There is a fierce three-way competition for cloud domination among AWS, Azure, and GCP. Rookies may just focus on cost when selecting a public cloud service provider, but there are other considerations to take into account as well. This article will give you a thorough comparison of AWS, Azure, and GCP.
Pros & Cons: AWS vs Azure vs GCP
| GCP | |
|---|---|
| Pros | Cons |
| 1. Plays nicely with other Google service and products 2. Excellent support for containerized workloads 3. Global fiber network | 1. Limited services vs AWS & Azure 2. Limited support for enterprise use cases |
| AWS | |
|---|---|
| Pros | Cons |
| 1. Most services available, from networking to robotics 2. Most mature 3. Considered the gold standard in cloud reliability and security 4. More compute capacity vs Azure & GCP 5. All major software vendors make their programs available on AWS | 1. Dev/Enterprise support must be purchased 2. Can overwhelm newcomers with the sheer number of services and options 3. Comparatively limited options for hybrid c |
| MICROSOFT AZURE | |
|---|---|
| Pros | Cons |
1. Easy integration and migrations for existing Microsoft services 2. Many services available, including best-in-class AI, ML, and analytics services 3. Relatively cheaper for most services vs AWS & GCP 4. Great support for hybrid cloud strategies | 1. Fewer service offerings vs AWS 2. Particularly geared towards enterprise customers |
Features Comparison: AWS Vs Azure Vs GCP
| Details | AWS | Azure | GCP |
| Compute Services | 1) AWS Beanstalk 2) Amazon EC2 3) Amazon EC2 Auto-Scaling 4) Amazon Elastic Container Registry 5) Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service 6) Amazon Lightsail 7) AWS Serverless Application Repository 8) VMware Cloud for AWS 9) AWS Batch 10) AWS Fargate 11) AWS Lambda 12) AWS Outposts 13) Elastic Load Balancing | 1) Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) 2) Function-as-a-service (FaaS) 3) Service Fabric 4) Azure Batch 5) Cloud Services 6) Container Instances Batch 7) Azure Container Service (AKS) 8) Virtual Machines Compute Engine 9) Virtual Machine Scale Sets | 1) App Engine 2) Docker Container Registry 3) Instant Groups 4) Compute Engine 5) Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) 6) Knative 7) Kubernetes 8) Functions |
| Storage Services | 1) Simple Storage Service (S3) 2) Elastic Block Storage (EBS) 3) Elastic File System (EFS) 4) Storage Gateway 5) Snowball 6) Snowball Edge 7) Snowmobile | 1) Blob Storage 2) Queue Storage 3) File Storage 4) Disk Storage 5) Data Lake Store | 1) Cloud Storage 2) Persistent Disk 3) Transfer Appliance 4) Transfer Service |
| AI/ML | 1) SageMaker 2) Comprehend 3) Lex 4) Polly 5) Rekognition 6) Machine Learning 7) Translate 8) Transcribe 9) DeepLens 10) Deep Learning AMIs 11) Apache MXNet on AWS 12) TensorFlow on AWS | 1) Machine Learning 2) Azure Bot Service 3) Cognitive Services | 1) Cloud Machine Learning Engine 2) Dialogflow Enterprise Edition 5) Cloud Natural Language 6) Cloud Speech API 7) Cloud Translation API 8) Cloud Video Intelligence 9) Cloud Job Discovery (Private Beta) |
| Database Services | 1) Aurora 2) RDS 3) DynamoDB 4) ElastiCache 5) Redshift 6) Neptune 7) Database Migration Service | 1) SQL Database 2) Database for MySQL 3) Database for PostgreSQL 4) Data Warehouse 5) Server Stretch Database 6) Cosmos DB 7) Table Storage 8) Redis Cache 9) Data Factory | 1) Cloud SQL 2) Cloud Bigtable 3) Cloud Spanner 4) Cloud Datastore |
| Backup Services | Glacier | 1) Archive Storage 2) Backup 3) Site Recovery | 1) Nearline (frequently accessed data) 2) Coldline (infrequently accessed data) |
| Serverless computing | 1) Lambda 2) Serverless Application Repository | Functions | Google Cloud Functions |
| Strengths | 1) Dominant market position 2) Extensive, mature offerings 3) Support for large organizations 4) Global reach 5) Flexibility and a wider range of services | 1) Second largest provider 2) Integration with Microsoft tools and software 3) Broad feature set 4) Hybrid cloud 5) Support for open source 6) Ideal for startups and developers | 1) Designed for cloud-native businesses 2) Commitment to open source and portability 3) Flexible contracts 4) DevOps expertise 5) Complete container-based model 6) Most cost-efficient |
| Caching | Elastic Cache | Redis Cache | Cloud CDN |
| File Storage | EFS | Azure Files | ZFS and Avere |
| Networking | Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) | Azure Virtual Network (VNET) | Cloud Virtual Network |
| Security | AWS Security Hub | Azure Security Center | Cloud Security Command Center |
| Location | 77 availability zones within 24 geographic regions | Presence in 60+ regions across the world | Presence in 24 regions and 73 zones. Available in 200+ countries and territories |
| Documentation | Best in class | High quality | High quality |
| DNS Services | Amazon Route 53 | Azure Traffic Manager | Cloud DNS |
| Notifications | Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) | Azure Notification Hub | None |
| Load Balancing | Elastic Load Balancing | Load Balancing for Azure | Cloud Load Balancing |
| Automation | AWS Opsworks | Azure Automation | Compute Engine Management |
| Compliance | AWS CloudHSM | Azure Trust Center | Google Cloud Platform Security |
| Pricing/ Discount Options | One-year free trial along with a discount of up to 75% for a 1-3 year commitment | Up to 75% discount for a commitment ranging from one to three years | GCP Credit of $300 for 12 months apart from a sustained use discount of up to 30% |
The Selection Dilemma
The Big Three are fighting for cloud supremacy. While other companies, including as IBM and Oracle, have entered the cloud services market, they are still a long way from capturing a large part of the market. Each of the three cloud platforms, AWS, Azure, and GCP, is distinct in its own way and provides a myriad of possibilities for enterprises to choose from based on their own needs. It remains to be seen whether AWS will maintain its dominance or whether the others will catch up in the near future.
Conclusion
Still unsure about which cloud suits you best? We are here to solve your dilemma. Cogni Consulting, a leading cloud solutions provider, has helped numerous clients to migrate their infrastructure to cloud.
Get in touch with us now! Our experts will take care of everything, while you scale your business.
