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AWS Direct Connect vs Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

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

AWS Direct Connect
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
13th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of AWS Direct Connect is 2.1%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway is 6.3%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
 

Featured Reviews

Flavio Gomes Figueira Camacho Junior - PeerSpot reviewer
Establish secure and private connections between on-premise infrastructure and cloud environments
AWS Direct Connect allows me to connect our on-premise infrastructure directly with AWS infrastructure. This is particularly beneficial because it helps me use our infrastructure for databases and testing while leveraging AWS's computing power for production purposes. I also do not need to expose management of our machines to the public internet, enhancing security by using a private connection.
MatsHagberg Olsson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Designs subnets with high security while navigating evolving integration processes
The primary function of Azure VPN Gateway allows for designing subnets from existing networks, whether they are physical or virtual networks within Azure or other cloud instances. You can configure these networks using IP numbers and connect them using certificates or SaaS strings. It also requires Entra ID for privileged access groups, resulting in high security.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Direct Connect is its low latency to the users."
"It is a stable solution."
"AWS Direct Connect provides a secure and encrypted connection over the internet."
"The most valuable feature of Direct Connect is its low latency to the users."
"It is a highly scalable solution."
"Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten."
"AWS Direct Connect allows me to connect our on-premise infrastructure directly with AWS infrastructure."
"Direct Connect provides an improved connection quality and a diversified link, which contributes to high availability and failover capabilities."
"I like the stability, HA, and performance of the product."
"The point-to-site is pretty good for the B2C stuff. It's fairly straightforward to set up."
"It works perfectly for me. It is very user-friendly in terms of the configuration and the setup process."
"The VPN Gateway is valued for its ease of use and redundancy."
"The Azure tool is useful and powerful and availability for clients. The updates are very good and reliable."
"The ability to connect old protocols like Border Gateway Protocol is valuable."
"It sends us a lot of detections when we have any anti-virus updates. It provides the extended time needed to update a set of time needs and notifications."
"All of our offices are using Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway. The solution is scalable."
 

Cons

"Having more locations could improve the convenience of using the service."
"It is complicated to do additional BGP configuration for the product."
"The platform's stability needs improvement."
"It would be good if we could connect AWS Direct Connect from different networks."
"It can be difficult to configure compared to cloud-based GUIs."
"AWS Direct Connect should support cross-cloud connections, such as migrations between Azure and AWS, for disaster recovery purposes on different cloud platforms."
"AWS Direct Connect is straightforward and performs well for me."
"Its terminologies are challenging to interpret."
"The marketing material in the portal is not very user-friendly."
"Considering my past interactions with Microsoft's support team, it is difficult to get the right support unless you find the right person to speak with from the customer support team."
"The instructions should have been more accessible and less time-consuming to find the best solution tailored for the customer."
"The product's deployment phase is not simple, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Microsoft's support is rated at four due to issues such as speed of response and coordination difficulties."
"It isn't stabilized on the first day, and you need to set up the channels properly."
"The solution must provide metrics to monitor the inbound and outbound traffic easily."
"Documentation and configuration settings can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive solution."
"It has reasonable pricing in terms of the features offered."
"The product costs us $140 to $180 per month."
"Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway is the cheapest way for us to connect to our cloud infrastructure. Other solutions, such as ExpressRoute are very expensive."
"There is a monthly license and the price depends on how many users are using Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway. The price could be less expensive."
"The cost could be lower."
"It's saved us money compared to getting a third-party appliance."
"The solution is subscription-based and very cheap."
"The costs are quite high."
"I pay the licensing charges associated with the tool on an hourly basis. The tool is affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Direct Connect?
AWS Direct Connect provides a secure and encrypted connection over the internet.
What needs improvement with AWS Direct Connect?
It is working fine for us as it is. AI is the icon in the future, so they need to provide more information for us. For us, it is a new concept, and we will try to use it for our vertical industry i...
What is your primary use case for AWS Direct Connect?
We are using SAP boxes for the ERP system. We are using VPNs, elastic internet IPs. We have Route 53. We have mail because it is necessary to have mail if we want to publish a domain on the interne...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway?
In Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway, there aren't too many areas for improvement, but the configuration part might be a little tricky. It took some time to get things to work, but once figured out, it b...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway?
We work with Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway and the VPN firewalls. We have our local physical firewall infrastructure from Cisco and other companies, but we can't compare those with the virtual networ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS Azure VPN Gateway
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Direct Connect vs. Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.