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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
323
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (1st)
Virtustream xStream
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
29th
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 March 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 9.9%, down from 19.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Virtustream xStream is 0.6%, 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 Azure9.9%
Virtustream xStream0.6%
Other89.5%
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

"It is a very easy-to-use platform, and it is very powerful in terms of data backup and Blob storage. It has very good features, especially if you are using Microsoft products, such as Windows, Microsoft SQL Server."
"One of the features I have found to be valuable is the scale set feature."
"The main benefit of Microsoft Azure is that it is cloud-based. We are using Microsoft Visual Studio for our code and it is tightly integrated with Microsoft Azure. Additionally, the solution is user-friendly."
"It's very easy to build a new service and get it into production."
"There is the potential to scale."
"The tool’s stability is good."
"It was easy to deploy our applications on it."
"Azure allows us to bring applications to life quickly."
"The solution has encryption which we did not have before."
 

Cons

"Due to the pandemic, I haven't been able to utilize their full resources. This has made it complicated to scale up. I hope this will be resolved after the pandemic."
"I haven't checked the console for some time, however, compared to the AWS console, the interaction console of the web part, the web services, it's not so easy."
"The solution is less mature than AWS."
"The solution’s initial setup is a bit complex."
"The security of the solution could always be much better."
"Sometimes there is slowness observed in Microsoft Azure. We noticed a few critical servers went down due to a Microsoft Azure-end hardware issue."
"The local support is fair but it is sometimes limited, the service could be better."
"Azure installation is complicated. When we first deployed Azure, it was challenging."
"Our account representative was inexperienced, they could improve on how they are managing accounts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay our bill in a monthly or 6 monthly billing cycle. The cost depends on how much you use during the period."
"Pricing is very difficult to guesstimate. With so many a la carte options and individual pricing it can be a hassle to understand."
"The cost is a little high and can be more competitive."
"The license cost could be reduced."
"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 price of the solution is reasonable."
"The licensing fees depend on the number of users that we have."
"The cost is more or less the same across all cloud service providers."
"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
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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business140
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise149
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), Akamai and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS). Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.