Azure Cloud Services vs. Microsoft Azure

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Cloud Services
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Azure Cloud Services is a cloud platform that enables users to create infinitely-scalable cloud applications and APIs. It enables users to build the web and cloud applications needed while also simplifying the management of applications with cloud services, and while ensuring high availability. Users can: scale an environment automatically based on demand and reduce costs, automate operating system and application updates to increase security, and take advantage of integrated health monitoring…
$0.02
per hour
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
Azure Cloud ServicesMicrosoft Azure
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Developer
$29
per month
Standard
$100
per month
Professional Direct
$1000
per month
Basic
Free
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Cloud ServicesMicrosoft 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
Azure Cloud ServicesMicrosoft Azure
Features
Azure Cloud ServicesMicrosoft Azure
Platform-as-a-Service
Comparison of Platform-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Azure Cloud Services
8.4
4 Ratings
8% above category average
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Ease of building user interfaces9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Scalability9.94 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform management overhead8.14 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow engine capability8.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform access control9.14 Ratings00 Ratings
Services-enabled integration7.34 Ratings00 Ratings
Development environment creation9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Development environment replication7.23 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue monitoring and notification8.14 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue recovery8.14 Ratings00 Ratings
Upgrades and platform fixes8.24 Ratings00 Ratings
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Azure Cloud Services
-
Ratings
Microsoft Azure
8.4
28 Ratings
2% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.227 Ratings
Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.626 Ratings
Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.725 Ratings
Pre-configured templates00 Ratings8.226 Ratings
Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.327 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.425 Ratings
Operating system support00 Ratings8.927 Ratings
Security controls00 Ratings8.627 Ratings
Automation00 Ratings8.225 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Azure Cloud ServicesMicrosoft Azure
Small Businesses
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Score 8.3 out of 10
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.2 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.2 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
Azure Cloud ServicesMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(5 ratings)
8.7
(97 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(17 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(37 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
6.8
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(28 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Cloud ServicesMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
Microsoft Azure Cloud services is a good choice for hosting web applications, based on requirements it can be simple websites or complex web services as well as it provides automating application development and deployment pipeline. It's less appropriate in case of cost-effective option for organizations with tight budget constraints. For very basic static websites, Microsoft Azure's offerings might be seen as overkill.
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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
Microsoft
  • Effective service management and performance monitoring capability.
  • Reliable security management with excellent access controls.
  • Best orchestration and easy configuration management.
  • Easy on compatibility testing and change management.
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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.
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Cons
Microsoft
  • Latency and bandwidth as we often see gap here
  • There were many challenges as a developer while migrating our DB from on prem to cloud
  • System downtime is also one issue that can be improved
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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.
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
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.
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Usability
Microsoft
As a certificate developer and consultant, I love using Azure, it's interface is developer friendly with well guidance and support. Also there are a lot of service for any work, Azure ecosystem is sufficient to complete your all developments needs. So based on that I feel Azure is good and gives better developer experience.
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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
Microsoft
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
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
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
Microsoft
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
Microsoft
I feel AWS offers a robust and versatile platform for cloud infrastructure and services. It's scalability, reliability array of tools make it a top choice for businesses of all sizes. AWS has better open source communities such as Linux, Jenkins and GitHub in comparison to Azure service cloud
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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
Microsoft
  • Azure's services and automation capabilities contribute to operational efficiency.
  • Azure's scalability ensures optimal performance during peak demand periods and cost savings during off-peak times
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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