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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Also Known As

Amazon Web Services, AWS
CloudLayer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pinterest, General Electric, Pfizer, Netflix, and Nasdaq.
Whogohost Ltd., Skypicker, Infinity Computers and Communications Company, Grace Co. Ltd., Keyword, Uvionics Tech, Tennis Australia, immixGroup, Salesbox, Cxense ASA, Avnet Inc., Komsomolskaya Pravda, Seekr
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Akamai and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS). Updated: February 2026.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.