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Azul Zulu vs Microsoft System Center comparison

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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

Azul Zulu
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
AI Customer Experience Personalization (25th), AI Content Creation (12th)
Microsoft System Center
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (42nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Azul Zulu is 3.6%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft System Center is 2.7%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Azul Zulu3.6%
Microsoft System Center2.7%
Other93.7%
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Standardized our Java estate and have reduced licensing costs while maintaining strong support
Azul Zulu's ability to allow us to standardize our Java estate on a single and well-supported platform stands out as one of its best features. This standardization simplifies our compliance audits and ensures all our applications receive timely security updates.Azul Zulu positively impacts our organization by providing a platform that allows us to standardize Java on a well-supported platform. Without the high cost associated with other proprietary vendors, Azul Zulu provides an excellent platform for running our applications.
Carl Palapal - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at CANAR OFFICE SYSTEMS
Provides comprehensive system management with effective deployment and integration capabilities
The advantages of Microsoft System Center are significant, and I have seen other products as well. As far as advantages are concerned, they have PXE deployment, which is good for deploying operating systems, such as Windows client systems including Windows 10 and Windows 11. Since it is a Microsoft product, all the patches are proprietary, making it easier to deploy. In Microsoft System Center, all the features are integrated already, whereas in ManageEngine, you have to license each feature individually to access those features. The automated features of Virtual Machine Manager are very useful; it automates as long as the policy that I have created is in line with the objective, especially the templates when I'm going to deploy. Regarding endpoint management, Microsoft System Center is very helpful; it has integrated endpoint protection deployment, allowing me to handle endpoint configuration, system deployment, and patch deployment, making it an all-in-one stop shop for managing and configuring end clients. The impact of using Microsoft System Center is significant; it gives me a whole picture of my environment, making it easy to get inventory details regarding applications and hardware, providing full visibility of my setup within the organization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We've had no issues with stability."
"We achieved specific outcomes from using Azul Zulu by reducing our Java licensing and support costs by approximately 70% when compared to our previous Oracle contract."
"I joined this project which had already been underway for approximately six months, and in two months, I refactored the whole project and wrote it, and it is functional."
"Integrates great with other Microsoft Products."
"Step-by-step documentation that clarifies the implementation procedure."
"System Center helps to create the basis for ITIL alignment."
"The detail in the alarms is great."
"The availability performance matrix and the reporting capabilities are the solution's most valuable features."
"The deployment and asset management features are the most valuable. These are the product's main features."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft System Center is its GUI (graphical user interface)."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it helps us manage our company's application pool, license pool, application update pool, and OS updates."
 

Cons

"It needs a better update daemon. At this time the process is manual and could be an issue on multiple desktop deployments."
"Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints."
"I think Azul Zulu can be improved by always thinking about productivity, as most languages tend to evolve in that direction."
"The platform's performance could be improved. Additionally, its UI needs to be well-upgraded and work faster."
"The most difficult area we faced was the requirement of having one central system center that deployed in one domain, capable of managing and controlling the end user devices."
"For me, the tool's UI seems to be too old."
"System Center hasn't updated to keep up with the industry. It needs improvements in the user interface, ease of use, and overall product functionality, particularly the cloud-monitoring features. It needs more capabilities to monitor AWS and Azure infrastructure."
"The solution's dashboard needs improvement."
"In my opinion, DPM needs a lot of improvements to its limitations."
"The platform performance and responsiveness need improvement. It still demands high computing resources."
"The multi-tenancy support needs to be improved. We need to have the ability to manage several different environments from one central point of administration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I know that sometimes there is some reduction in the prices of Microsoft System Center because of the costs of Microsoft SQL Server, which can be advantageous."
"Microsoft System Center is quite expensive."
"We maximized our license investment."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"It's rolled into our enterprise subscription. The entire subscription is around $25,000 a year, however, that covers all the products that we use."
"Microsoft System Center's licensing is costly."
"I rate the product price as five to six on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is cheap and ten means it is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
9%
Construction Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Azul Zulu?
Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints. The other core J...
What is your primary use case for Azul Zulu?
Azul Zulu serves as our primary Java runtime, providing a stable, 100% open-source, and certified solution for our production microservices. We utilize it to ensure cross-platform compatibility acr...
What advice do you have for others considering Azul Zulu?
My advice for others looking into using Azul Zulu is to perform a pilot migration with one non-critical application first. You will likely find that it is truly a drop-in replacement, which will gi...
What needs improvement with Microsoft System Center?
The disadvantage of Microsoft System Center is related to the many integrated services; if one service is failing, then all features will be affected. For example, with site configuration, when one...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft System Center?
I am using Microsoft System Center. I use Microsoft System Center for patch deployment and application deployment.
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft System Center?
The connection is not very stable. I rate Microsoft System Center a nine out of ten.
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS System Center
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Kyocera, OKI, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Voya Financial
Kassen_rztliche Vereinigung Nordrhein, Magyar Telekom Nyrt., Adeka, QualCare, Aeriandi, UniCredit Bank d.d., Mostar, Allianz Australia Ltd., Grupo Familia
Find out what your peers are saying about Azul Zulu vs. Microsoft System Center and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.