Which Is Better for Businesses & Job Outlooks?

Key Takeaways: Microsoft Azure vs AWS

The main differences between AWS and Azure are their market share, hybrid cloud capabilities, number of services and ease of integration with Microsoft products.
Azure is the better option if you need a cloud platform for hybrid deployment or a Microsoft ecosystem. However, AWS is better if you need a cloud platform for AI and data analytics.
AWS generally offers more services than Azure because of its wider adoption. However, learning both platforms gives you the best of both worlds.

Facts & Expert Analysis: How Cloud Service Providers Compare

Half the market share: AWS is the leading cloud computing platform, with 31% of the market share, while Azure has 20%. Together, both providers represent more than 50% of the market, underlining their widespread adoption. Basically, one in two cloud users uses either AWS or Azure.
Vendor lock-in: If your existing infrastructure is heavily reliant on Microsoft products, Azure is the natural fit, as it will integrate more easily. However, be wary of becoming too reliant — it could limit your flexibility and potential for cost savings.
Avoiding hidden costs: Sometimes you can be hit with unexpected charges on both Azure and AWS. However, both offer multiple cost optimization tools, which can help you avoid extra charges and even help save on cloud spending.

With a combined market share of over 50%, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure are the top two cloud computing providers in the world. Their large market share is an indicator of their wide acceptance. Though both are widely accepted, comparing Azure vs AWS will help you determine which one is the right platform for your needs.

In our comparison, we measure up their key features, differences and similarities. As we compare AWS vs Microsoft Azure, we will also highlight the career prospects each one offers and the advantages for your cloud computing needs.

Cloudwards’ Choice: AWS Is the Winner

Adeyomola Kazeem is a Cloudwards writer and an expert in cloud computing.

Whenever I have to make a choice between AWS and Azure, I usually opt for AWS. In addition to having more services than Microsoft Azure, AWS has a strong developer community, so it generally has more knowledge resources and allows for easier entry for first-timers.

I also think AWS edges past Azure slightly when it comes to innovation. In general, it has a first-mover advantage, as seen through its ecosystem of tools and partners. That said, whenever I have to work with anything Microsoft, Azure is always the undisputed choice.

Which Is Better: Microsoft Azure vs AWS?

If your existing infrastructure uses a lot of Microsoft products, such as Microsoft Office 365 and Windows Server, then Microsoft Azure is better for you. Integrating Microsoft Azure with other Microsoft products is seamless. In other words, you have less complexity to deal with.

Microsoft Azure also has a reputation for being a high flier in hybrid cloud environments. If you’re thinking of deploying a hybrid cloud, Microsoft Azure is the best choice.

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If you intend to expand your business or organization into various industries, AWS might be better, as it offers a wider range of services than Azure. That aside, AWS has a mature developer community, so you can readily find expertise to help maintain your cloud environment if necessary.

Ultimately, the choice between Microsoft Azure and AWS depends on the details of your project. In fact, if your project calls for it, you could run a multicloud deployment using both AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Who Is Microsoft Azure For?

IT professionals: Azure offers a wide range of services for developers to build, test, deploy and maintain software. It also offers services for DevOps, data analysis and system administration.
Organizations with a strong Microsoft ecosystem: Any organization with an existing Microsoft infrastructure will enjoy seamless integration with Microsoft Azure. These organizations may also get discounts on licenses, among other incentives.
Businesses: Microsoft Azure offers services and price plans suitable for all business sizes, from startups to enterprises.

Who Is AWS For?

Developers: Whether you’re a software developer, cloud engineer, DevOps engineer or data engineer, AWS has services you can use for your work.
Students: AWS offers a free tier of various services for learners looking to become proficient in the platform, easing the financial burden of entry into the cloud.
Businesses: Just like Microsoft Azure, AWS has various pricing plans and services that businesses of all sizes find suitable for their operations.

Learning AWS vs Azure: Which Is Better for Career Opportunities?

The better option between AWS and Azure in terms of career opportunities depends on various factors, including your career goals, location, target industry and technical background.

Generally, AWS has the larger market share, so you can expect more job opportunities requiring AWS expertise. However, you can also expect more competition. That said, Azure is not far off. In certain locations, like Norway, Switzerland, the U.S. and the U.K., Microsoft Azure career opportunities are very common.

If you are looking to work for a Fortune 500 company, Azure might be better, as most of these companies use Microsoft Azure. In addition, if you are very familiar with other Microsoft products, you’ll have an edge when integrating Azure with those products.

Ultimately, learning both AWS and Azure gives you more options. Since they are similar in many ways, learning both isn’t out of the question.

Our Detailed Comparison Methodology

In comparing AWS vs Azure, we evaluated their catalog volume (number of services), market share, some of their best use cases, support options and responsiveness, ease of integration and user community.

We also highlighted the similarities in their core services, pricing models, global infrastructure and reach, general security and compliance, and access options.

AWS vs Azure: Comparison at a Glance

Market share:	Azure	AWS
	20%	31%

Pricing models:	Azure	AWS
Pay-as-you-go
Reservations
Savings Plans
Dev/Test pricing
Licensing discounts
Spot Instances

Core services:	Azure	AWS
Virtual machines
Object storage
Block storage
File storage
Networking
Databases

Global reach:	Azure	AWS
Continents	6 out of 7 continents	6 out of 7 continents
Regions
Availability zones
Hybrid cloud
Security & compliance

Accessibility:	Azure	AWS
Management console
CLI
REST API
SDK7
Scalability & reliability
Documentation

Support	Azure	AWS
Support plans	4	5
Responsiveness	Typically faster	Response times close to Azure’s
Number of services	More than 200	More than 200

Microsoft Azure Key Features:

Support: Azure offers multiple support plans with clear pricing, and its support is quite responsive.
Hybrid cloud: Azure’s design has a strong focus on easy integration with hybrid cloud, making it a major player in hybrid deployments.
Microsoft integration: Microsoft Azure readily fits into other Microsoft environments, making its integration with existing Microsoft products seamless.
Scalability: Microsoft Azure is a hyperscaler cloud; it is built on a massive scale of data centers, so it can scale up to support large enterprise workloads and scale down as needed.
Reliability: Workloads and data in Microsoft Azure are typically replicated across data centers, preventing permanent losses and long-term outages.
User-friendliness: Microsoft Azure offers an easy-to-use interface, especially in regard to its documentation.
Security: Besides offering a vast range of tools, Microsoft Azure is compliant with various security regulations, ensuring security not only in the cloud but also of the cloud.
Accessibility: Microsoft Azure offers more than one way to access its services.

AWS Key Features:

Cost-effectiveness: AWS uses pay-as-you-go pricing by default, so you usually pay only for what you use. It also offers a vast range of services across multiple price points.
Security: Like Azure, AWS is compliant with multiple security regulations and offers multiple cloud security tools.
Scalability: AWS is a hyperscaler cloud, providing a massive network of data centers that support scaling up and down with changing needs.
Reliability: AWS’ global infrastructure integrates data and workload replication across data center networks that are unlikely to suffer disaster simultaneously, preventing a single point of failure.
Accessibility: You can access AWS from the web and programmatically.
Large catalog: AWS has more than 240 services, which is more than most cloud providers.
User community: AWS’ user community is perhaps the most experienced, as AWS has been around for longer.
Market share: AWS has the largest market share, making it the most widely adopted cloud.

Microsoft Azure vs AWS: Similarities

Microsoft Azure and AWS share many similarities, including their pricing models, global reach, main services, general security, accessibility and scalability.

Pricing Models

Both Microsoft Azure and AWS use a pay-as-you-go pricing system by default. On both platforms, you typically are charged based on what you use. However, in addition to the default pay-as-you-go pricing, both cloud providers offer discounted pricing models, including Spot Instances, Reservations and Savings Plans.

Both platforms’ Reservations model allows you to pay lower unit rates when you reserve instances for one or three years, while their Savings Plans model offers lower rates when you commit to a certain hourly spend for one or three years. The Spot Instances model offers heavily discounted compute for fault-tolerant workloads.

Global Reach

Microsoft Azure and AWS have similar global reach in that they’re both available in six out of seven continents worldwide: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America and Australia.

Apart from that, their global infrastructure follows a similar system of regions made up of multiple availability zones, and availability zones made up of multiple data centers.

Main Services

The core AWS and Microsoft Azure services are similar; on both platforms, you get access to compute, including virtual servers (such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud and Azure Virtual Machines) and serverless computing (such as AWS Lambda and Azure Functions).

You also get access to virtual networking, storage (object, file and block storage), databases, networking and virtualization. When it comes to core cloud computing services, you get pretty much the same set of services on AWS and Azure.

Security & Compliance

From holding various compliance certifications, such as ISO 9001, FINMA, SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3, to meeting regulatory standards for HIPAA, ITAR and IRS 1075, AWS and Microsoft Azure offer some of the most robust and compliant systems in the cloud computing world.

That aside, both cloud service providers offer a wide range of security services for use in the cloud, including identity and management, firewall, monitoring, logging, threat detection and configuration assessment.

Scalability & Reliability

AWS and Microsoft Azure integrate redundancy into their infrastructure, so the chances of permanent losses or outages are generally low. For one, they design their infrastructure such that data and workloads are replicated across data centers and availability zones, making for durability and reliability.

In addition to being reliable, AWS and Microsoft Azure are built on massive infrastructures that allow room to scale up and down with changing needs. This means you’re not stuck with a fixed environment; you can scale your resources according to your needs.

Hybrid Cloud Deployment

You’ll find hybrid cloud solutions on both Azure and AWS, so you can combine private cloud deployment with either platform. That said, if you have an existing Microsoft ecosystem, you’ll get the best experience with Azure’s hybrid cloud services. However, if your existing infrastructure is more varied, you might benefit from AWS’ mature ecosystem.

Hybrid cloud services on AWS include AWS DataSync, AWS DirectConnect, AWS Route53 Resolver and AWS Outposts. On Azure, the hybrid offerings include Azure Arc, Azure IoT Edge, Azure Local and Azure Operator Nexus.

Accessibility

Microsoft Azure and AWS offer user-friendly access to their services through web consoles. However, for IT professionals who require programmatic access, there are options like REST APIs, software development kits (SDKs), command-line interfaces (CLIs) and cloud development kits (CDKs).

There are many ways to access both Azure and AWS services, with each option best suited for certain use cases.

AWS vs Microsoft Azure: Differences

The differences between AWS vs Microsoft Azure include their market share, ease of integration, number of services, documentation and support, user community, artificial intelligence and data analysis focus, and hybrid cloud capabilities.

AWS vs Azure Cloud Market Share

When it comes to market share, AWS is well ahead of Microsoft Azure. This is not surprising considering AWS came onto the market a couple years before Azure. That said, Azure has been closing the gap in recent years.

AWS’ larger market share allows for more community support. If you go on public forums like Stack Overflow and Reddit, you’ll readily find answers because more people have experience with AWS. Similarly, you’ll more easily find training materials for AWS because more people have experience with it and it is in higher demand in the job market.

Though Azure has a lower market share than AWS, community support and quality training are almost as readily accessible to users as they are with AWS. That said, Azure is not in as much demand as AWS in the job market, so there’s relatively less competition in that space.

Documentation & Support

Though AWS and Azure both offer thorough documentation, Azure’s documentation is often considered more user-friendly. AWS, on the other hand, has a more user-friendly interface. However, its documentation is voluminous due to its many services and features.

Both AWS and Azure offer five levels of support, with two (Developer and Standard/Business) feature similar pricing. However, the details of their support offerings (such as response times and case severity classification) differ. Azure is typically more responsive than AWS.

Ease of Integration

Generally, Microsoft Azure integration is seamless, especially if you’re working with other Microsoft products. Having multiple Microsoft products together in a unified environment makes for easier, more centralized management.

AWS integrates with various products, but because it is non-specific, the ease of integration differs across environments. That said, its strong user community means you can learn from other users’ integration experiences, which can make the process somewhat more seamless.

Number of Services

In many cases, AWS and Microsoft Azure have equivalent services. However, AWS has more services than Azure (more than 240 vs more than 200, respectively). When there’s no equivalence, it usually means Azure lacks a service similar to an AWS offering. For instance, Azure has no equivalent for AWS Mainframe Modernization or AWS OpsWorks.

Being the first mover in the cloud computing industry and having the largest market share are factors that contribute to AWS’ large catalog. However, Azure is mostly keeping pace, so the gap in catalog volume between both services is not too significant.

User Community

Both AWS and Microsoft Azure have community support platforms — AWS re:Post and Azure Community Support, respectively. However, when it comes to size, AWS has the larger and more mature user community, partly because it’s been around for longer and has a larger market share.

Artificial Intelligence & Data Analysis Focus

AWS has more artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analysis tools than Azure, and they are often more polished and stable. AWS’ tools are slightly harder to use and manage, though, owing to their multiple features. However, despite Azure’s services being easier to use and manage, they are not quite as established as AWS’ tools.

Hybrid Cloud Capabilities

Azure was designed for easy integration with Microsoft products, including Windows Servers and Windows operating systems, which are commonly used in on-premises infrastructure. This focus on easy integration with on-premises services translates to exceptional hybrid cloud capabilities for Azure, even beyond Microsoft products.

AWS also has impressive hybrid cloud capabilities, offering a broad range of services. However, Azure has a stronger focus on and better experience with hybrid cloud deployment, edging out AWS.

The Verdict: Why We Think AWS Wins Overall

AWS wins overall because it offers a larger range of services and more established products, wider usage and more ventures in AI. However, for more responsive support, hybrid cloud, the Microsoft ecosystem and user-friendliness, we pick Microsoft Azure.

AWS & Microsoft Azure Competitors

AWS’ and Microsoft Azure’s competitors include Google Cloud, DigitalOcean and Alibaba Cloud. Below, we explain how these competitors compare to AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Google Cloud — Good for Data Analytics, AI and Machine Learning

Google Cloud has the third-largest market share of cloud computing providers behind AWS and Microsoft Azure. Like AWS and Azure, it is a hyperscaler cloud — it has a large fleet of data centers around the world that can handle massive enterprise workloads. Compared to Azure and AWS, Google Cloud excels in data analytics/big data, AI and machine learning.

DigitalOcean — Good Cloud Provider for Developers and Small Businesses

DigitalOcean does not compare to Azure and AWS when it comes to scalability and service range. However, it excels when it comes to pricing and ease of use, making it a top choice for developers, small businesses and startups.

Alibaba Cloud — Good for Edge Computing, AI and Hybrid Cloud

Alibaba Cloud has the fourth-largest market share in the world, behind Google Cloud, AWS and Azure. It’s very prominent in the Asia-Pacific region, especially East Asia and China. Like Azure, Alibaba Cloud excels in hybrid cloud, and like Google Cloud, its AI and machine learning services are trailblazers.

FAQ: AWS vs Azure

AWS generally opens you up to more career opportunities because of its wider usage. However, if you’re looking at a Fortune 500 or finance company, Microsoft Azure might give you better luck. Then again, if you’re looking into industries heavily invested in artificial intelligence and data analytics, Google Cloud is suitable.
Azure is gaining on AWS but has not overtaken it. AWS is currently the largest, with more than 30% of the market share.
The reasons companies may prefer AWS over Azure include its wider range of services, broader third-party tool support and stronger user community. That said, companies already using Microsoft typically prefer Azure to AWS.
The big three cloud providers are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Together, these three providers own two-thirds of the global cloud market share.

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