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IBM Public Cloud vs Microsoft Azure comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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

IBM Public Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
IoT Platforms (5th)
Microsoft Azure
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
321
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.1%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 18.0%, down from 19.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure18.0%
IBM Public Cloud3.1%
Other78.9%
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Premnath Jaganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Syed Abid  - PeerSpot reviewer
Versatile integrations and reliable customer satisfaction elevate cloud service experience
For Microsoft Azure improvement, they need to enhance their support system. The first level of support should be improved in terms of quality and response time. They need more technical support at the first level, as there are currently only one or two technical people among five to ten staff members at this level. They should ensure that the first level support is more technical because we normally provide services to technical users ourselves. When an issue arises, it usually escalates to the second or third level. When facing first level support, they may have limited knowledge and only collect screenshots to forward to their seniors. They should ensure that the first level support is aligned with L2 and L3 to better assist us, especially since we mention in the ticket that our issues are related to specific problems and require that sort of support.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup was very easy. It's quite straightforward. Deployment took about fifteen minutes. Everything is well organized."
"It is a scalable product. You can scale it up and down."
"I am very much satisfied with the technical support team at IBM Public Cloud."
"One of the features that I really like about IBM Cloud is the flexibility where you can order your own hardware."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations."
"I've found the stability to be excellent. The performance is good."
"It provides robust analytics and management tools to give customers complete visibility into their environment and infrastructure."
"For non-complex applications, the IBM Cloud works fine and the price is much lower than the competitors."
"In terms of scalability, it is perfect."
"We use Microsoft Azure for operations, email, and office applications."
"In Azure, everything is pretty straightforward. Once you know it, the platform is very easy to use."
"The valuable features of Microsoft Azure are that it is cloud-based and has good storage. The storage is completely managed by Azure. We do not need to do any patching of security because it is handled by Azure which is a benefit. The solution is fully compatible with the Microsoft technology stack and is very scalable."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is the Area feature. Additionally, the SQL Server DB as a serverless pool is useful, storage-wide external tables are helpful, and PolyBase is very good at reading external data. The capacity of Synapse to analyze in analytics is very good and it supports a range of data."
"It's easy to use, and it's scalable. If we want to grow our product more, we can do it."
"I would definitely recommend Microsoft Azure as a platform to other businesses because of its cost effectiveness, scalability, the range of products, and ease of use."
"The product makes it easy to spin up new environments and develop new technologies."
 

Cons

"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 product should offer more computing, similar to Amazon."
"While they have about 99% of what we need, the only exception, perhaps, was the push notification feature that was discontinued. They delayed the replacement product."
"They do not have a very good virtual network implemented, and the VPC is the most important feature that needs to be improved."
"It will be challenging to implement if you do not have any experience."
"There is not a lot of support for this solution, which is something that needs to be improved."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly deployment process in the next release of this solution."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"It would be ideal if they could reduce costs a bit. Right now, we find the product to be expensive."
"Something that could be added to the solution is the use of deep learning, which is going to grow in the near future."
"I would like to see improvement in the technical support. Sometimes it takes a long time."
"It is pretty secure, but it can always be more secure."
"More expensive than other solutions without justification."
"Pricing is high if you plan to use it on a larger scale."
"I think better accelerators and better tools that can be used to migrate and leverage the existing models and data schemas are needed."
"When we check with Microsoft, they tell us it is working as per design, and we have to work through various PowerShell scripts to get those details."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."
"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."
"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."
"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."
"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 an eight out of ten."
"We pay our bill in a monthly or 6 monthly billing cycle. The cost depends on how much you use during the period."
"The cost-benefit equation for Azure is very good, particularly for small applications. However, Microsoft should do much, much more to improve how costs are communicated and how to forecast them. The Azure Pricing Calculator is not useful."
"The cost of Microsoft Azure depends on the services that are used and there can be a discount at a corporate level from Microsoft."
"The solution does not offer very many free services which can become expensive. We are on an annual license."
"Pricing of Microsoft Azure services depends on the build of what you prepare to deploy."
"Pricing is comparable but from a cost perspective, this solution is the cheapest."
"We have approached our clients about using Kubernetes or Docker because it's cheaper when inflation is considered."
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
University
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business140
Midsize Enterprise53
Large Enterprise148
 

Questions from the Community

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 needs improvement with IBM Cloud?
The front end is not pervasive, so it is very difficult get the status of your current services or account from a mobile device.
What do you like most about IBM Public Cloud?
The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations.
Which is better - SAP Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure?
One of the best features of SAP Cloud Platform is that it is web-based and you can log in from anywhere in the world. SAP Cloud Platform is suitable for companies of any size; it works well with bo...
How does Microsoft Azure compare to Google Firebase?
I would recommend Google Firebase instead of Microsoft Azure, simply for the array of features that it has to offer. In particular, the Firebase library grants you access to a shared data structure...
How does Salesforce Platform compare with Azure?
Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform is not easy or intuitive to deploy. The difficulty will be impacted by the type of application that you are trying to use the platform to build. Organizations tha...
 

Also Known As

IBM Bluemix
Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County
BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Public Cloud vs. Microsoft Azure and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.