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Microsoft Azure vs Virtustream xStream comparison

 

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

Microsoft Azure
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
324
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (1st)
Virtustream xStream
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
27th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 8.6%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Virtustream xStream is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure8.6%
Virtustream xStream0.8%
Other90.6%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Syed Abid  - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
RH
Business Systems Manager at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Improves efficiencies, has encryption, and great mission-critical customer support
Previously we had an amateur solution where we were managing on our own data center but we had the management in-house. It was a strategic move to give people who were more competent and with business focus other core initiatives. It was a strategic outsource model. The equipment we were using was out date and at the end of its life cycle, we had to make some transitions, do a hardware replacement, or move on. We moved on to this solution.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature that we like best is integration with Active Directory."
"The support is responsive and dedicated to SMEs."
"The solution has helped our company by having zero maintenance."
"My final overall rating for Microsoft Azure is excellent, giving it a perfect score."
"There are a lot of valuable features in Microsoft Azure, such as Kubernetes, pipelines, and development environments."
"It provides us with access to technology that's not available in any other form and only exists in the cloud, so in order to keep our solutions modern, we have to do it through the public cloud."
"We don't have to spend money to purchase the hardware, set up a data center, get people to work on it, and maintain security."
"Databricks is really nice because you have the power to process lots of data and you can create queries and provide big analysis for the business using a robust cluster."
"The solution has encryption which we did not have before."
"Once we made the move to this solution, we received efficiencies, 100%, 200%, even up to 1000%, depending on some processes."
 

Cons

"The technical support could be faster and the information should be more precise."
"From a technical point, it has very good features for Microsoft products, but for non-Microsoft products, it may have some limitations."
"In my opinion, what could be improved is making the actual costs more predictable. It is very difficult to estimate the cost or the budget you are going to need to run your environment in Azure Cloud. You have to be a specialist to understand how you will be charged, which constantly changes."
"Needs fast Internet connectivity."
"I would like to see this solution support integration."
"Improvements are needed in Azure to enhance integration tools and support for effectively migrating and managing third-party dependencies."
"One of the most important areas for improvement is the administrative part of management. It‘s difficult to manage all aspects of Azure invoicing, and further pricing vs usage comparison and capacity to move under usage resources to a better positioned."
"The initial setup is quite complex because of the number of options that are available."
"Our account representative was inexperienced, they could improve on how they are managing accounts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Be careful with Azure Cool storage accounts; if you are dealing with high object counts, then it can be more economical to use Hot storage because of the high storage access costs associated with Cool."
"Its pricing model can be improved. It is variable, and if you do a simulation now, within a few months, the price can change, and your simulation would no longer be valid."
"The current pricing is on a pay-as-you-go subscription."
"The pricing is fine."
"The subscription models can be confusing and it would be beneficial for them to simplify them. We are on an annual subscription."
"Price-wise, it is comparable to other solutions for the features that we are using."
"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is high price, and ten is low price."
"Related to pricing and licensing, you have to be careful how you operate with the concept."
"The solution is a bit expensive, we are still negotiating the price."
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Aug 14, 2013
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business141
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise153
No data available
 

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 ...
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...
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Also Known As

Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
Continental, Domino Foods, Florida Crystals, Intel, Lanx, UOL Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS). Updated: May 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.