Microsoft Azure vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry comparison

Microsoft and Broadcom are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4, while Broadcom is ranked #14. Microsoft holds a 14.5% mindshare in PSP, compared to Broadcom’s 6.2% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Azure

Read 323 Microsoft Azure reviews

20,175 Views
11,500 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Read 15 Pivotal Cloud Foundry reviews

4,724 Views
4,677 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Microsoft Azure and Pivotal Cloud Foundry are competitors in the cloud services industry. Azure stands out for its vast integration with Microsoft products and global infrastructure, whereas Pivotal Cloud Foundry shines through its ease of deployment, particularly for Spring Boot applications, and open-source environment.

Features: Microsoft Azure offers robust integration with Microsoft products, a global data center presence, and extensive support for both Microsoft and non-Microsoft services. Pivotal Cloud Foundry focuses on an efficient, open-source platform with smooth application run-time, and provides straightforward CI/CD integration for rapid deployment pipelines.

Room for Improvement: Azure needs improvements in pricing transparency, user interface navigation, and security features. Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve its documentation, enhance support for public cloud migration, and address concerns over future viability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure provides diverse deployment options suitable for public and hybrid clouds but faces criticisms over inconsistent customer support. Pivotal Cloud Foundry offers efficient private cloud deployments with a strong focus on rapid app development, though its customer support could be more seamless.

Pricing and ROI: Azure's pricing is competitive with options like pay-as-you-go and reserved instances, though users find the cost model complex. It delivers significant ROI through reduced hardware costs and scalability. Pivotal Cloud Foundry, despite high costs, offers a favorable ROI due to streamlined deployment and resource efficiency in its open-source environment.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

March 2026

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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

Microsoft Azure

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

323

Ranking in other categories

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (1st)

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

14th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 14.5%, down from 20.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 6.2%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure	14.5%
Pivotal Cloud Foundry	6.2%
Other	79.3%

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

Syed Abid

Snr. Infrastructure Architect (Data Centre) at LogicEra

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.

Read full review

reviewer2263239

Head of Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

PCF allows for fine-grained configuration, especially regarding scaling but routing limitations

Something that can be done better is canary deployment. So, right now, we're using blue-green deployment. The support for canary deployment would be nice. A few things, such as what OpenShift does better are cluster management. Like, you can manage the entire thing together. Currently, it's possible to manage all the clusters, especially when it comes to cluster management using straightforward configuration. As of now, we have to handle each application instance individually, which means servicing them one by one. It would be better if we could perform these actions as a group or in a more streamlined manner. One more downside is actually the cost of this environment. So, major downside of Pivotal, it's the cost. So, the runtime running costs are very high. Extremely high.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We find Azure particularly beneficial when working with clients who are heavily invested in Microsoft solutions. It necessitates that we also leverage Azure for our solutions and services."

"The benefit of this integration in Microsoft Azure is that it is very flexible and beneficial to users, bridging internal integration, all kinds of applications, databases, and services such as Entra and other tools."

"We moved our accounting database from an in-house SQL Server to MS Azure cloud and saw a significant increase in performance."

"I have not had a problem with the stability. It is reliable."

"We didn't have any problems setting it up."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is it has everything together in one place. It is one large tool with lots of small tools that are updated often."

"The technical support has been excellent."

"The most valuable feature is cloud-based storage."

More Microsoft Azure pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to scale. The services that connect to the database are also very good."

"It is a scalable product...We are not facing any particular issues since most of the applications in our company are written in Java and .NET."

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very easy to use compared to other cloud technologies. It has a very good performance."

"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is the UI, it is easy to use."

"It supports CI/CD, and is integrated with the CI/CD very well."

"Stability is not a concern with this product."

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very robust, especially for building Java."

"We find its stability and scalability valuable."

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry pros

Cons

"We use Microsoft Server 2019 and 2016. And I didn't like the 2019 client, so we had to downgrade back to 2016. The main issue there was its monitoring system. Our client needed an alternative, and if they were using more Windows products, they also needed to make that downgrade."

"It should have a better hybrid-cloud central analysis. Their support service also needs to be improved. Our main concern is support calls. Our issue is basically related to the technical functionality of the services that we use. It doesn't behave as expected, and support often fails to solve the problem."

"The solution’s initial setup is a bit complex."

"The support team is not responding to my emails."

"You don't get support from Microsoft very easily as compared to other solutions."

"More expensive than other solutions without justification."

"Integration with other services could be much better."

"The deployment was quite complex."

More Microsoft Azure cons

"The Pivotal Cloud Foundry's initial setup has a learning curve for my team, but it was easy to use."

"The user interface should be simpler to navigate because it t can take time for users to learn it."

"It is not straightforward to setup."

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve the documentation. They are good, but they could improve more. Additionally, it would be beneficial if there were more use case examples."

"In the next release, I would like to see easy integration with external tools."

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve on the technology it is a bit complex."

"Regarding the setup phase, every step is a hurdle. With Pivotal Cloud Foundry, I won't get any proper resources for that. Even if I Google it, there is no proper solution for Pivotal Cloud Foundry."

"I'd like to see a larger service offering."

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution does require a license."

"It is paid on a per-use basis."

"We pay our bill in a monthly or 6 monthly billing cycle. The cost depends on how much you use during the period."

"It's a metered environment, and it's pay-as-you-go. That's the big challenge with a metered environment."

"We're paying in dollars, and it's very expensive for us because of the exchange rates."

"It's a pay-as-you-go subscription."

"The long-term cost is higher than if you set up the servers on-premises, which is something that could be improved through more competitive pricing."

More Microsoft Azure pricing and cost advice

"We do pay for the licensing cost because we have opted for a private cloud setup. So, it is a cloud setup, and we have to make payments based on the cloud size. I do not consider it very costly when comparing it to the market."

"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve. However, in this category of solutions, they are all expensive."

"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."

"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."

"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."

"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."

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Comparison Review

it_user8586

Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Aug 14, 2013

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

University

Financial Services Firm

36%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Insurance Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	140
Midsize Enterprise	54
Large Enterprise	149

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

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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...

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Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?

Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...

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Comparisons

Amazon AWS vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 9% of the time

Alibaba Cloud vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 8% of the time

Google Firebase vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 5% of the time

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Amazon AWS vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 15% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 15% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 6% of the time

Google Cloud vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 6% of the time

Cloud Foundry vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 5% of the time

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure

March 2026

Download Microsoft Azure product report

Buyer's Guide

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

March 2026

Download Pivotal Cloud Foundry product report

Also Known As

Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure

PCF, Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Pivotal Container Service (PKS), Pivotal Function Service (PFS)

Overview

Microsoft Azure integrates services and offers flexibility, ensuring compatibility with diverse environments. Its scalability, security, and cost-efficient features enhance deployment and management, making it ideal for infrastructure services and application hosting.

Azure provides a comprehensive suite of tools for application deployment, virtual machine management, and data analytics. It allows seamless integration with Power BI and offers a user-friendly interface supported by detailed documentation and technical support. Though users appreciate its capabilities, they sometimes face challenges with costs, setup, and interface complexity, alongside integration and performance issues. Frequent updates and a learning curve are also noted, though Azure's cloud-based security and scalability remain critical for disaster recovery and business continuity.

What are Azure's key features?

Integrated Services: Ensures compatibility with Microsoft and non-Microsoft environments.
Scalability: Supports growing business demands with flexible computing power.
Security: Offers robust cloud-based security features for data protection.
Cost Efficiency: Provides options that optimize costs for diverse requirements.
Application Deployment: Facilitates quick rollout of apps and services.

What benefits should users expect from Azure?

Operational Optimization: Allows companies to streamline processes effectively.
Innovative Efficiency: Empowers businesses to innovate with powerful tools.
Reliable Support: Backed by strong technical support and comprehensive documentation.
Flexible Cloud Solutions: Offers a range of options for cloud migrations and infrastructure management.

Microsoft Azure is widely implemented in industries like financial services, healthcare, and logistics for hosting enterprise applications and vital services. Companies utilize its capabilities for IoT applications, DevOps, and Kubernetes clusters, benefiting from its cloud migrations, data analytics, and active directory support.

Microsoft

Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) is the leading enterprise PaaS, powered by Cloud Foundry. PCF provides a cloud-native application platform that allows you to continuously deliver any app to every major private and public cloud with a single platform. PCF is proven to accelerate feature delivery with higher developer productivity and a 200:1 developer to operator ratio. PCF's built-in security and self-healing capabilities reduce risk in your app portfolio while maintaining high-availability at scale to keep customer facing systems online even in the most challenging circumstances. pivotal.io

Broadcom

Sample Customers

BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.

Humana, Citibank, Mercedes Benz, Liberty Mutual, The Home Depot, GE, West Corp, Merrill Corporation, CoreLogic, Orange, Dish Network, Comcast, Bloomberg, Internal Revenue Service, Ford Motor Company, Garmin, Volkswagen, Solera, Allstate, US Air Force, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ScotiaBank

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

March 2026

Free Report: Microsoft Azure vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

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