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CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued) vs. DigitalOcean vs. Microsoft Azure

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)

    Score6.3 out of 10
    N/ACenturyLink Public Cloud was a set of IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, DBaaS and cloud management tools. Later rebranded to Lumen, Lumen recommends the service's former customers migrate to Lumen Cloud Connect.N/A

    DigitalOcean

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ADigitalOcean is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform from the company of the same name headquartered in New York. It is known for its support of managed Kubernetes clusters and “droplets” feature.

    $5

    Starting Price Per Month

    Microsoft Azure

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft 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
    CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)DigitalOceanMicrosoft Azure
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    1GB-16GB
    $5.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    8GB-160GB
    $60.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    Developer
    $29
    per month
    Standard
    $100
    per month
    Professional Direct
    $1000
    per month
    Basic
    Free
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)DigitalOceanMicrosoft Azure
    Free Trial
    NoNoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo 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
    CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)DigitalOceanMicrosoft Azure
    Considered Multiple Products
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    DigitalOcean
    Chose DigitalOcean
    I've tried both AWS and Azure and, while they're both great solutions, they are much more challenging to setup and maintain. The idea that my billing could spike because of something unexpected leaves me a tad uneasy. For our solutions I'd rather pay the $10/mo with …
    Incentivized
    Chose DigitalOcean
    Initially we started using DigitalOcean due to their pricing point as we were in development phase. Slowly when we used it, we starting liking it a lot as it is very fast & easy to get started, compared to the other Cloud Providers we've used. Also they have blogs and …
    Incentivized
    Chose DigitalOcean
    Vultr is a new player in the game. They don't advertise their hardware model and for that reason, people may not trust them. I have run few benchmarks on Vultr, they performed slightly better than DigitalOcean but they aren't trustworthy. Their transparency index is very low …
    Incentivized
    Chose DigitalOcean
    DigitalOcean offers low prices, much lower than AWS (Azure) however AWS provides much more features and better performance than DigitalOcean. I chose DigitalOcean to save myself some money.
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft Azure
    I would say that Azure stacks up pretty good and sometimes better in comparison to what Google Cloud Platform has to offer. I don't like GCP for its absurd licensing fees and it's expensive for just Using EC2 Instances. However, DigitalOcean and AWS can offer far better …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Azure
    DigitalOcean's drops are easier to use, reuse and manage.
    Pantheon's interface is easier to use.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Azure
    We have settled with Microsoft Azure considered its effective administration and the ability to data visualization and analysis, together with the top-notch security/stability.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    11 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    34 Answers
    Features
    CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)DigitalOceanMicrosoft Azure
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued) and DigitalOcean and Microsoft Azure
    Feature
    CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    DigitalOcean
    9.2
    36 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Microsoft Azure
    8.4
    27 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings9.931 Ratings8.126 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling00 Ratings9.932 Ratings8.725 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing00 Ratings9.723 Ratings8.624 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates00 Ratings10.029 Ratings8.225 Ratings
    Monitoring tools00 Ratings9.035 Ratings8.326 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings9.733 Ratings8.424 Ratings
    Operating system support00 Ratings9.033 Ratings8.926 Ratings
    Security controls00 Ratings8.632 Ratings8.626 Ratings
    Automation00 Ratings6.55 Ratings8.224 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)DigitalOceanMicrosoft Azure
    Small Businesses
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)DigitalOceanMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.9
    (36 ratings)
    8.7
    (96 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.9
    (10 ratings)
    8.3
    (36 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    6.8
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.8
    (9 ratings)
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)DigitalOceanMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Discontinued Products
    I believe for small to mid business application hosting Centurylink provides an adequate service. When moving to larger scale business enviornments I believe the limitations, slowness is going to become a problem
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    DigitalOcean
    DigitalOcean is perfect for hosting client websites, running marketing tools, and managing media storage with Spaces and CDN. The use of Droplets to quickly launch landing pages or WordPress sites for campaigns is a Godsend. It’s great for fast, cheap, and scalable solutions. But for complex microservices or projects needing strict compliance (like HIPAA), DigitalOcean may not always be the best fit, but that depends heavily on your project.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Discontinued Products
    • Offloading the requirements for hosting apps in house - cost savings
    • Access ability - users could access documents and programs from anywhere
    • Collaborative work ability - multiple users could work within the same enviornment
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    DigitalOcean
    • DigitalOcean provides some of the best cost-to-value services available
    • The DigitalOcean cloud console is very intuitive and easy to navigate
    • DigitalOcean has great support for Docker and other dev ops tools like Terraform.
    • DigitalOcean iterates quickly and provides cutting edge features for organizations that want to keep up with the latest and greatest dev ops tooling
    • DigitalOcean has a great developer community and numerous support docs/tutorials
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Discontinued Products
    • Perhaps ease of use - it's not convoluted but a little more streamlined of an interface would be great
    • Make your presence more known - in a world of heavily advertised cloud options CenturyLink is not at the top of the pile and I think it may be due to a lack of awareness in the business community. Advertise!
    • Streamline functionality - interface can be a little slow at times.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    DigitalOcean
    • Some products/services available on other Cloud providers aren't available, but they seem to be catching up as they add new products like Managed SQL DBs.
    • While they have FreeBSD droplets (VMs), support for *BSD OSs is limited. I.e. the new monitoring agent only works on Linux.
    • There are no regions available on South America.
    • They don't seem to offer enterprise-level products, even basic ones as Windows Server, MS SQL Server, Oracle products, etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    DigitalOcean
    I've been very happy with it for my purposes and I plan to continue to use DigitalOcean for the foreseeable future!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    DigitalOcean
    I honestly can't think of an easier way to set up and maintain your own server. Being able to set up a server in minutes and have fully control is awesome. The UX is incredibly intuitive for first-time users as well so there's no reason to be intimidated when it comes to giving DigitalOcean a shot.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    DigitalOcean
    Have not found a single second of down time myself. Superior availability.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    DigitalOcean
    Very quick response and high performance, you have to fine tune configurations on your machines though.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    DigitalOcean
    They have always been fast, and the process has been straight-forward. I haven't had to use it enough to be frustrated with it, to be honest, and when I have an issue they fix it. As with all support, I wish it felt more human, but they are doing aces.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    DigitalOcean
    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.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Discontinued Products
    I did not select the application hosting environment - I was a user. That being said I do not have much of a voice in the difference between hosted services that I have experienced.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    DigitalOcean
    DigitalOcean is an inexpensive product as compared to other products available in the market. The UI is easy and the beginner can also understand the UI with the step by step guide. It provides a lot of custom features and the user needs to pay only for what they are using. Amazon has a complex UI and is on the expensive side. DigitalOcean is simple to use and is easily manageable and the servers can easily be set up without additional cost and such.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    DigitalOcean
    Great scalability, you can start with small plans and move up to premium features at a very good price.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    DigitalOcean
    • Positive - Elastic computer instances make it possible to pay for only for what you need.
    • Positive - Competitive pricing - some of the products that DigitalOcean offers are much cheaper than those offered by competitors.
    • Negative - Having to go to other cloud computing platforms for more specific, advanced services like Computer Vision optimized services, GPU cloud compute instances, etc...
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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