Amazon WorkSpaces vs. Microsoft Azure

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon WorkSpaces
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Amazon WorkSpaces is a managed, secure cloud desktop service. Amazon WorkSpaces removes the complexity in managing hardware inventory, OS versions and patches, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).
$21
per month
Microsoft Azure
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.
$29
per month
Pricing
Amazon WorkSpacesMicrosoft Azure
Editions & Modules
Starting Price
$21.00
per month
Maximum Price
$140.00
per month
Developer
$29
per month
Standard
$100
per month
Professional Direct
$1000
per month
Basic
Free
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon WorkSpacesMicrosoft Azure
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon WorkSpacesMicrosoft Azure
Features
Amazon WorkSpacesMicrosoft Azure
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Amazon WorkSpaces
-
Ratings
Microsoft Azure
8.5
27 Ratings
3% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.126 Ratings
Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.725 Ratings
Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.624 Ratings
Pre-configured templates00 Ratings8.225 Ratings
Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.326 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.424 Ratings
Operating system support00 Ratings9.026 Ratings
Security controls00 Ratings8.626 Ratings
Automation00 Ratings8.224 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon WorkSpacesMicrosoft Azure
Small Businesses
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.2 out of 10
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.2 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.2 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon WorkSpacesMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(7 ratings)
8.8
(96 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(17 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.3
(36 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
6.8
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(27 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon WorkSpacesMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
With a substantial free tier, AWS is a solution for fast, reliable and secure access to tools and workflows for any project. AWS is still the most intimidating cloud solution to approach. While there is no shortage to power and solutions, it is not for the faint of heart. It is easy to get lost while using AWS though the solution is there. Amazon WorkSpaces (VDI) requires an IT manager with experience deploying applications and building databases. Comparably, Parallels is a much easier UI to navigate, along with many open source and free options.
Read full review
Microsoft
Azure is particularly well suited for enterprise environments with existing Microsoft investments, those that require robust compliance features, and organizations that need hybrid cloud capabilities that bridge on-premises and cloud infrastructure. In my opinion, Azure is less appropriate for cost-sensitive startups or small businesses without dedicated cloud expertise and scenarios requiring edge computing use cases with limited connectivity. Azure offers comprehensive solutions for most business needs but can feel like there is a higher learning curve than other cloud-based providers, depending on the product and use case.
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Pros
Amazon AWS
  • Quick, clean access to the VDI images.
  • Easy provisioning of images to use based on multiple criteria.
  • Integrating with our other products (AV/AM, productivity, etc.).
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Microsoft Azure is highly scalable and flexible. You can quickly scale up or down additional resources and computing power.
  • You have no longer upfront investments for hardware. You only pay for the use of your computing power, storage space, or services.
  • The uptime that can be achieved and guaranteed is very important for our company. This includes the rapid maintenance for security updates that are mostly carried out by Microsoft.
  • The wide range of capabilities of services that are possible in Microsoft Azure. You can practically put or create anything in Microsoft Azure.
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • Copy and paste does not work well
  • The performance is degraded during the day being slow at the end of the journey
  • Some user interface issues displaying the page
  • Sometimes when I type a word a letter is pasted many [times]
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Microsoft
  • The cost of resources is difficult to determine, technical documentation is frequently out of date, and documentation and mapping capabilities are lacking.
  • The documentation needs to be improved, and some advanced configuration options require research and experimentation.
  • Microsoft's licensing scheme is too complex for the average user, and Azure SQL syntax is too different from traditional SQL.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Moving to Azure was and still is an organizational strategy and not simply changing vendors. Our product roadmap revolved around Azure as we are in the business of humanitarian relief and Azure and Microsoft play an important part in quickly and efficiently serving all of the world. Migration and investment in Azure should be considered as an overall strategy of an organization and communicated companywide.
Read full review
Usability
Amazon AWS
For its Primary purpose in our organization, providing developers and testers a clean, isolated and configurable environments which saves hours. The usability is nearly perfect. Usability is only suffering when user is into more intensive task like any kind of graphic works. At that time user is not experiencing the smoothness like a local machine
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Microsoft
As Microsoft Azure is [doing a] really good with PaaS. The need of a market is to have [a] combo of PaaS and IaaS. While AWS is making [an] exceptionally well blend of both of them, Azure needs to work more on DevOps and Automation stuff. Apart from that, I would recommend Azure as a great platform for cloud services as scale.
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Reliability and Availability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
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Support Rating
Amazon AWS
AWS support in general is pretty good, and WorkSpaces is no exception. We haven't had too much need for support but on the occasion we have, they've been quick to respond and helpful. Our issues have been resolved rapidly.
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Microsoft
We were running Windows Server and Active Directory, so [Microsoft] Azure was a seamless transition. We ran into a few, if any support issues, however, the availability of Microsoft Azure's support team was more than willing and able to guide us through the process. They even proposed solutions to issues we had not even thought of!
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Implementation Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
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Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
Cisco AnyConnect is a VPN client and using a VPN can reduce the internet speed. It is not quite reliable as workspaces. Cisco AnyConnect is not at all optimised for linux machines. They suffer a lot from crashing and loss of internet speed. Workspaces works quite well even on linux machines
Read full review
Microsoft
As I continue to evaluate the "big three" cloud providers for our clients, I make the following distinctions, though this gap continues to close. AWS is more granular, and inherently powerful in the configuration options compared to [Microsoft] Azure. It is a "developer" platform for cloud. However, Azure PowerShell is helping close this gap. Google Cloud is the leading containerization platform, largely thanks to it building kubernetes from the ground up. Azure containerization is getting better at having the same storage/deployment options.
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Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • Faster project deliverables
  • Security of our database
  • Have complete control over virtual networking
  • Vds Lagging issues at times due to heavy usage
Read full review
Microsoft
  • For about 2 years we didn't have to do anything with our production VMs, the system ran without a hitch, which meant our engineers could focus on features rather than infrastructure.
  • DNS management was very easy in Azure, which made it easy to upgrade our cluster with zero downtime.
  • Azure Web UI was easy to work with and navigate, which meant our senior engineers and DevOps team could work with Azure without formal training.
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ScreenShots