Comparing Top 3 Leaders in Cloud Industry: AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud

As Azure cloud development and the Google Cloud platform are becoming popular, the competition between the three top cloud providers extends: AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud. It will remain as more companies move their digital assets to new platforms. Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are three big providers that dominated the market share in 2020 with nearly 60% of cloud infrastructure worldwide.

With all that in mind, the next few years could lead cloud providers to offer various features for customers and add to their service quality. Choosing between the three platforms could be challenging, but in this article, we provide a complete comparison for features, costs, functionalities, and advantages of market leaders in the cloud industry.

In This Article You Will Read:

• Cloud Platforms Overview
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) – The Pioneer
• Microsoft Azure – The Strong and Reliable Challenger
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP) – The Growing Competitor
• In-Depth Cloud Compare: AWS Vs. Azure Vs. GCP
• Market Position
• AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud: Ultimate Pros and Cons
• AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud: Compute Services
• Storage Services
• Development Tools
• Network Comparison
• Cloud Security and Compliance Comparison
• Management and Monitoring Tools
• Hybrid and Multi Cloud Options
• High-Profile Customers
• Pricing
• Availability Zones
• What’s the Best Cloud Development Model for You?
• Why Choose Azure for Cloud Migration?
• Need Help with Cloud Migration or Cloud Solution Development? Take Advantage of DeljooSoft Expertise
• Our Cloud Development Services

Cloud Platforms Overview

There are numerous cloud-based platform providers, but the market leaders have dominated the industry with various features and cost-effective plans for all businesses. While AWS is offering its full services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud have improved their plans to exceed other competitors, including ownership costs, features, reliability, and security.

Every platform has its exclusive options for businesses and enterprises; however, we explain some differences between the three cloud providers in the following sections.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) – The Pioneer

After its first launch in 2004, AWS now has more than 30% of the market share by providing unique services for any business. AWS offers computing plans, storage, and network for IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS services.

By providing a broad range of capabilities and features, AWS presents the following services for organizations and enterprises:

• Computing
• Storage and data handling solutions
• Cloud application development
• Cloud integration tools
• Management tools for monitoring and analytics

Amazon AWS provides many benefits that initiate from its productivity and broad availability:

• Various services
• Support services
• Continuos growth for features and cloud tools

Alongside all benefits of AWS, it has remarkable disadvantages compared to others as follows:

• High costs compared to similar services from other providers
• Additional fees for services and support
• Lack of experts

Microsoft Azure – The Strong and Reliable Challenger

Microsoft came after Amazon to the cloud industry in 2008 and, by providing an Azure cloud platform, Microsoft offers its unique plans and options for businesses. The Azure platform has reached its maturity in a few years and is the second market leader, presenting high-performance development services and related technologies.

Azure is an integrated platform providing SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS development storage and computing. Here are some benefits of Microsoft Azure offered by Cloud native development platform, powerful tools, DevOps features, and IoT integration:

• Universal availability of services
• Integrated with other Microsoft software and applications
• Support for a wide range of programming languages and technologies
• Low pricing
• Robust tools for monitoring and management

There are also some weaknesses for the Microsoft Azure platform like others:

• Some reported issues with data management
• Problems with documentation and support
• Reports of difficulties with design and learning

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) – The Growing Competitor

Owning the third-ranking among top cloud providers, GCP has provided its services for small-medium businesses. Google Cloud launched in 2008 and has its computing, storage, and database offer for IaaS and PaaS.

Google platform provided its features with high availability, reliable storage and management, and integration capabilities:

• Scalability
• Integrated tools and programming languages
• Simple to setup and run applications

Google Cloud has some disadvantages that make it less popular among other competitors:

• Fewer services
• Fewer cloud options and features
• Less advanced features for enterprises

In-Depth Cloud Compare: AWS Vs. Azure Vs. GCP

As the cloud industry and platform providers evolve, we expect the market share to change over time.

But, the three leaders with exceptional services and plans are on top of our list, and some other cloud providers have remarkable market share in the cloud industry:

• Alibaba Cloud 6%
• IBM Cloud 5%
• Salesforce 3%
• Tencent Cloud 2%
• Oracle Cloud 2%

In the following section, we explain the pros and cons of AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud.

Market Position

Amazon AWS has the largest market share along with two other competitors: Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

Including all cloud services (Iaas, SaaS, and PaaS), AWS holds a 150-Billion dollar market share in Q1 2021 with 32% of the cloud industry:

• Amazon AWS 32%
• Microsoft Azure 20%
• Google Cloud 9%

AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud: Ultimate Pros and Cons

Each platform provider offers its particular services and options, and you need to weigh all services to pick the best choice for your business.

• AWS

  AWS has significant strength in the variation of services over the two other providers. Because it’s the pioneer of the cloud industry, it has become the public cloud market leader.
  AWS offers a broad range of services, and it provides reliable data centers and storage worldwide.
  The most argued weakness of Amazon AWS is the cost of services, and many business owners mention the pricing and additional costs of the services and support.

• Microsoft Azure

  Microsoft is the second and full-featured market leader in the industry, and it has a comprehensive range of services with the latest technologies and tools. It holds a significant advantage over the other providers, and that is the integration of Microsoft tools and technologies with the Azure cloud platform. Also, the service pricing in the Azure platform is remarkably fair for businesses and enterprises.
  Some reports claim that the Azure platform isn’t perfect enough for enterprises, and it has some problems regarding the imperfection of services.

• Google Cloud Platform

  Google offers its unique plans for small and medium businesses, and it has various offerings regarding data computing, machine learning, and data analytics. Google Cloud Platform supports cutting-edge programming languages, and it has advanced features for businesses.
  Google still doesn’t offer extended services for enterprises, and the GCP lacks special offerings.

AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud: Compute Services

Amazon’s compute service depends on Elastic Compute Cloud, and it has various options alongside support for Windows and Linux. This computing service provides high performance and scalability. Also, Amazon Container Services support Docker and Kubernetes that automates server management, and it offers some other options regarding computing services:

• Lightsail
• Batch
• Elastic Beanstalk

Microsoft Azure platform has comprehensive support for different operating systems and technologies such as Linux, Windows Server, SQL, Oracle, and IBM. In the case of computing and data handling, Azure is a high-performance platform and is highly optimized with Microsoft technologies and artificial intelligence. Its container service is developed on Kubernetes, and also provides different computing options for cloud management and application services:

• Virtual machines
• Azure Container Services
• Batch
• Service Fabric
• Cloud Services

Google’s compute service is smaller than other competitors, and it provides support for Linux and Windows. Google Cloud Platform offers Kubernetes Engine for organizations. The main strength of the GCP computing Engine is the Kubernetes and its functionalities.

• Compute Engine
• Kubernetes
• GPU
• Knative
• Container security

Storage Services

AWS powered by S3, Elastic Block Storage, Persistent Block Storage, and Elastic File System provides many storage services like Hybrid Storage and Physical Hardware Device. These capabilities enable organizations to transfer mass amounts of data in high-performance methods. AWS uses Glacier backup services.

Microsoft Azure has exceptional data storage options and Big Data offered by Blob Storage, Queue Storage, and Disk storage. The different technologies and features regarding cloud storage made it possible for Big Data handling and management. Also, it has unique options for databases through SQL database and database for MySQL and uses different methods for providing backup services.

Google Cloud Platform is on its growing based on Persistent Disk and Storage. GCP doesn’t offer backup services, and its database storage is SQL based database and offers two NoSQL options.

Development Tools

It’s no surprise that all platform providers have different innovation and application development tools over cloud environments. Machine learning, IoT tools, and networking software are the most popular methods offered by cloud providers.

AWS offers serverless tools, artificial intelligence, and IoT development programs as follows:

• SageMaker
• Polly
• IoT Core
• IoT One-Click
• Machine Learning
• Deep Learning

Microsoft Azure has integrated tools and technologies that provide the following features for application and software development:

• Machine Learning
• IoT Edge
• IoT Hub
• Computer Vision
• Text to Speech
• Azure Bot Service
• Time Series Insights

Google platform has many features related to AI and ML that present the following options and advantages for businesses:

• Cloud Machine Learning Engine
• Cloud Natural Language Computing
• Cloud Speech API
• Cloud Video Intelligence

AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud: Network Comparison

The top three providers have robust cloud network options and are available in different regions and global locations.

• Azure:Azure Virtual Networks are available in 54 regions worldwide with strong traffic handling over different networks. The Azure network is highly flexible and makes it available for organizations to use their own DNS and IP addresses.
• AWS:AWS Direct Connect has comprehensive networks with 22 regions and 14 data centers. This situation enables high-speed connectivity and on-demand access by high-performance servers and storage.
• Google Platform:GCP provides a cloud network with 21 regions, and its data centers are growing worldwide. GCP has its dedicated feature to offer organizations and businesses a Cloud VPN option.

Cloud Security and Compliance Comparison

Cloud security and data protection are the priority for all service providers, and they implement high levels of data security and Data protection through world-class technologies.

• Azure:
  Azure cloud platform is based on its central and unified security management system that protects data and applications from cyber threats. You have a security dashboard to check alerts, recommendations, and data recovery plans that prove data security and encryption.
• AWS:
  AWS offers isolation methods to add to data security in which you should configure security protocols for accounts. Amazon platform has security checks via API activity monitoring, data loss protection, and firewalls.
• Google platform:
  GCP has performed its security goals as well as the two other platforms, and many experts prove the success of Google about its access management and data encryption. GCP offers monitoring tools, Identity Access Management tools (IAM), and disaster recovery plans to improve its data protection levels.

Management and Monitoring Tools

It’s a need to use monitoring and management tools to analyze issues and detect different problems in cloud environments. Thus, platform providers offer different tools and software to monitor various tasks and application performance.

Cloud monitoring services are as follows, and each of the service providers has powerful tools for cloud management and monitoring:

• Azure: Billing API, Resource Health Storage, Azure Portal Monitor, Automation Resource Manager, Azure Advisor
• AWS: Billing API, Application Discovery Service Systems Manager, CloudWatch, OpsWorks, AWS Trusted Advisor
• GCP: Cloud Billing API, Cloud Console, Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Deployment Manager, Cloud Compliance

Hybrid and Multi Cloud Options

Multi Cloud options are the new and popular feature of the new platforms, and cloud providers offer different tools for benefiting from the capabilities of Hybrid clouds:

• AWS: AWS Outposts, AWS Wavelength, AWS Snowball, Snowcone
• Azure: Azure Arc, Azure Stack, Azure Active Directory, Azure Backup, Azure Blob Storage
• GCP: Anthos, Looker, Operations, Cloud Build, Traffic Director

High-Profile Customers

The top three competitors have their own customers, and you can see the technology and industry drivers are implementing the cloud platforms to enhance their service quality:

• AWS: Netflix, Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Philips
• Azure: Snowflake, AT & T, FedEx, L’Oreal, Nationwide
• GCP: Twitter, PayPal, Etsy, UPS, Deutsche Bank

AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud: Pricing

Pricing and plans vary widely for organizations, and it depends on the resources, computing, and storage usage. You have different options to choose from, and it is anyhow hard to compare pricing for cloud services.

All the three platforms offer their discounts and pricing for a minimum plan of 2 virtual CPUs, and 8GB of RAM is as follows:

• AWS: 69$/mo
• Azure: 70$/mo
• GCP: 52$/mo

The following variables are essential for calculating the cost of service, and it depends on your needs and storage:

• Virtual machines such as CPUs, RAM
• Storage Disk
• Subscription model
• Service support
• Location and payment model

Availability Zones

You need to get information about different availability zones for these platforms to provide high quality and accessible services for your customers:

• AWS availability zones: North and South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East
• Azure availability zones: Canada, Mexico, Brazil, United States, Asia, Azure Government
• GCP availability zones: Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America

What’s the Best Cloud Development Model for You?

The most important point to examine when choosing a cloud service is your needs and business goals. Your workload and the virtual machines you need affect the selection process, and additionally, the data security and backup options are essential metrics while choosing between services.

Azure cloud development offers high integration options with various Microsoft tools and technologies and is the best choice in case of data backup, recovery, integration, and scalability.

Why Choose Azure for Cloud Migration?

Azure cloud application development offers multiple services, from Big Data computing and easy cloud migration to ideal backup and disaster recovery options. Also, the Microsoft Azure platform has been highly integrated with programming tools, IoT, and Microsoft technologies to deliver an all-in-one service for organizations and enterprises.

Hybrid cloud solutions and the ability to use in diverse regions have made the Azure platform one of the top cloud-based services. More importantly, offering affordable service plans can be the essential feature of this high-performance service.

Windows-based organizations can make the best of the Azure platform and use technologies like .Net and AI to deliver various services for their customers.

Need Help with Cloud Migration or Cloud Solution Development? Take Advantage of DeljooSoft Expertise

DeljooSoft offers Azure cloud development services that have proved beneficial for enterprises and organizations. Our experts provide you with a complete roadmap to move digital assets and applications to the Azure cloud platform.

Due to the endless features of this platform and different tools for application development, you can easily move your assets to the new environment and make use of several features of this reliable platform. By comparing AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud, different features like AI, ML, IoT, Big Data, and various programming languages have made the Azure platform one of the preferred cloud services.

Our Cloud Development Services

Cloud development services offer a wide range of capabilities delivered over reliable and high-performance cloud-based platforms. Today, companies and enterprises have found that cloud solutions are affordable and on-demand methods for different business problems. You can move your workloads to new and trustworthy computing platforms by taking a few steps.

If you want to know more about our special offers regarding the Azure cloud platform, please use the form below to contact our experts. We have cost-effective and comprehensive services customized for your business and customer needs.