TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

AWS CloudFormation vs. Azure DevOps vs. Azure DevOps Server

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    AWS CloudFormation

    Score8.2 out of 10
    N/AAWS CloudFormation gives developers and systems administrators a way to create and manage a collection of related AWS resources, provisioning and updating them in a predictable fashion. Use AWS CloudFormation’s sample templates or create templates to describe the AWS resources, and any associated dependencies or runtime parameters, required to run an application. Users don’t need to figure out the order for provisioning AWS services or the subtleties of making those dependencies work.…

    $0

    Azure DevOps

    Score8.1 out of 10
    N/AAzure DevOps (formerly VSTS, Microsoft Visual Studio Team System) is an agile development product that is an extension of the Microsoft Visual Studio architecture. Azure DevOps includes software development, collaboration, and reporting capabilities.

    $2

    per GB (first 2GB free)

    Azure DevOps Server

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AAzure DevOps Server (formerly Team Foundation Server, or TFS) is the on-premise version of Azure DevOps. To license Azure DevOps Server an Azure DevOps license and a Windows operating system license (e.g. Windows Server) for each machine running Azure DevOps Server.N/A
    Pricing
    AWS CloudFormationAzure DevOpsAzure DevOps Server
    Editions & Modules
    Free Tier - 1,000 Handler Operations per Month per Account
    $0.00
    Handler Operation
    $0.0009
    per handler operation
    Azure Artifacts
    $2
    per GB (first 2GB free)
    Basic Plan
    $6
    per user per month (first 5 users free)
    Azure Pipelines - Self-Hosted
    $15
    per extra parallel job (1 free parallel job with unlimited minutes)
    Azure Pipelines - Microsoft Hosted
    $40
    per parallel job (1,800 minutes free with 1 free parallel job)
    Basic + Test Plan
    $52
    per user per month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    AWS CloudFormationAzure DevOpsAzure DevOps Server
    Free Trial
    YesNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsThere is no additional charge for using AWS CloudFormation with resource providers in the following namespaces: AWS::*, Alexa::*, and Custom::*. In this case you pay for AWS resources (such as Amazon EC2 instances, Elastic Load Balancing load balancers, etc.) created using AWS CloudFormation as if you created them manually. You only pay for what you use, as you use it; there are no minimum fees and no required upfront commitments. When you use resource providers with AWS CloudFormation outside the namespaces mentioned above, you incur charges per handler operation. Handler operations are create, update, delete, read, or list actions on a resource.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    AWS CloudFormationAzure DevOpsAzure DevOps Server
    Considered Multiple Products
    Amazon AWS
    Chose AWS CloudFormation
    Since the product I'm involved is primarily hosted on AWS we use CloudFormation but in some other products where we have hybrid cloud deployments we prefer Terraform which is opensource.
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    Chose Azure DevOps
    Beside all cloud benefits, the main advantage Azure DevOps Services compared to Azure DevOps Server is the easier remote access for third party team members, and always up to date software.
    On the other hand, on prem deployment (Azure DevOps Server) makes complex access or …
    Incentivized
    Chose Azure DevOps
    Compared to other tools we have used, Microsoft STS has been a much more complete tool. Communication, collaboration, tracking, management, automation, testing, speed to production—all these areas have been improved since we started using Microsoft STS. We have been looking for …
    Incentivized
    Chose Azure DevOps
    Excellent tool when used in Microsoft technology environment.
    Incentivized
    Chose Azure DevOps
    Our TFS was dated and in some ways was quite crude. VSTS is thoroughly modern and I don't have to worry about updating it since MS is always updating VSTS. Also, VSTS has better integration with other products such as JIRA than our older TFS would. I am sure you could integrate …
    Incentivized
    Chose Azure DevOps
    Being its predecessor, VSS has a very limited team-sharing view, providing little to no multiple-user, multiple-project support. Considering the fact that Microsoft has purged its support in favor of TFS and VSTS, it's only reasonable to believe they have something extra. Git
    Incentivized
    Chose Azure DevOps
    Very simple to setup, easy connection to Visual Studio, nice web UI.
    Incentivized
    Chose Azure DevOps
    Haven't used a lot of similar products that have the full feature set as Visual Studio. It's highly effective development platform especially when used with SVN and TFS makes large Agile project easy to manage and collaborate.
    Incentivized
    Chose Azure DevOps
    I haven't used any other products, so I can't say how VSTS/TFS would stack against any competitors, but I know that for an SDLC management tool, VSTS/TFS has everything you need to help an organization meet the requirements needed to adhere to the specific/general practices …
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    38 Answers
    91%
    Would buy again
    21 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    7 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    37 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    18 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    86%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    39 Answers
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    21 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    23 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    32 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    15 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    AWS CloudFormationAzure DevOpsAzure DevOps Server
    Small Businesses
    HashiCorp Vagrant
    Score9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Terraform
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Azure DevOps Server
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Azure DevOps
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    IBM Terraform
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Azure DevOps Server
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Azure DevOps
    Score8.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    AWS CloudFormationAzure DevOpsAzure DevOps Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (7 ratings)
    8.9
    (74 ratings)
    9.0
    (48 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.4
    (13 ratings)
    6.0
    (4 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.1
    (11 ratings)
    8.4
    (10 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    AWS CloudFormationAzure DevOpsAzure DevOps Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Amazon AWS
    I still give it an 8 because it's one of those tools that just quietly does the heavy lifting for you but it can really test your patience when it breaks esp with deep nested stacks. It's perfect for projects where we need clean consistent environments every time. It's less ideal for quick experimental setups like new EC2 configs or Lambda permission tweaks.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Azure DevOps works well when you’ve got larger delivery efforts with multiple teams and a lot of moving parts, and you need one place to plan work, track it properly, and see how everything links together. It’s especially useful when delivery and development are closely tied and you want backlog items, code and releases connected rather than spread across tools. Where it’s less of a fit is for small teams or simple pieces of work, as it can feel like more setup and process than you really need, and non-technical users often struggle with the interface. It also isn’t great if you want instant, easy programme-level views or a very visual planning experience without putting time into configuration.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Azure DevOps is good to use if you are all-in on the Microsoft Azure stack. It's fully integrated across Azure so it is a point-and-click for most of what you will need to achieve. If you are new to Azure make sure you get some outside experience to help you otherwise it is very easy to overcomplicate things and go down the wrong track, or for you to manually create things that come out of the box.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Amazon AWS
    • All resources can segregated based on stacks which provides greater visibility
    • A complete audit trail of what went wrong while deploying a particular resource
    • Automatically rollbacks if any service as part of CloudFormation results in an error
    • The UI tool is useful
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Utilize Git as a repository to share work between multiple users
    • Ability to configure Pipelines to build containers to run virtual deployments and testing scripts.
    • Split individual tasks and relate to master documents for quick navigation and ability to see overall picture of project.
    • Track status of each task
    • Integrate with Git to utilize branches, merging, approvals, history, etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Reporting Integration- Azure boards provides Kanban and other dashboard, their templates for easy management of project.
    • Project Pipeline- easy integration and development of CI/CD pipelines, helped in testing, releasing project artifacts.
    • Version Control- Integration with Git and code IDE made it easy to share, review our code, fix bugs and do testing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Amazon AWS
    • Error Description upon Failure Needs to be Improved.
    • Slow to create, delete or update.
    • Need to delete resources manually. It can ask before starting deletion whether to skip those resources or delete them.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • I did mention it has good visibility in terms of linking, but sometimes items do get lost, so if there was a better way to manage that, that would be great.
    • The wiki is not the prettiest thing to look at, so it could have refinements there.
    • It could improve the search slightly better.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Can add more build templates for specific technology requirements
    • Can have more features in dashboards which can help dev teams stream line their tasks and priorities
    • Can have raise alarm feature in case of any sort of failure in devops pipeline execution
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    I don't think our organization will stray from using VSTS/TFS as we are now looking to upgrade to the 2012 version. Since our business is software development and we want to meet the requirements of CMMI to deliver consistent and high quality software, this SDLC management tool is here to stay. In addition, our company uses a lot of Microsoft products, such as Office 365, Asp.net, etc, and since VSTS/TFS has proved itself invaluable to our own processes and is within the Microsoft family of products, we will continue to use VSTS/TFS for a long, long time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Because we are a Microsoft Gold Partner we utilize most of their software and we have so much invested in Team Foundation Server now it would take a catastrophic amount of time and resources to switch to a different product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Amazon AWS
    It's easy enough to get a shared template & apply it. You don't even have to download-then-upload or copy-and-paste, a publicly-accessible url works.
    Diving deeper, it has enough powerful capabilities to make the life of a platform / DevOps engineer bearable.
    However, you need equally deep knowledge to troubleshoot issues, when they inevitably pop up. This is the same for all IaC technologies, as they are additional abstraction layers on top of the native API provided by the cloud providers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    It's a great help to get more information about new feature release and stay updated on what the dev team is working on. I like how easy it is to just login and read through the work items. Each work item has basic details: Title, Description, Assigned to, State, Area (what it belongs to), and iteration (when it’s worked on). See image above.They move through different states (New → Discovery → Ready for Prod → etc.).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    For standard users the interface is friendly. but if you are a manager some tools are a little confusing to use, like the query system that you always need to create from scratch. Templates should be more helpful for queries and for standard procedures that you need to duplicate PBIs over time. The search history of Work Items is a little painful to use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    When we've had issues, both Microsoft support and the user community have been very responsive. DevOps has an active developer community and frankly, you can find most of your questions already asked and answered there. Microsoft also does a better job than most software vendors I've worked with creating detailed and frequently updated documentation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    I have not had to use the support for Azure DevOps Server. There have never been any issues where I was not able to figure it out or quickly resolve. Our Scrum Master has used support before though, and the service has always been prompt and clear with a customer-focus
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Was not part of the process.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Do research beforehand and, if possible, do a trial run before implementing into production environment.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Amazon AWS
    Cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information. Management guide.For information copy of the original. The new virtual Cloning virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Resource Management Guide. For information is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Resource Management Guide. For information
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Planner is used by project managers and IT service managers across our organization for task tracking and running their team meetings. Azure DevOps works better than Planner for software development teams but might possibly be too complex for non-software teams or more business-focused projects. We also use ServiceNow for IT service management and this tool provides better analysis and tracking of IT incidents, as Azure DevOps is more suited to development and project work for dev teams.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    In my opinion, DevOps covers the development process end to end way better than Jira or GitHub. Both competitors are nice in their specific fields but DevOps provides a more comprehensive package in my opinion. It is still crazy to see that the whole suite can be used for free. The productivity increase we realized with DevOps is worth real money!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Amazon AWS
    • + We can standup a VPC in minutes
    • - It took a lot of inital time to set up
    • + With logging/rollback, made testing much easier.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • We have saved a ton of time not calculating metrics by hand.
    • We no longer spend time writing out cards during planning, it goes straight to the board.
    • We no longer track separate documents to track overall department goals. We were able to create customized icons at the department level that lets us track each team's progress against our dept goals.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • It has streamlined the pipeline and project management for our agile effort.
    • It has helped our agile team get organized since that is a new methodology being leveraged within the Enterprise.
    • The calendar has improved visibility into different OOOs across the project team since we all come from different departments across the larger organization.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    AWS CloudFormation Screenshots

    Screenshot of CloudFormation - How it works overviewScreenshot of CloudFormation - High level how it worksScreenshot of CloudFormation - Template exampleScreenshot of CloudFormation - Template inputs overview