No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

IBM Public Cloud vs Salesforce Platform comparison

 

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
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
IoT Platforms (2nd)
Salesforce Platform
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (3rd), Rapid Application Development Software (5th), Low-Code Development Platforms (6th), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.5%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Platform is 3.6%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Platform3.6%
IBM Public Cloud3.5%
Other92.9%
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.
Sharmila-K - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Transformations and Infrastructure Delivery Manager at a university with 10,001+ employees
Integration processes improve but scripting requires effort
The updates, pricing part, and upgrades to the products are some of the most valuable features with the Salesforce Platform.With the Salesforce Platform, I have minimal experience of approximately one and a half years. I get minimal exposure, once every three or two months, especially during holidays. The Salesforce Platform is connected to the cloud, which is beneficial. When it is integrated with different tools such as Microsoft BI Analytics, it helps us analyze much better. Currently, the integration itself is tricky as we have to use extensive scripting. It should be more of a plug-in and use solution. That is the only issue I see, but otherwise, I appreciate it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There is no installation for this product because it is a cloud product."
"I've found the stability to be excellent. The performance is good."
"It is easy to deploy what you need for the initial setup"
"It provides robust analytics and management tools to give customers complete visibility into their environment and infrastructure."
"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."
"IBM Public Cloud is a stable solution; it gives you SLA notifications all the time of what could be done, what is going to happen in the next hour regarding downtime, or anything that affects you, and so far I never noticed any issue, so I'm very happy with the solution."
"It is a scalable product. You can scale it up and down."
"The availability is second to none. Customer support is very good."
"Any issues it may have for example with integration are all minor when you compare it with the performance, scalability, and ease of use."
"There are no major performance issues in the solution."
"The solution is used to track our customers."
"The keyword search helps me in finding stuff quickly. So, I don't have to click around a lot."
"It is an easy product to use and does great things for our company. It keeps track of all of our sales activity."
"The activities, opportunities, follow-up of the opportunities, and business tracking are valuable features. It provides everything that we need. It works pretty well."
"The stability has been great."
"I found the ease of use most valuable in the Salesforce Platform. I also found the platform pretty light."
 

Cons

"The initial setup and the pricing are areas that need improvement."
"It could be more secure."
"An improvement that I would like to see is better configuration capability."
"The deployment can be a bit of a pain. There are a lot of packages and a lot of options and it can require complex configuration to get it right."
"There is not a lot of support for IBM Cloud. The response from them and the ETA for resolving issues is too slow, and also, the SLA is too expensive."
"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."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"An area for improvement in IBM Public Cloud is getting up-to-date information on how to set up everything. It's hard to find new documentation."
"When you compare with Appian, they have to improve more on configuration and more systematic care, configuring by itself and if they are making other things in the area that they update."
"I would like to see an improvement in the price - it could be cheaper."
"Salesforce Platform operates as a cloud system, and within our organization, numerous internal systems handle data processing. While real-time data retrieval is feasible through services, achieving real-time communication poses some challenges."
"It does need very specific resources to help deploy it and buy in from the users. It's one of those items it's pretty disruptive and if it's not deployed properly and if it doesn't get utilized efficiently, it won't be effective."
"The initial setup process was a complex thing to do because four different organizations were working together."
"It is very expensive. Its licensing is on a monthly basis."
"I would like to have integration with Google."
"I don't have any notes for improvement. It serves us well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"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."
"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."
"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."
"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."
"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"I haven't had to buy Salesforce, however, I have heard it's $1500 a user."
"Salesforce is cheap."
"It is expensive."
"I have heard that it is fairly priced. It offers ROI."
"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."
"The price varies depending on the cloud."
"I rate this solution a six out of ten for pricing. Though the solution is on the pricier side, it still offers good value for money."
"The licensing is on the expensive side, but most clients engage in negotiations to reach a more favorable agreement. For stand-alone or medium-sized clients, it can be relatively costly."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which PaaS Clouds solutions are best for your needs.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
University
11%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Government
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Public Cloud?
The prices are relatively lower compared to others. It is a good option for medium-sized businesses. However, businesses should also consider other vendors to ensure they meet their specific securi...
What needs improvement with IBM Public Cloud?
The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition.
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: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.