Microsoft Azure vs. Microsoft Dynamics 365

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a CRM providing sales, marketing, and service functionality. It is offered as SaaS and on-premise. Dynamics 365 is part of the larger Dynamics suite of business intelligence and ERP products.
$44
per month
Pricing
Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Dynamics 365
Editions & Modules
Developer
$29
per month
Standard
$100
per month
Professional Direct
$1000
per month
Basic
Free
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Dynamics 365
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
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
Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Dynamics 365
Considered Both Products
Microsoft Azure
Chose Microsoft Azure
Have not evaluated things like AWS - We are a Microsoft Tech company and as a Microsoft Gold Partner we are entitled to Azure Credits each month.
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Chose Microsoft Dynamics 365
Salesforce does not have the amount of customization and API integration as Dynamics does. To get the same functionality as Dynamics, Salesforce can become more expensive.
Chose Microsoft Dynamics 365
While comparing Dynamics 365 to Salesforce.com we found that the two were very similar. We also found that both had pretty much the same list of available features, but the Dynamics 365 licensing was noticeably cheap than Salesforce.com. With having as large a sales force as …
Chose Microsoft Dynamics 365
Have only seen some small snippets of Sugar CRM - the decision to implement Dynamics CRM was already in place before I joined our current company.
Features
Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Dynamics 365
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Azure
8.4
28 Ratings
2% above category average
Microsoft Dynamics 365
-
Ratings
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime8.227 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic scaling8.626 Ratings00 Ratings
Elastic load balancing8.725 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-configured templates8.226 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring tools8.327 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images8.425 Ratings00 Ratings
Operating system support8.927 Ratings00 Ratings
Security controls8.627 Ratings00 Ratings
Automation8.225 Ratings00 Ratings
Sales Force Automation
Comparison of Sales Force Automation features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.7
83 Ratings
1% below category average
Customer data management / contact management00 Ratings7.981 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings7.879 Ratings
Territory management00 Ratings7.160 Ratings
Opportunity management00 Ratings7.572 Ratings
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)00 Ratings8.278 Ratings
Contract management00 Ratings7.961 Ratings
Quote & order management00 Ratings7.757 Ratings
Interaction tracking00 Ratings8.171 Ratings
Channel / partner relationship management00 Ratings7.362 Ratings
Customer Service & Support
Comparison of Customer Service & Support features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
8.0
68 Ratings
5% above category average
Case management00 Ratings7.863 Ratings
Call center management00 Ratings7.850 Ratings
Help desk management00 Ratings8.457 Ratings
Marketing Automation
Comparison of Marketing Automation features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.8
78 Ratings
1% above category average
Lead management00 Ratings7.672 Ratings
Email marketing00 Ratings8.171 Ratings
CRM Project Management
Comparison of CRM Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
8.0
76 Ratings
4% above category average
Task management00 Ratings8.171 Ratings
Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings8.054 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings8.065 Ratings
CRM Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.6
77 Ratings
0% below category average
Forecasting00 Ratings7.667 Ratings
Pipeline visualization00 Ratings7.773 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings7.476 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.7
80 Ratings
1% above category average
Custom fields00 Ratings7.678 Ratings
Custom objects00 Ratings7.572 Ratings
Scripting environment00 Ratings7.956 Ratings
API for custom integration00 Ratings7.861 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
8.8
75 Ratings
5% above category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings8.869 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.770 Ratings
Social CRM
Comparison of Social CRM features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.7
44 Ratings
4% above category average
Social data00 Ratings7.843 Ratings
Social engagement00 Ratings7.643 Ratings
Integrations with 3rd-party Software
Comparison of Integrations with 3rd-party Software features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.2
65 Ratings
3% below category average
Marketing automation00 Ratings7.665 Ratings
Compensation management00 Ratings6.834 Ratings
Platform
Comparison of Platform features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Azure
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
6.8
56 Ratings
10% below category average
Mobile access00 Ratings6.856 Ratings
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Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Dynamics 365
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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SAP on IBM Cloud
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Creatio
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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User Ratings
Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Dynamics 365
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(97 ratings)
7.5
(103 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(17 ratings)
8.0
(20 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(37 ratings)
7.4
(33 ratings)
Availability
6.8
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(28 ratings)
8.0
(11 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.5
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(2 ratings)
9.2
(4 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
3.8
(3 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Dynamics 365
Likelihood to Recommend
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
Microsoft
Provides our company access to manage and customize the folds tailored to our needs. We needed to have certain paragraphs on certain paperwork per customer. MD 365 has those options to customize where needed and remove when not. The system is easy to navigate, and training can be done in a matter of days, even without prior knowledge of the system or similar systems.
Read full review
Pros
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Best to use for AP - like in our organization, there are plenty of AP bills, so with Dynamics, we can quickly enter the same into the Excel utility, which means CSV-based upload, and then we can easily upload the same to the software. It's a time saver.
  • Best for Bank reconciliation - MS Dynamics makes Bank reconciliation easy. Banks can easily sync with software and easily get reconciled.
  • Generating invoices to customers and directly sending them to their inbox is easy with this software.
Read full review
Cons
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
Microsoft
  • Small learning curve, obviously. You won't figure this out in a day, a week, or even a month. But given time, you can learn to be an expert. Or you can always get a consultant or hire in somebody. But learning the tool isn't out of the questions by any means.
  • Licensing can be confusing at times and isn't cheap, but it is cheaper than Salesforce. Plus no additional fees for data calls to better integrate your D365 CE data with other systems.
  • The Classic user interface left a bit to be desired, but now with the much-improved Unified Interface, the web client and the mobile client look the same, much more modern, and have more flexibility and power behind them for customizers as well.
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Likelihood to Renew
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
Microsoft
CRM has allowed us to keep all of our data in one place that is easy for all users within the company to view. I came into the company after they had been using CRM for about 4 years. They have all said that since we have used this it has helped us control work processes better, it has allowed us to be able to track things so much better, and has been something that has helped unite many processes that used to be all over the place. We are currently using CRM 4.0 and are planning on upgrading in the next 18 months to the 2011 version. Support for 4.0 is almost all but dried up. Understandably so. Some of the customization we have done, and a plugins we use, are now contained within the 2011 version so we are looking forward to that upgrade. We use an email marketing company as well, and they primarily support the 2011 version, but their product connects and is integrated within CRM. This is a great benefit as well so that all of our marketing information can be contained in one location.
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Usability
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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Microsoft
The usability is easily adopted for users familiar with other Microsoft products. Dynamics 365 has several interfaces that cross over browsers and tablets. These multiple interfaces will be phased out and updated to a single unified interface eventually to provide the same usability across all devices. The backend configurations is slowly improving with the introduction of PowerApps compared to pre-D365 Online versions
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Reliability and Availability
Microsoft
It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
Read full review
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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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Microsoft
Our partner, Ledgeview Partners has been FANTASTIC to work with. They are always timely in their response and have taken time to understand our business and our specific needs. We've made a lot of advanced customizations and they have been a great help in making those updates.
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Implementation Rating
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
Microsoft
We used a data warehouse to house our data, and our IT team and implementation vendor worked diligently ahead of time to construct idea implementation plans. Out of millions of records- we had less than a dozen errors, which is remarkable. My major insight is simply having a group of completely devoted individuals working towards your goal who fully understand the desired outcome. Focused resources for implementation season are critical to success.
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Alternatives Considered
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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Microsoft
Microsoft Dynamics was part of a system overhaul for a local school, and we looked at many products. If we had used it for a company with low turnover, then it might have been more feasible. They needed something a new person could learn quickly, someone who might also be learning marketing terms at the same time - especially if there is nobody to train the individual now expected to know the system. Similar issues occurred with all of these programs (we called it being too big for their britches), and one of the bigger things we liked was that it is more compatible with MS Office products in both technical and visual appeal. If you have a steady employees who use a CRM consistently, low turnover, and those who are very familiar with Office products, Dynamics would be the smartest option for you. Unfortunately, this was just not true for the school environment
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
On our purchase, I'd been interrogated about our usage. Our needs are met by Microsoft Dynamics 365, which is simple to use. With so much data and information available, we must ensure that it is presented correctly to managers. Due to a lack of use, we don't have to spend as much money on Salesforce.
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Professional Services
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
My company's preferred program right now is Microsoft Dynamics 365. We use it to keep track of customers and important sales metrics in a streamlined manner. Anyone familiar with CRMs will find the tool extremely useful. Considering that we have a good turnover, this product will be used for its basic segments. As a result, there are few chances of error with Microsoft dynamics because it is so easy to use. Many options for recording data on these leads are available. It meets our needs and pays off.
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Return on Investment
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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Microsoft
  • For those without a centralized, all in one solution for major HR, Finance and other departments, Microsoft Dynamics 365 has vastly improved employee time utilization and profit.
  • Migrating clients from on-premise to the cloud has reaped benefits including better security, no unscheduled downtime and frequent updates to functionality.
  • Those transferring from cheaper solutions have lost money in the aim to be better integrated with other Microsoft products and AI they don't really utilize.
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ScreenShots