IBM Apptio vs. Microsoft Azure

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Apptio
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
The IBM Apptio platform is a technology business management solution that enables organizations to make better decisions about technology investments. It connects technology spend to business value so organizations can adapt to changing market conditions.N/A
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
IBM ApptioMicrosoft 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
IBM ApptioMicrosoft Azure
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo 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
IBM ApptioMicrosoft Azure
Considered Both Products
IBM Apptio
Chose IBM Apptio
ApptioOne has far exceeded our expectations when compared to the research we did into other products and tools. The offerings were different in many ways, but Apptio was the only one who successfully put together a suite of tools that satisfied all of our particular needs. We …
Microsoft Azure

No answer on this topic

Features
IBM ApptioMicrosoft Azure
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
IBM Apptio
-
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
IBM ApptioMicrosoft Azure
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies

No answers on this topic

SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM ApptioMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(200 ratings)
8.7
(97 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.5
(19 ratings)
10.0
(17 ratings)
Usability
7.6
(27 ratings)
8.4
(37 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(3 ratings)
6.8
(2 ratings)
Performance
7.8
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(196 ratings)
8.0
(28 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
5.5
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.3
(3 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Configurability
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.3
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM ApptioMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
Apptio an IBM Company
We use IBM Apptio exclusively for application TCO reporting. It compiles data from different sources then export to Excel to customize report for the user. Our intention is to start a TCO dashboard within IBM Apptio, so Excel is no longer required and leadership can drill down. We are also trying to fully automate our cloud billing.
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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
Apptio an IBM Company
  • Does very well at handling complex allocations and automation. Also great at bringing in data automatically, manipulating that data, and allowing you to feed that data into a complex model. So all the behind-the-scenes stuff works really well. It's also pretty good at visualization. It has some similar capabilities like a Power BI and Tableau, but generally provides most of the visualization technology that somebody would need with the tool.
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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
Apptio an IBM Company
  • For Validation purpose, if possible, enable the JavaScript code so we can the hide the Tab based on current period and more validation we can perform on client side.
  • Sometimes we are faced the data load issue
  • Improvement the performance tunning
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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
Apptio an IBM Company
We absolutely love it at the State of Kansas. It is very user-friendly, which helps us explain the information to those who are not as into the budgets. We consult out with Marysville, and they are super helpful in helping us with the behind the scenes stuff, like creating new tabs and uploading the reports for us to filter through. It is very simple to use and that helps us be able to teach others in our department how to use it properly.
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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
Apptio an IBM Company
We use this currently where I work and we have the consultant Maryville helping us with our Apptio reports and data. I originally used Apptio a few years back and since then I have switched employment, and I was able to talk to the leadership team about what we did at my previous job, and now we are building the reports here at my new place of employment
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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
Apptio an IBM Company
Excellent, so far. SaaS-based...assuming effective data links and connectivity
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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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Performance
Apptio an IBM Company
No issues that i know of
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Apptio an IBM Company
I have not been directly involved with the post sales support team. However, that team has provided training materials and recommended practices that have been very helpful in coming up to speed on how to more fully use the product. My understanding from both vendor management and our upline stakeholders is that our relationship with Apptio is strong.
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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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In-Person Training
Apptio an IBM Company
Was awesome to have been taught by legendary Debbie Hagan for Cost Transparency in person. Her knowledge is extensive and she is an excellent trainer. Her years of experience really shined.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Apptio an IBM Company
The all talented training organization crosses all the T's and dots all the I's. I am constantly learning and often refer to training documentation for post training real life issues.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Apptio an IBM Company
Well, so far. Apptio Consulting covered specific model architecting areas particularly. Most of the heavy lifting is being done in-house with support from Apptio as it relates to tool impacts and needs. Some administrative tasks were redundant
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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
Apptio an IBM Company
So we've used Proven Optics, which is an add-on to ServiceNow. Well at least use it with certain customers and Nicus. Nicus is probably the biggest competitor of Apptio. The trouble with Nicus is their SQL-based ingestion process. It's a little bit more difficult. So the reason why you'd go with Apptio is that it's very easy and very intuitive to bring in new data sources and being able to model a lot of the data once it's already in the system doesn't require a lot of coding experience.
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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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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Apptio an IBM Company
I was not part of this process
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Apptio an IBM Company
I would say it has the capabilities to span across multiple departments, though i am not as familiar with all the capabilities.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Apptio an IBM Company
  • It's delivered on a lot of those, especially the relationship between IT and financing that relationship's been a bit of a rollercoaster on that journey. We've come out the other end of it, and we're all friends now, which is a good thing. So they've accepted the Apptio output and are much more involved in providing the data and helping to use the tool, which is excellent. I think one of the downsides that are probably not talked about enough is the fact that, um, once you have trained and delivered a TMB skillset within your organization, they become very good at that. So if you've got any high-performing members in that team, they become extremely valuable elsewhere. And we've unfortunately suffered the case whereby one of our highest performers was immediately then poached and went off elsewhere for a much better opportunity. So we applaud that for them, but it's really hard to train other people. It's really hard to take them up to speed, and you have to sort of go through those picks and troughs every time. So that's just life, you know.
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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

IBM Apptio Screenshots

Screenshot of Industry BenchmarksScreenshot of Planning OverviewScreenshot of Billing - Main ViewScreenshot of Costing - Control OpEx and Cut CostsScreenshot of Spend Analytics