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Amazon AWS vs IBM SoftLayer comparison

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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
7.0
Number of Reviews
260
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 (19th)
 

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 12.8%, down 16.9% compared to last year.
IBM SoftLayer, on the other hand, focuses on Public Cloud Storage Services, holds 2.0% mindshare, up 0.8% since last year.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon AWS12.8%
Microsoft Azure8.6%
Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)5.8%
Other72.8%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
Public Cloud Storage Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM SoftLayer2.0%
Amazon S314.0%
Amazon S3 Glacier11.3%
Other72.7%
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

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.
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

"Some of the introduced one-year and three-year reservations helped us reduce costs early on. With time, we learned how to minimize our at REST capacity, allowing us to scale up and scale down in near seconds."
"There are so many references that I can refer to, and their technical support is great."
"Everything is moving to the cloud now, and AWS covers a lot of services, including computing, networking, storage, IoT, and management, and they are good in every way."
"As a customer, I would wholeheartedly recommend this solution to others."
"I like ETL, the EC2 platform, and Route 53. These features are a great complement to the basic infrastructure of any company. The AWS platform has many features, but the fundamental cloud infrastructure is the most important."
"We like the that, within the public subnet of this solution, a new instance of the tool is launched when it detects an issue, in order to prevent interruptions in performance."
"Cloud Management has been a valuable feature."
"What I liked most about Amazon AWS are its services and infrastructure, as it's a very user-friendly platform with servers that are more reliable than others."
"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."
"The solution is highly stable."
"The ability to extract 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."
 

Cons

"The interface is relatively complex."
"Some services which were easy to use through shortcuts are now more complicated to use."
"When the solution faces downtime, it can be for hours or half a day."
"However a catch with the above mentioned tools (among others) and approaches is that to replicate your data (e.g. objects in a bucket) can involve other AWS S3 fees."
"They should implement the command shell by default. As it is now, to open the console, you have to download the command application."
"There is a bit of a learning curve. That said, it's likely no different than learning any other cloud."
"One of the problems that I have seen is that some of the products are not as mature as others."
"The security right now needs improvement. It's not bad, per se. It's just that there's always room for improvement in security."
"For us, the versioning was an issue."
"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay a monthly licensing fee. It's below $100 a month."
"In terms of price, there are less expensive options."
"Licensing can be purchased on a yearly basis, which is an auto-renewal. We also have an on-demand on-pay purchase."
"Amazon AWS is on the cheaper side, as their pricing is more competitive. There are no additional costs besides the license. However, Azure sells Microsoft licenses, so they have an advantage."
"It's an expensive product."
"The price is good and licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis."
"When compared to GCP, Google, or Azure, the price could be lower."
"The Oracle licensing is higher than it is with Amazon AWS."
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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
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business131
Midsize Enterprise48
Large Enterprise120
No data available
 

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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: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.