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Microsoft and Amazon are two of the leading cloud-based infrastructure as a service providers. Which one is right for your business?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure are two of the leading cloud-based infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers. In the past decade, both companies have created a broad range of flexible, stable and profitable services. But which one is right for your business?
We’ll explain everything you need to know about the primarily open-source AWS with its vast network of partners and growing specialist marketplace for Linux and Windows compared to the more closed-source Azure with its nascent Linux offerings.
As an IaaS provider, Amazon groups its AWS capabilities into the following categories:
Microsoft Azure provides the following IaaS service categories. You’ll notice many similarities to AWS, along with some key differences:
AWS and Microsoft Azure are highly regarded platforms with many similar features. However, they differ in several areas. Here’s how they compare head-to-head.
Below is a selection of services offered by AWS and Microsoft Azure listed by category and service type, according to Google, which offers its own cloud service.
Service category | Service type | AWS offering | Azure offering | |
---|---|---|---|---|
App modernization | Continuous integration/continuous delivery | AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeDeploy and AWS CodePipeline | Azure DevOps and GitHub Enterprise | |
Execution control | Amazon Simple Queue Service and Amazon Simple Notification Service | Azure Service Bus and Azure Storage Queues | ||
Multicloud | Amazon EKS Anywhere, Amazon ECS Anywhere, AWS OpsWorks, AWS Systems Manager, AWS Controllers for Kubernetes, AWS Bottlerocket, AWS Outposts and AWS Direct Connect | Azure Service Bus, Azure Storage Queues, Azure Arc, Azure App Configuration, Azure Service Operator, Azure Container Instances, Azure Stack and Azure Express Route | ||
Multicloud serverless | No current options | |||
Service mesh | AWS App Mesh, Amazon VPC and Istio on Amazon EKS | Azure VPN Gateway and Istio in Azure Kubernetes Service | ||
AI/ML | Cloud cost optimization | AWS Cost Optimization | AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets | |
Conversational interface | Amazon Lex | Azure Conversational AI | ||
Document understanding | Amazon Textract | Azure Form Recognizer | ||
Image recognition | Amazon Rekognition Image | Azure Computer Vision | ||
ML for structured data | Amazon SageMaker | AutoML in Azure ML Studio | ||
ML platform | Amazon SageMaker, Amazon EC2 P3, Tensorflow on AWS and Amazon SageMaker Autopilot | Azure Data Science Virtual Machines, Azure Databricks, Azure AI Platform, Azure Cognitive Services, Azure Machine Learning and Azure Notebooks | ||
Natural language processing | Amazon Comprehend | Azure Text Analytics | ||
Personalization | Amazon Personalize | Azure Personalizer | ||
Speech recognition | Amazon Transcribe | Azure Speech to Text and Azure Text to Speech | ||
Speech synthesis | Amazon Polly | Azure Text to Speech | ||
Translation | Amazon Translate | Azure Translator | ||
Video intelligence | Amazon Rekognition Video | Azure Video Indexer | ||
Backup and disaster recovery | Software as a service |
| Azure Backup and Disaster Recovery | |
Compute | Core compute | Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) P3, AWS UltraClusters, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), AWS Auto Scaling, Amazon EC2 Instance Connect, Amazon Elastic Block Store, AWS EC2 Instance Connect, AWS Systems Manager and Amazon EC2 Dedicated Host | Graphics Processing Unit Optimized VMs, Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Autoscale, Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets, Azure Managed Disks and Azure Bastion | |
Dedicated VMs | Amazon EC2 Dedicated Host | Azure Dedicated Host | ||
Infrastructure modernization | SAP on AWS | SAP on Azure | ||
Platform as a service | AWS Lambda, AWS Fargate and AWS App Runner | Azure App Service | ||
VMware connectivity | VMware Cloud on AWS | Azure VMware Solution | ||
Containers | CaaS | Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service and Amazon Elastic Container Service | Azure Kubernetes Service | |
Container registry | Amazon Elastic Container Registry and AWS CodeArtifact | Azure Container Registry and Azure Artifacts | ||
Container security | No current options | |||
Gaming | Amazon GameLift | Azure for Gaming | ||
Data analytics | Business intelligence (BI) | Amazon QuickSight | Microsoft Power BI | |
Data discovery and metadata management | AWS Glue Data Catalog | Azure Purview and Azure Data Explorer | ||
Data integration/extract, transform and load | Amazon AppFlow, Amazon Data Pipeline and AWS Glue | Azure Data Factory | ||
Data processing | Amazon Elastic MapReduce, AWS Batch and AWS Glue | Azure Data Lake Analytics and HDInsight | ||
Data warehouse | Amazon Athena and Amazon Redshift | Azure Synapse Analytics | ||
Data wrangling | Amazon SageMaker Data Wrangler | Azure Data Factory | ||
Messaging | Amazon Simple Notification Service and Amazon Simple Queueing Service | Azure Service Bus Messaging | ||
Query service | Amazon Redshift Spectrum | Azure Synapse Analytics | ||
Stream data ingest | Amazon Kinesis | Azure Event Hubs | ||
Stream data processing | Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose, AWS Glue, Amazon Aurora zero-ETL integration with Amazon Redshift and AWS DMS | Azure Stream Analytics and Azure Data Factory | ||
Workflow orchestration | Amazon Data Pipeline, AWS Glue and Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow | Azure Data Factory | ||
Database | Document data storage | Amazon DocumentDB and Amazon DynamoDB | Azure Cosmos DB | |
In-memory data store | Amazon ElastiCache | Azure Cache | ||
NoSQL: Indexed | Amazon DynamoDB | Azure Cosmos DB | ||
NoSQL: Key-value | Amazon DynamoDB | Azure Cosmos DB | ||
Relational database management system | Amazon Aurora and Amazon Relational Database Service | Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL, Azure SQL Database, Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL | ||
Relational | Amazon RDS for Oracle | Azure Oracle Database Enterprise Edition | ||
Developer tools | Client libraries | AWS SDKs | Azure SDKs | |
Cloud development Integrated development environment (IDE) plugin | AWS Toolkit for IntelliJ and AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio Code | Azure Toolkit for IntelliJ and Azure Tools for Visual Studio Code | ||
Cloud-based IDE | AWS CloudShell | Azure Cloud Shell | ||
Command-line interface (CLI) | AWS CLI | Azure CLI | ||
Error handling | No current options | |||
Job scheduling | Amazon CloudWatch | Logic Apps
| ||
No-code | Amazon Honeycode, AppSheet | Microsoft Power Platform | ||
Parallel task execution | Amazon Simple Queue Service and Amazon Simple Notification Service | Azure Service Bus and Azure Storage Queues | ||
PowerShell | AWS Tools for PowerShell | Azure Tools for PowerShell | ||
Enterprise | Abuse prevention | AWS WAF CAPTCHA and AWS Fraud | Microsoft Dynamics Fraud | |
Marketplace | AWS Marketplace | Azure Marketplace | ||
ML workflows | Tensorflow on AWS | Azure DataBricks | ||
Solutions catalog | AWS Service Catalog | Azure Custom Images and Azure API Management | ||
Government services | Regulated services | AWS GovCloud | Azure Government | |
Integration services | API management | Amazon API Gateway | Azure API Management | |
iPass | Integration platform | Amazon AppFlow | Azure Logic Apps | |
Management tools | API management | Amazon API Gateway | Azure API Management | |
Cost management | AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets | Azure Cost Management | ||
Deployment | AWS CloudFormation, AWS Serverless Application Model and AWS Cloud Development Kit | Azure Deployment Manager | ||
Monetization | Amazon Publisher Services, Mobile Ads | Azure API Management | ||
Media | AI | Amazon Rekognition Video | Azure Video Analyzer for Media | |
Encoding and streaming | AWS Media Convert and AWS MediaLive | Azure Media Services | ||
Monetization | AWS MediaTailor | Azure Media Services and Azure Video Indexer | ||
Migration | Container migration | AWS App2Container | Azure Migrate | |
Server migration | AWS Server Migration Service | Azure Migrate | ||
SQL database migration | AWS Database Migration Service | Azure DMS | ||
Storage migration | AWS Storage Gateway and AWS DataSync | Azure Data Factory and Azure Storage Mover | ||
Networking | Content delivery network | Amazon CloudFront | Azure Front Door | |
Domains and domain names service (DNS) | Amazon Route 53 | Azure DNS | ||
Firewall | AWS Shield Advanced, AWS Network Firewall, AWS Security Groups and AWS network Access Control List | Azure Firewall | ||
Load balancer | AWS Elastic Load Balancing | Azure Load Balancing | ||
Network connectivity | AWS Direct Connect, AWS Virtual Private Network (VPN), Amazon Cloud WAN, AWS Transit Gateway and AWS PrivateLink | Azure ExpressRoute, Azure VPN, Azure Virtual WAN and Azure Private Link | ||
Network monitoring | AWS Network Manager | Azure Network Watcher | ||
Premium networking | AWS Global Accelerator, AWS data transfer | Internet egress via Microsoft’s premium global network (or over the public internet) | ||
Service mesh | AWS App Mesh | Open Service Mesh | ||
Services discovery | AWS Cloud Map | Hashicorp Consul Service on Azure | ||
Virtual networks | Amazon VPC NAT instances and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud | Azure NAT Gateway and Azure Virtual Network | ||
Operations | Audit logging | AWS CloudTrail | Azure Audit Logs | |
Logging | Amazon CloudWatch Logs | Azure Monitor Logs | ||
Monitoring | Amazon CloudWatch | Azure Monitor | ||
Performance tracing | AWS X-Ray | Azure Monitor Application Insights Distributed Tracing | ||
Profiling | Amazon CodeGuru Profiler | Azure Monitor Application Insights Profiler | ||
Security and identity | Certificate management | AWS Private Certificate Authority | No current options | |
Customer identity and access management | Amazon Cognito | Azure Active Directory B2C | ||
Cloud provider access management | No current options | Customer Lockbox for Microsoft Azure | ||
Container security | Amazon ECR Image Scanning | Azure Defender for container registries | ||
Data loss prevention | Amazon Macie | Azure Information Protection | ||
Encryption | AWS Nitro Enclaves and AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Secure Nested Paging (AMD SEV-SNP) | Azure Confidential Computing | ||
Exfiltration prevention | AWS PrivateLink | Azure Private Link | ||
Key management | AWS Key Management Service (KMS), AWS KMS (FIPS 140-2 Level 2), WS KMS with AWS External Key Store (XKS) and AWS CloudHSM with custom key store | Azure Key Vault, Azure Key Vault (FIPS 140-2 Level 2) and Azure Managed HSM | ||
Identity and access management (IAM) | AWS IAM Identity Center, Amazon Identity and Access Management, AWS Systems Manager, AWS Managed Microsoft AD and AWS Verified Access | Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD), Azure Identity Management, Azure Application Proxy, Azure Bastion Host, Azure Active Directory Domain Services and Azure Active Directory External Identities | ||
Resource access management | AWS Organizations policies | Azure Policy | ||
Resource monitoring | AWS Config, AWS Resource Access Manager and AWS Organizations | Azure Resource Graph | ||
Security information and event management | Amazon Security Lake | Microsoft Sentinel | ||
Security orchestration, automation and response | No current options | Microsoft Sentinel | ||
Secret management | AWS Secrets Manager and AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store | Azure Key Vault | ||
Security and risk management | Amazon Guard Duty, AWS Security Hub, AWS Audit Manager and AWS Config | Microsoft Defender for Cloud | ||
Zero trust | No current options | |||
Serverless | Build | AWS Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Cognito, AWS Amplify Hosting, Amazon DynamoDB and AWS AppSync | Azure Blob Storage, Azure App Service authentication (Easy Auth), GitHub Pages, Static Web Apps and Azure Cosmos DB
| |
Containers without infrastructure | AWS App Runner, AWS Fargate and AWS Lambda | Azure Container Apps and Azure Container Instances | ||
Engage | Amazon Device Messaging (ADM), Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), AWS AppConfig, AWS Amplify and Amazon Pinpoint | Azure Notification Hubs and Azure App Configuration | ||
Event handling | AWS EventBridge | Azure Event Grid | ||
Function as a service | AWS Lambda and AWS Serverless Applications | Azure Functions Serverless Compute | ||
Release and monitor | AWS Device Farm | Azure App Center | ||
Workflow orchestration | AWS Step Functions | Azure Logic Apps | ||
Storage | Block storage | Amazon Elastic Block Store | Azure Disk Storage | |
Egress security | No current options | Azure Firewall Explicit proxy (preview) | ||
File storage | Amazon Elastic File System | Azure Files | ||
Infrequently accessed object storage | Amazon S3 Glacier | Azure Archive Storage | ||
Object storage | AWS S3 | Azure Blob Storage |
Both AWS and Azure offer a pay-as-you-go model billed by the second or the hour. They also offer discounts if you commit for one to three years. AWS service plan options are called Saving Plans (or Reserved Instances on some types of VMs), while the Azure plans are called Reserve VMs. Both companies offer up to 72 percent off their prices, depending on the length of your commitment.
You can also bid on spare compute capacity at a significant discount. Spot Instances (AWS) and Spot VMs (Azure) offer up to 90 percent off the price, but the downside is that the capacity can be taken from you if the provider needs it.
Both vendors offer price calculators on their websites. However, these tools may not be particularly helpful because some cost factors have as much to do with user behavior (like shutting down virtual machines when not in use) as the actual workloads you want to run.
If you want to run application servers like SQL Server or BizTalk Server on cloud platforms like AWS or Azure, Microsoft offers License Mobility through its Software Assurance program on eligible products. It’s crucial to ensure your application servers are eligible for license mobility.
Windows Server licenses are not eligible for License Mobility. Your SQL Server license, if it’s covered by an active Software Assurance program, will be eligible for License Mobility. This means you can use the license you already paid for to run your SQL Server instance in the cloud without having to pay more.
Many businesses want some operations to run via the cloud and others conducted through servers in data centers they own and control. Fortunately, AWS and Azure provide robust support for companies that want to operate a hybrid cloud. Still, the vendors have slightly different approaches:
Both providers offer support for hybrid and multicloud users, including integrations with existing cloud environments. If you want to run contained-based applications, Azure Arc is probably the best current option because of its greater flexibility in multi-cloud scenarios.
Both Amazon and Microsoft have dedicated government areas of their clouds to meet strict compliance requirements, including International Traffic in Arms Regulations, Defense Information Systems Agency, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Criminal Justice Information Service and Federal Information Processing Standard. These areas are cordoned off from all other workloads and are accessible by screened United States persons only.
AWS has had the lead over Azure in this department, but the gap is closing between the two providers. Azure has the same necessary certifications as AWS and some agencies have favored it. For those who have used Microsoft software historically, Azure may be easier to integrate as long as its platform offerings meet your requirements.
You wouldn’t immediately think of Azure for open-source needs as Microsoft’s relationship with the open-source community has never been great. In contrast, Amazon has been Linux-friendly from the start and the company has never expressed suspicion about open-source software. Developers were more likely to be comfortable with AWS and its open-source tool integrations because of the vendor’s hospitality.
Today, Microsoft is catching up. Azure has gradually opened its doors to open-source developers by forming partnerships with various open-source communities to enhance its support for the sector.
While AWS might still be the better option for some open-source use cases, don’t dismiss Azure without evaluating how well the platform now supports open-source needs. The gap between the two vendors is closing fast.
Azure and AWS aren’t the only cloud infrastructure providers available. Google Cloud is probably the best-known alternative. Depending on your needs, you may also wish to check out IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and the SAP Business Technology Platform.
If you already use other Oracle products, this vendor may be more appealing as a cloud provider. For example, our review of Oracle NetSuite accounting software notes how easily it integrates with Oracle’s suite of business solutions. For some companies, it’s simply more straightforward to have all services with one vendor.
Sometimes, you don’t know whether a product will work for you until you try it. Thankfully, Amazon and Microsoft both allow you to set up free accounts. These are great opportunities to determine which platform is better for your business.
Try these two clouds and see which suits your needs better. If AWS isn’t for you, the features of Amazon Business may still be worth exploring. We’re pretty sure Microsoft won’t mind.