IBM Cloud Functions vs. Microsoft Azure

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Cloud Functions
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
IBM Cloud Functions is a PaaS platform based on Apache OpenWhisk. With it, developers write code (“actions”) that respond to external events. Actions are hosted, executed, and scaled on demand based on the number of events coming in. No servers or infrastructure to provision and manage.
$0
per second of execution
Microsoft Azure
Score 8.6 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 Cloud FunctionsMicrosoft Azure
Editions & Modules
Basic Cloud Functions Rate
$0.00017
per second of execution
API Gateway Rate
Free
Developer
$29
per month
Standard
$100
per month
Professional Direct
$1000
per month
Basic
Free
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Cloud FunctionsMicrosoft 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
IBM Cloud FunctionsMicrosoft Azure
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM Cloud FunctionsMicrosoft Azure
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cloud Functions
-
Ratings
Microsoft Azure
8.6
17 Ratings
6% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.716 Ratings
Dynamic scaling00 Ratings9.316 Ratings
Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.816 Ratings
Pre-configured templates00 Ratings7.016 Ratings
Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.016 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.415 Ratings
Operating system support00 Ratings9.516 Ratings
Security controls00 Ratings9.016 Ratings
Automation00 Ratings8.715 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM Cloud FunctionsMicrosoft Azure
Small Businesses
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Score 8.8 out of 10
Akamai Cloud Computing
Akamai Cloud Computing
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Score 8.8 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Score 8.8 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM Cloud FunctionsMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
3.0
(7 ratings)
8.5
(88 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(15 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(27 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
6.8
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(27 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Cloud FunctionsMicrosoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
IBM Cloud Functions [is] not the worse product on the IBM cloud. I decided to write this review as I thought it would be balanced. I would still use functions to set up a serverless architecture where execution time is pretty quick and the code is relatively simple. I wouldn't use IBM Cloud Functions for async calls obviously, as costs could be higher. The functions documentation is lacking in terms of CI/CD, and there are unexplainable errors occurring - like the network connection that I mentioned. So I wouldn't just rely on IBM Cloud Functions too much for the entire system, but make sure it's diversified.
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Microsoft
In terms of cloud computing, Microsoft Azure is the only comprehensive result the company offers. Regardless of how big or small an organization is, it can make use of this system. As a cyber-security professional, this is your best option for data management. A business that wants to minimize capital expenditures can use Microsoft Azure. Many Microsoft services accept it. People with little or no knowledge of cloud computing may find it impossible. It isn’t the solution for companies that don’t want to risk having only one platform and infrastructure vendor.
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Pros
IBM
  • Great substitute for a simple API calls to run non-complicated code.
  • Easy way to run Python/Java/Javascript to get something done.
  • File validation.
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Microsoft
  • Azure simply provides end to end life cycle. Starting from the development to automated deployment, you will find [a] bunch of options. Custom hook-points allow [integration] on-premise resources as well.
  • Excellent documentation around all the services make it really easy for any novice. Overall support by [the] community and Azure Technical team is exceptional.
  • BOT Services, Computer Vision services, ML frameworks provide excellent results as compare to similar services provided by other giants in the same space.
  • Azure data services provide excellent support to ingest data from different sources, ETL, and consumption of data for BI purpose.
Read full review
Cons
IBM
  • Billing can be a hassle, not the most responsive customer service/support team
  • Handles & executes most functionalities, but other platforms offer more scalability if you're seeking consistent and stable growth
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Microsoft
  • In our experience, Azure Kubernetes Survice was difficult to set up, which is why we used Kubernetes on top of VMs.
  • Azure REST API is a bit difficult to use, which made it difficult for us to automate our interactions with Azure.
  • Azure's Web UI does a good job of showing metrics on individual VMs, but it would be great if there was a way to show certain metrics from multiple VMs on one dashboard. For example, hard drive usage on our database VMs.
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Likelihood to Renew
IBM
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
IBM
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Microsoft Azure's overall usability has been better than expected. Often times vendors promise the world, only to leave you with a run-down town. Not the case with our experience. From an implementation perspective, all went perfect, and from the user-facing experience we have had no technical issues, just some learning curve issues that are more about "why" than "how"
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Reliability and Availability
IBM
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
IBM
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Support is easy with all the knowledge base articles available for free on the web. Plus, if you have a preferred status you can leverage their concierge support to get rapid response. Sometimes they’ll bounce you around a lot to get you to the right person, but they are quite responsive (especially when you are paying for the service). Many of the older Microsoft skills are also transferable from old-school on-prem to Azure-based virtual interfaces.
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Implementation Rating
IBM
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
IBM
  • ICF is a lightweight service and does not require runtime configurations
  • Scalable on demand and hence there is no need to pay for runtime costs
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.
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • It directly affected our expenses since we do not need to deploy and maintain a set of separate applications.
  • It allowed us to pay for only the amount of time cloud functions run.
  • It saved on maintenance and monitoring of the applications it replaced.
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Microsoft
  • Brings down Capex to customers.
  • Some of the built-in security features of DDoS Basic protection that comes with VNET on Azure or even WAF on AGW brings huge advantages to customers.
  • Hybrid benefits for those who have software assurance can save even more costs by moving to Azure.
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ScreenShots