Azure Machine Learning vs. IBM watsonx.ai

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Machine Learning
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's Azure Machine Learning is and end-to-end data science and analytics solution that helps professional data scientists to prepare data, develop experiments, and deploy models in the cloud. It replaces the Azure Machine Learning Workbench.
$0
per month
IBM watsonx.ai
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Watsonx.ai is part of the IBM watsonx platform that brings together new generative AI capabilities, powered by foundation models, and traditional machine learning into a studio spanning the AI lifecycle. Watsonx.ai can be used to train, validate, tune, and deploy generative AI, foundation models, and machine learning capabilities, and build AI applications with less time and data.
$0
Pricing
Azure Machine LearningIBM watsonx.ai
Editions & Modules
Studio Pricing - Free
$0.00
per month
Production Web API - Dev/Test
$0.00
per month
Studio Pricing - Standard
$9.99
per ML studio workspace/per month
Production Web API - Standard S1
$100.13
per month
Production Web API - Standard S2
$1000.06
per month
Production Web API - Standard S3
$9999.98
per month
Free Trial
$0
ML functionality (20 CUH limit /month); Inferencing (50,000 tokens / month)
Standard
$1,050
Monthly tier fee; additional usage based fees
Essentials
Contact Sales
Usage based fees
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Machine LearningIBM watsonx.ai
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing for watsonx.ai includes: model inference per 1000 tokens and ML tools and ML runtimes based on capacity unit hours.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Azure Machine LearningIBM watsonx.ai
Features
Azure Machine LearningIBM watsonx.ai
AI Development
Comparison of AI Development features of Product A and Product B
Azure Machine Learning
-
Ratings
IBM watsonx.ai
5.5
1 Ratings
1% above category average
Machine learning frameworks00 Ratings5.51 Ratings
Data management00 Ratings4.51 Ratings
Data monitoring and version control00 Ratings4.51 Ratings
Automated model training00 Ratings4.51 Ratings
Managed scaling00 Ratings6.41 Ratings
Model deployment00 Ratings6.41 Ratings
Security and compliance00 Ratings6.41 Ratings
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Azure Machine LearningIBM watsonx.ai
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Score 7.8 out of 10
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Score 7.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Posit
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 7.8 out of 10
Enterprises
Posit
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 8.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
Azure Machine LearningIBM watsonx.ai
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(4 ratings)
9.1
(33 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(1 ratings)
6.4
(1 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(2 ratings)
7.8
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
7.9
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
6.4
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Machine LearningIBM watsonx.ai
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
For [a] data scientist require[d] to build a machine learning model, so he/she didn't worry about infrastructure to maintain it.
All kind of feature[s] such as train, build, deploy and monitor the machine learning model available in a single suite.
If someone has [their] own environment for ML studio, so there [it would] not [be] useful for them.
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IBM
I have built a code accelerator tool for one of the IBM product implementation. Although there was a heavy lifting at the start to train the model on specifics of the packaged solution library and ways of working; the efficacy of the model is astounding. Having said that, watsonx.ai is very well suited for customer service automation, healthcare data analytics, financial fraud detection, and sentiment analysis kind of projects. The Watsonx.ai look and feel is little confusing but I understand over a period of time , it will improve dramatically as well. I do feel that Watsonx.ai has certain limitations from cross-platform deployment flexibility. If an organization is deeply invested in a multi-cloud environment, Watson's integration on other cloud platforms may not be seamless comported to other AI platforms.
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Pros
Microsoft
  • User friendliness: This is by far the most user friendly tool I've seen in analytics. You don't need to know how to code at all! Just create a few blocks, connect a few lines and you are capable of running a boosted decision tree with a very high R squared!
  • Speed: Azure ML is a cloud based tool, so processing is not made with your computer, making the reliability and speed top notch!
  • Cost: If you don't know how to code, this is by far the cheapest machine learning tool out there. I believe it costs less than $15/month. If you know how to code, then R is free.
  • Connectivity: It is super easy to embed R or Python codes on Azure ML. So if you want to do more advanced stuff, or use a model that is not yet available on Azure ML, you can simply paste the code on R or Python there!
  • Microsoft environment: Many many companies rely on the Microsoft suite. And Azure ML connects perfectly with Excel, CSV and Access files.
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IBM
  • It allows specialists to apply several base models for specific subtasks in the field of NLP.
  • Gives the availability of many models developed for AI enhancement for different solutions.
  • Has incorporated functionality for data governance and security to support access to AI tools by multiple users.
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Cons
Microsoft
  • It would be great to have text tips that could ease new users to the platform, especially if an error shows up
  • Scenario-based documentation
  • Pre-processing of modules that had been previously run. Sometimes they need to be re-run for no apparent reason
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IBM
  • IBM watsonx.ai is expensive than other platforms.
  • Limited integraions though it has many but still some tools integrations not there for medical usecase
  • Its little difficult to learn as right now not many open reseouces
  • Community is not that strong to get any answer
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
IBM
I still don't have enough experience, but i have seen a lot of demos and i have made some real world scenarios and so far so long every thing looks fine. I was at IBM Think 2025 and IBM TechXchange 2025 and the labs were really usefull and simple to understand.
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Usability
Microsoft
Easy and fastest way to develop, test, deploy and monitor the machine learning model.
- Easy to load the data set
-Drag and drop the process of the Machine learning life cycle.
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IBM
I needed some time to understand the different parts of the web UI. It was slightly overwhelming in the beginning. However, after some time, it made sense, and I like the UI now. In terms of functionality, there are many useful features that make your life easy, like jumping to a section and giving me a deployment space to deploy my models easily.
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Support Rating
Microsoft
Support is nonexistent. It's very frustrating to try and find someone to actually talk to. The robot chatbots are just not well trained.
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IBM
I still don't have enough experience, but i have seen a lot of demos and i have made some real world scenarios and so far so long every thing looks fine. I was at IBM Think 2025 and IBM TechXchange 2025 and the labs were really usefull and simple to understand.
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Implementation Rating
Microsoft
Not sure
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IBM
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
It is easier to learn, it has a very cost effective license for use, it has native build and created for Azure cloud services, and that makes it perfect when compared against the alternatives. As a Microsoft tool, it has been built to contain many visual features and improved usability even for non-specialist users.
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IBM
IBM watsonx.ai has been far superior to that of Chat GPT AI. the UI elements prompt responses and overall execution of the AI was much better and more accurate compared to the competition. I can not recommend using this platform enough. Great job IBM. I hope the team behind this project continues to grow and prosper.
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Scalability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
IBM
I still don't have enough experience, but i have seen a lot of demos and i have made some real world scenarios and so far so long every thing looks fine. I was at IBM Think 2025 and IBM TechXchange 2025 and the labs were really usefull and simple to understand.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • Productivity: Instead of coding and recoding, Azure ML helped my organization to get to meaningful results faster;
  • Cost: Azure ML can save hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars for an organization, since the license costs around $15/month per seat.
  • Focus on insights and not on statistics: Since running a model is so easy, analysts can focus more on recommendations and insights, rather than statistical details
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IBM
  • Time saving to set up the infrastructure - without watsonx.ai we would have had to set up everything individually
  • The first point translates directly into cost savings
  • The compliance aspect was a game changer for us and provided us with the confidence to focus all our efforts only on IBM watsonx.ai
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ScreenShots

IBM watsonx.ai Screenshots

Screenshot of the foundation models available in watsonx.ai. Clients have access to IBM selected open source models from Hugging Face, as well as other third-party models, and a family of IBM-developed foundation models of different sizes and architectures.Screenshot of the Prompt Lab in watsonx.ai, where AI builders can work with foundation models and build prompts using prompt engineering techniques in watsonx.ai to support a range of Natural Language Processing (NLP) type tasks.Screenshot of the Tuning Studio in watsonx.ai, where AI builders can tune foundation models with labeled data for better performance and accuracy.Screenshot of the data science toolkit in watsonx.ai where AI builders can build machine learning models automatically with model training, development, visual modeling, and synthetic data generation.