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IBM Public Cloud vs Salesforce Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 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

IBM Public Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
IoT Platforms (1st)
Salesforce Platform
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (5th), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Low-Code Development Platforms (9th), No-Code Development Platforms (5th), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.4%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Platform is 3.6%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Platform3.6%
IBM Public Cloud3.4%
Other93.0%
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Premnath Jaganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at Uop Ipl
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.
Sunny Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect And Senior Consultant at Keysight Technologies
Automated weekly analytics have improved case tracking and boosted research productivity
In terms of customization and requesting features that need to be enabled, the process is longer than ideal. As a user, I have very limited access rights to Salesforce Platform, which limits my capability. If a user were granted access to consume more features from Salesforce Platform and the system could show exactly who needs to grant that particular access, that would be a very good improvement. If I need to gain access to a specific feature within Salesforce Platform, it should point me to who in my organization manages it. If the system is able to tell me who exactly is managing it, I can get in touch with that particular user to understand whether I can gain access. This particular feature seems to be lacking, not only in Salesforce Platform, but in any CRM application.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is a predictable and dependable service."
"I've found the stability to be excellent. The performance is good."
"An advantage of IBM Public Cloud is the bare metal server. We can take the bare metal server. It's not shared with anyone. We can deploy our applications without sharing them with anyone. That is an advantage of IBM Public Cloud."
"For non-complex applications, the IBM Cloud works fine and the price is much lower than the competitors."
"The beauty of cloud service providers, especially public cloud service providers, is that they are scalable every time when you need them because their payment model is pay-as-you-go."
"The stability is excellent; it's 200% stable with no bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, and it's extremely reliable with great performance."
"Overall, I would say that IBM Cloud is stable, straightforward, and is a good service."
"What I like most in IBM Public Cloud is how easy it is to create serverless functions. They are called IBM functions, but in AWS, they are called Lambda functions. Those are pretty standard, and another thing I like the most is that you have fewer restrictions on the amount of data you can transfer across those functions. IBM Public Cloud is way more flexible than AWS. I also like that IBM Public Cloud is pretty straightforward to integrate. As long as you have all the tools IBM provides you, getting everything up and running is straightforward."
"It is a great platform."
"Scalability to configure and integrate, as Salesforce is easily configurable and, with the ability to build APIs, almost anything can be integrated, thus allowing more capability, more data, and more value to the system."
"The most valuable features are quick customization, solid deployment processes, and excellent reliability."
"The most valuable aspect is that all data is stored in one place, making it easy to find what is needed and to report on it."
"Salesforce has massive scalability potential."
"It was a great add-on to our digital landscape."
"It is a platform that allows you to get applications quickly to the end user in a secure way."
"There are no major performance issues in the solution."
 

Cons

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"Recently, we just faced some issues with the operating system due to the end of life of CentOS 6...So, then the client wanted to try it out under AWS instead of IBM. In short, it has some complexities."
"They could improve on customizing reporting capabilities."
"The solution needs to be more autonomous. It should let the DL go to allow for more jobs on the cloud. It could have a better interface as well."
"Support could be improved."
"Support needs some improvement. Basically, you are doing it all on your own, and it's not easy."
"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."
"Salesforce could improve by offering AI features or functionalities to help business decision-makers analyze business history, suggest forward strategies, and participate in events."
"The UI needs to be improved. As developers, we can manage it, but for end users it's not very attractive in the workshop."
"The product's pricing model could be improved, as some features are only available in paid modules, which can be costly."
"They should provide access to data quality tips and tricks to make it better."
"Easier process to move to Lightning Components."
"It is quite expensive. Its developers come at a premium cost, which makes it expensive."
"The marketing automation needs improvement, as it should be easier to use."
"It may be slow, but that is relative. When compared to Siebel CRM, which was large, clunky, and extremely slow, Salesforce seemed fast to me."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."
"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."
"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."
"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."
"I don't know anything about its cost, but I'm sure it has got a nice little price tag that goes along with it."
"I haven't had to buy Salesforce, however, I have heard it's $1500 a user."
"rice-wise, the solution is reasonable for what we're getting."
"Costly, but it is the top product in SaaS/PaaS. Pricing is more for large to enterprise level companies."
"It is a fair price for what it's offering, in comparison with other solutions that are available on the market."
"The licensing is per user per month, which we took out a contract on a long time back. It's really an okay price for what solutions are available and for how many features and what kind of functionality you get."
"It is very expensive. Its licensing is on a monthly basis."
"The solution is fairly priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise44
 

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 Public Cloud?
The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition.
What is your primary use case for IBM Public Cloud?
Working with cloud solutions in general, specifically AWS ( /products/amazon-aws-reviews ) and Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ).I am completely new to IBM Public Cloud, so it is a learni...
How would you choose between Microsoft PowerApps and Salesforce Platform?
I think it depends on your use case. If your organization uses Microsoft Enterprise products, PowerApps will work better in your environment. Similarly, if you have a Salesforce integration in pla...
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...
Do you build applications using low-code or pro-code builders on Salesforce Platform?
At my organization, we have only used Salesforce Platform's low-code builder. The reason for this is not because we do not like the pro-code option, but because we do not see the need of using it, ...
 

Also Known As

IBM Bluemix
Salesforce1, Force.com, Salesforce App Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County
ADP
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Public Cloud vs. Salesforce Platform and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.