Compare Services & Features Between Microsoft Azure vs. Amazon Web Services vs. Google Compute

By: Alexandra

| April 11, 2017

The easiest way to compare the big cloud services players is by evaluating products, services, and features in a direct comparison to determine which cloud best meets your needs. So we’ve done just that, pitting Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud against each other in this head-to-head comparison chart. (For a detailed discussion comparing Azure and AWS, check out this post.)

	Microsoft Azure	Amazon Web Services (AWS)	Google Compute
Available Regions	Azure Regions	AWS Global Infrastructure	Google Compute Regions and Zones
Compute Services	Virtual Machines (VMs)	Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)	Compute Engine
App Hosting	Cloud Services Azure Websites and Apps Azure Batch Azure Scheduler Logic Apps	Amazon Elastic Beanstalk	Google App Engine
Serverless Computing	Azure Functions	AWS Lambda	Google Cloud Functions
ALM & Code Editor	Azure Visual Studio Online	AWS CodeDeploy	None
Container Support	Docker Virtual Machine Extension (how to)	EC2 Container Service	Container Engine Container Registry
Scaling Options	Azure Autoscale (how to)	Auto Scaling	Autoscaler
Analytics/Hadoop Options	HDInsight (Hadoop)	Elastic MapReduce (EMR)	Google Cloud Dataproc
Government Services	Azure Government	AWS GovCloud	None
App/Desktop Services	Azure RemoteApp	Amazon WorkSpaces Amazon AppStream	None
Object Storage	Azure Storage (Blobs, Tables, Queues, Files)	Amazon Simple Storage (S3)	Cloud Storage
Block Storage	Azure Blob Storage (how to)	Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS)	Persistent Disk
Hybrid Cloud Storage	StorSimple	AWS Storage Gateway	None
Backup Options	Azure Backup	Amazon Glacier	Google Cloud Storage
Disaster Recovery Planning	Azure Site Recovery	None	None
Content Delivery Network (CDN )	Azure CDN	Amazon CloudFront	Cloud CDN
Database Options	Azure SQL Database	Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) Amazon Redshift	Cloud SQL Cloud Spanner
NoSQL Database Options	Azure DocumentDB	Amazon Dynamo DB	Cloud Bigtable Cloud Datastore
Caching	Azure Managed Cache (Redis Cache)	Amazon Elastic Cache	None
Data Orchestration	Azure Data Factory	AWS Data Pipeline	BigQuery Cloud Dataflow
Networking Options	Azure Virtual Network	Amazon VPC	Cloud Virtual Network
	Azure ExpressRoute	AWS Direct Connect	Cloud Interconnect
	Azure Traffic Manager	Amazon Route 53	Cloud DNS
Load Balancing	Load Balancing for Azure (how to)	Elastic Load Balancing	Cloud Load Balancing
Administration & Security	Azure Active Directory	AWS Directory Service AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)	Cloud Identity & Access Management (IAM)
Multi-Factor Authentication	Azure Multi-Factor Authentication	AWS Multi-Factor Authentication	Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) (Beta) Security Key Enforcement
Monitoring	Azure Operational Insights	Amazon CloudTrail	Cloud Console
	Azure Application Insights	Amazon CloudWatch	Stackdriver Monitoring Stackdriver Logging
Queueing	Azure Service Bus Azure Event Hubs	Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)	Cloud Pub/Sub
Notifications	Azure Notification Hubs	Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)	None
Secure Credentials	Azure Key Vault (Preview)	AWS Key Management Service	Cloud Key Management Service
Compliance	Azure Trust Center	AWS CloudHSM	Google Cloud Platform Security
Management Services & Options	Azure Resource Manager	Amazon CloudFormation	Cloud Deployment Manager
API Management	Azure API Management	Amazon API Gateway	Cloud Endpoints
Automation	Azure Automation	AWS OpsWorks AWS Config	Compute Engine Management with Puppet, Chef, Salt, and Ansible Automated Image Builds with Jenkins, Packer, and Kubernetes
Search Service	Azure Search	Amazon CloudSearch	None
Analytics	Azure Stream Analytics	Amazon Kinesis	Cloud Dataflow Cloud Dataprep (Beta)
Email Services	None	Amazon Simple Email Services (SES)	None
Media Services	Azure Media Services	Amazon Elastic Transcoder	Cloud Video Intelligence API
Machine Learning	Azure Machine Learning (Preview)	Amazon Machine Learning	Cloud Machine Learning Engine
Workflow	Azure BizTalk Services	Amazon Simple Workflow (SWF)	None

So, which cloud is the right choice for you? Sometimes, it’s best to try before you buy, so narrow down your options based on the services and features you need, then take advantage of a trial period to find out how well the cloud service you’ve chosen will meet your real-world requirements.

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