- Virtual Private Cloud
- Cloud Interconnect
- Load Balancing
- Cloud DNS Cloud
- Armor Cloud VPN
- Cloud IDS
- Cloud NAT
- VPC Service Controls
Microsoft Azure vs AWS vs Google Cloud Comparison
The three cloud giants, Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud, have been in a fierce race to become a market Leader for a long time, and the battle is still going tough daily with their incredible services and unique features.
Moreover, each has its own set of perks and pitfalls. You will indeed need clarification if you just reach out on these technologies. So here’s a quick guide or comparison between Microsoft Azure VS AWS Vs. Google Cloud helps you to understand which is better and why?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) currently governs the infrastructure, including scalable Storage, networking, server, mobile development, and CyberSecurity solutions.
On the other hand, Microsoft Azure provides one of the most scalable and efficient software solutions.
The Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is also close, GCP offers high-end big data analytics solutions and allows easy interaction with other vendors.
But before diving deep into the comparison, let’s start with the critical information you need.
Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | Key Points
Azure
Key Points
Launched Date
Head Quarter Office
Industry
Business Types
Parent Company
License
Average Daily Web Visitors
Availability Zones
Supported Operating Systems
Market share in 2022
Revenue in 2021
Official Website
Info
February 1, 2010
Redmond, Washington, USA
Cloud Computing
Web Services & Cloud Computing
Microsoft
Proprietary for the platform, MIT license for client SDKs
125.7 Million
140 (source)
Windows, Linux, macOS, Oracle, Ubuntu, Debian, and more
21% (statista)
$51.9 billion ( Microsoft)
azure.microsoft.com
AWS
Key Points
Launched Date
Head Quarter Office
Industry
Business Types
Parent Company
No. of Regions
Availability Zones
Average Daily Web Visitors
Supported Operating Systems
Market share in 2022
Revenue in 2021
Official Website
Info
March 14, 2006
Seattle, Washington, USA
Cloud Computing
Web Services & Cloud Computing
Amazon
30
96
171.2 Million
Windows, Linux, macOS, Oracle, Ubuntu, and more
34% (statista)
$62.2 billion (statista )
aws.amazon.com
GCP
Key Points
Launched Date
Head Quarter Office
Industry
Business Types
Parent Company
No. of Regions
Availability Zones
Average Daily Web Visitors
Supported Operating Systems
Market share in 2022
Revenue in 2021
Official Website
Info
April 7, 2008
Alpharetta, Georgia, USA
Cloud Computing
Web Services & Cloud Computing
Alphabet Inc (Google)
24
73
2.8 Billion
Windows, Linux, macOS, Oracle, Ubuntu, and more
11% (statista)
$19 billion (statista)
https://cloud.google.com/
Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | History
All among Azure, AWS, and GCP have been established in the market for several years. Do you know who is the oldest one and who is the biggest one? Let’s dive into the evolved history of these cloud computing leaders.
Azure
Microsoft Corporation launched Microsoft Azure, also known as Azure or Windows Azure, in 2010 to target the cloud operating business.
Windows Azure was built as an extension of Windows NT, which was the beginning of the Microsoft Cloud platform as a service (PaaS). Windows Azure was an internal project under the code “Project Red Dog.”
AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a collection of on-demand and on-premises computing services (also called web services) that make up a cloud computing platform offered by Amazon.com. These services operate from 12 geographical regions across the world.
The idea for AWS was born out of the internal infrastructure needs of Amazon.com. The Company needed more power for its online shopping business and began seeing this need in the early 2000s.
Instead of investing in expensive, on-premises infrastructure, Amazon’s leadership team decided to leverage the benefits of cloud computing and build a platform that other companies could use.
They began in 2006 with the launch of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and many other services. In 2009, Elastic Block Storage (EBS), Amazon CloudFront, CDN (Content Delivery Network), and more services were added to the AWS Cloud Computing Services Offerings.
GCP
Google Cloud Platform, also known as GCP, has roots in Google’s internal infrastructure, which the Company built to support its rapidly growing business.
As early as 2006, Google began to build data centers and develop its proprietary technology to manage the scale and complexity of its operations.
Over time, Google realized that many other organizations were facing similar challenges and saw an opportunity to offer the same robust infrastructure and technology to the public through GCP.
GCP was first announced in April 2008 and made generally available in November 2011. In the early days, GCP faced tough competition from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, which were already well-established in the market.
However, GCP has become a significant player in the cloud computing market, with a wide range of services and a large customer base.
Today, GCP is considered one of the most popular and widely-used cloud platforms in the world, and it continues to evolve and expand to meet customers’ changing needs.
Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | Availability Zones
Availability Zones (AZ) are physical locations within a region designed to be independent of each other. If one AZ goes down, the other will still be available to serve the customers.
AZs are a way far for cloud providers to offer high ability and disaster recovery for their clients. All the Cloud giants are always in a race to increase their AZs in different regions, but let’s look at who’s the number one currently?
Azure
As of 2023, Azure has more than 60+ announced regions worldwide. Each region comprises multiple data centers within a latency-defined perimeter.
Azure guarantees resilience with a minimum of three distinct availability zones in all availability zones. A high-performance network with a round-trip latency of less than 2ms connects Azure availability zone-enabled regions.
AWS
Like the other Cloud giants, AWS cloud networks also span 99 availability zones and within 31 geographical regions around the world.
Additionally, AWS is preparing to expand its networks on 12 more Availability Zones and four more AWS Regions in Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and Thailand.
To know the AWS global infrastructure map click here.
GCP
As I write this article, GCP is currently available in 200+ countries or territories with 176 network edge locations, 106 zones, and 35 regions. To know about the updated AZs number, click here to go to the official website.
As per the GCP website, they are very close to expanding their AZs in Doha (Qatar), Turin (Italy), Berlin (Germany), Dammam (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand, New Zealand, Greece, Norway, South Africa, Austria, and Sweden.
Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | Search Trends on Google
Azure
The above graph is from google trends live data from January 1, 2004, to till now. As shown on the chart, Azure’s search volume has been steadily increasing over the past few years and is still in the growing phase.
As the Company has invested in expanding its services and capabilities, Azure’s popularity has increased. Additionally, launching new services such as Azure Stack, Azure ARC, Azure IoT, and many others helped increase the platform’s awareness and adoption.
Microsoft’s strong presence in the enterprise market has also contributed to the popularity of Azure. Many companies already have a relationship with Microsoft and are familiar with its products and services, which makes it easier for them to adopt Azure.
AWS
Based on the data from Google trends shown in the above graph, search volume in “Amazon Web Services” has continuously increased since its launch in 2006.
The search interest has been exceptionally high during the past five years, with a significant spike in 2020. This spike could be attributed to the increased adoption of cloud computing and remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
GCP
As the demand for cloud computing services continues to rise, GCP will likely continue to gain popularity among businesses and individuals. The trend line shows a consistent increase in search volume, indicating that more and more people are now connecting with GCP.
We can also see that interest in GCP varies regionally and seasonally. Some countries have a higher interest in GCP than others. Interest in GCP is also higher in specific industries and age groups.
Further let’s dive into comparing all these three giants’ popularity on google search.
As the line in the above graph, the blue line represents the Amazon web server’s popularity. Similarly, the red and yellow line chronologically represents the popularity of Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.
The search interest has been exceptionally high during the past five years, with a significant spike in 2020. This spike could be attributed to the increased adoption of cloud computing and remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Comparing the search trends for “Azure,” “AWS,” and “GCP” shows that AWS is currently the most popular among the three cloud giants. Continuously Microsoft Azure is the second most popular cloud provider, and the Google Cloud Platform is the third one.
As per the data, AWS leads the market, and Azure is also continuously following AWS. When we dive into the early days, Azure is leading the market, but surprisingly, about 2016/2017, AWS started showing.
In addition, the data shows that Google Cloud Platform is far lower than AWS and Azure. However, the trend line indicates GCP has been in the growing phase for the past few years.
As we confirmed, all three giants are increasing, and it’s interesting to know where those giants’ core area is. To solve these queries, read our below popularity region comparison section.
As the interest and popularity of these cloud computing giants is ever increasing, let’s take a look at which are their core interest regions below.
Comparison in Different Geographical Regions
The above map is the live data from google trends. On this map, red indicates Microsoft Azure’s popularity region, blue indicates AWS regions and yellow indicates GCP.
When you hover your mouse over any particular region on the map, it shows the region’s name and the market size of all those three providers in that specific region.
However, it’s pretty challenging to know from the above map. Surprisingly, you can switch that map into an infographic by clicking the three dots and lines on the right-down corner of the map.
After switching the infographics, you can now see the popular countries’ names on the left and market share with the color variation on the right.
Additionally, you can filter those results by interest over different providers. When you hover over the color, you get the percentage of popularity.
In the above data, AWS is popular in South Korea, Japan, Ireland, Austria, Singapore, Israel, the United States, India, China, Ukraine, Australia, and Hong Kong. AWS owns a market size of 70% to 49% in these areas. Surprisingly Microsoft Azure is following AWS with a length of 37% to 16%.
Similarly, the Azure is popular in Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, Philippines, Czechia, Finland, Turkey, New Zealand, Portugal, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Poland, South Africa, Romania, and many others. In these regions, Azure Capture was around 73% to 47%, and AWS followed by capturing 43% to 21% of the market size.
GCP is very small compared to AWS and Azure, but we can see that GCP is growing. Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Chile, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Portugal, etc.. are the core area of GCP right now. Additionally, GCP is not the Leader in those but is increasing in those areas.
We can see that these platforms are popular but now lets take a look into their visitors and users shall we?
Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | Monthly Active Visitors
The above image is a screenshot of similarweb. This is the traffic comparison of Azure, AWS, and GCP from October 2022 to December 2022. This image shows the monthly visits, visit duration, pages per visit, and other metrics related to website visitors.
As shown in the image, Microsoft Azure has around 8.33 million monthly visitors, which means around 277,666 daily visitors. Additionally, these visitors spend 3.07 minutes on the website and 3.07 pages per visit.
Similarly, AWS has 66.15 million average monthly active users means 2,205,000 daily active users, 12.23 minutes of visit duration, and 14.95 pages per visit.
GCP also has 34.22 million monthly active users and 1,140,666 daily active users with 8.32 minutes average visit duration and 9.23 pages per visit.
According to the metrics of monthly and daily active users, AWS is the market Leader, GCP is followed by being in the second position, and Azure is in the third position. Monthly active users on the website don’t mean the market size, but it helps us to assume the popularity of those platforms. Let’s dive into the notable users of each of these cloud providers.
Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | Most Notable Clients
Due to their specific features, viability zones, regions, and excellent customer service, each of them have a wide range of notable users. Additionally with the rise of multi-cloud strategy lot’s of enterprises use multiple cloud platforms for specific use cases.
Based on the core platform let’s take a look at some of the major notable clients of each platform.
Azure | Notable Clients
- Coca-Cola
- Frasers Group
- Ulsters University
- NBA (National Basketball Association)
- Starbucks
- Renault
- HP
- Apple
AWS | Notable Clients
- Netflix
- Airbnb
- Spotify
- Expedia
- BBC
- Baidu
GCP | Notable Clients
- Procter & Gamble
- Major League Baseball (MLB)
- Verizon
- Twitter (Partial Customer)
- PayPal (Partial Customer)
- Tesla (Partial Customer)
- Uber (Partial Customer)
- Airbus
- Etsy
Microsoft Azure VS. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | Total Number of Services
The three significant cloud players computing, Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud, each has a wide range of service lists. All three giants belong to the same industry and have very similar services.
Additionally, they have their strength and weakness. According to their strength and weakness, some services are best for one and worst for others. Below we explain the total number of services they offer and the significant services each of them.
Azure Services
Microsoft Azure is the second most significant cloud provider in terms of services. Azure has offered over 160 services as of writing this article across various categories such as computing, Storage, database, etc. Some of the significant and most popular service lists are given below in the list format.
The most popular Azure services are:
- Azure Virtual Machine
- Azure Storage Service
- Azure SQL Database
- Azure Cosmos Database
- Azure Data Factory
- Azure Stream Analytics
- Azure Machine Learning
AWS Services
In terms of the total number of services, AWS has the most extensive catalog of services with 200+ service lists. AWS includes various categories, such as Storage, database, computing, networking, analytics, Machine Learning, etc.. in the service list.
The most popular and significant AWS service list are:
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
- Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
- Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
- Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)
- Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR)
- AWS Lambda
- Amazon Elasticsearch Service
GCP Services
GCP has the least number of services compared to the other two but still offers more than 150 services across various categories such as computing, Storage, databases, analytics, and more.
Some of the significant services offered by GCP include:
- Google Compute Engine
- Google Cloud Storage
- Google BigQuery
- Google Cloud SQL
- Google Cloud Spanner
- Google Cloud Dataflow
- Google Cloud Machine Learning Engine
As we’ve looked into the breadth of the services of all three, Let’s dig a bit deeper into the core services.
Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | Compute Services
All the cloud platforms offer various compute services to meet specific needs and requirements. Businesses must assess their particular needs and choose the best service that solves their requirement while making their technology efficient and secure.
Azure | Compute Services
Here is the list of Compute services offered by Azure:
- Virtual Machines (VM)
- Azure Container Instances (ACI)
- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
- Functions
- Batch
- Service Fabric
- App Service
- RemoteApp
- Cloud Services
- Azure Stack HCI
- Azure Dev Spaces
- Azure Sphere
Various services can be used depending on the need.
AWS | Compute
Services
Here is the list of AWS Compute services:
- EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)
- Elastic Beanstalk
- Lambda
- EC2 Container Service (ECS)
- EC2 Auto Scaling
- Lightsail
- AWS Outposts
- VMware Cloud on AWS
- Fargate
These services have unique features and benefit similar to Azure’s compute service.
GCP | Compute
Services
Here is the list of Google Cloud Compute services:
- Compute Engine
- Kubernetes Engine
- App Engine
- Cloud Functions
- Cloud Run
- Cloud Dedicated Hosts
- Cloud Bigtable
These services support the development and operation of multiple web, mobile, and batch-processing applications.
Businesses can select the best option based on each compute service’s unique features and benefits.
These compute services provide a range of options for running applications, from virtual machines to containers to serverless computing. The services can build, deploy, and run various web, mobile, and batch-processing applications.
Additionally, each compute service has unique features and benefits, allowing businesses to choose the best solution for their specific needs and requirements.
Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | Database Services
To support the specific needs of different workloads and applications, they all have a variety of database and storage services. All the services are developed by minding the users’ particular needs, so all the services are best and depend upon your use cases.
Azure | Database Services
- Azure Disk Storage: It is durable block storage designed for business-critical applications requiring high performance.
- Azure File Storage is a fully managed, scalable, and secure service that supports SMB and NFS protocols.
- Azure Blob Storage: Due to its highly scalable and secure object storage service, it is best suitable for cloud-native workloads, high-performing computing, data lakes, archives, and machine learning. Additionally, Blob storage supports virtual machines and containers.
- Azure Data Lakes Storage: It is the most suitable for high-performing data analytics workloads due to its massively scalable and secure features.
- Azure Data Box: It’s a solution to transfer data in and out of Azure quickly and cost-effectively.
AWS | Database
Services
- Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3): Easily scalable, available, and secure storage service to store and retrieve data from anywhere.
- Amazon Elastic File System (EFS): It’s a simple, serverless storage to share data without managing the warehouse.
- Amazon FSx: It’s a fully managed and cost-effective file storage.
- Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS): High-performance block storage with ease to use.
GCP | Database
Services
- Cloud Storage: Used for storing and retrieving unstructured data like files, images, videos, and other data types.
- Cloud Filestore: It’s a fully-managed storage service for applications that requires a file system interface.
- Cloud Storage Codeline: This service is optimized for archival data, with lower access and retrieval costs.
- Cloud Storage for Data Archiving: It is optimized for data archiving and long-term retention.
Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | Networking Services
Azure | Networking Services
- Azure Virtual Network
- Azure Load Balancer
- Internet Analyzer
- Azure Firewall
- Azure Firewall Manager
- Azure Bastion
- Traffic Manager
- Network Watcher
- Azure Network Function Manager
- Azure ExpressRoute
- Azure Private Link
- Azure VPN WAN
- Azure VPN Gateway
- Routing Preference
- Public/Private MEC
- Private 5G Core
- Azure CDN
- Azure Front Door
- Azure Application Gateway
- Web Application firewall
- Azure Analyzer
AWS | Networking Services
- Virtual Private Cloud
- Elastic Load Balancing
- Route 53
- CloudFront
- Direct Connect
- Virtual Private Network
- Transit Gateway
- Global Accelerator
- AWS PrivateLink
- AWS AppMesh
- AWS Cloud Map
- AWS API Gateway
- AWS Site-to-Site VPN
- AWS Client VPN
- AWS Cloud WAN
- AWS Shield
- AWS WAF
- AWS Network Firewall
- AWS Firewall Manager
GCP | Networking Services
Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | Security Services
Azure | Security Services
- Azure Active Directory (AD)
- Azure Security Center
- Information Protection
- DDoS Protection
- Azure Key Vault
- AD Identity Protection
AWS | Security
Services
- AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
- Amazon Detective
- Amazon GuardDuty
- Amazon Macie
- AWS Key Management Service (KMS)
GCP | Security
Services
Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | Migration Services
Azure | Migration Services
- Azure Migrate
- Azure Site Recovery
- Database Migration Service
- Azure Backup
- Application Migration
AWS | Migration
Services
- Migration Hub
- Database Migration Service
- CloudEndure Migration
- Application Discovery Service
- AWS DataSync
GCP | Migration
Services
Microsoft Azure Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud | Benefits & Drawbacks
Azure
Benefits
- Strong focus on enterprise customers and integration with Microsoft products
- Robust security and compliance offerings
- Strong hybrid cloud capabilities
- Wide range of services and tools for application development and deployment
Drawbacks
AWS
Benefits
- Widest range of services and tools, including a large ecosystem of third-party tools and services
- High level of security and data protection
- Large and established customer base
- Advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities
- Huge number of learning resources and user communities to upskill
Drawbacks
GCP
Benefits
- Advanced machine learning and data analytics offerings
- Strong focus on innovation and new technologies
- Strong network infrastructure
- Comprehensive security and privacy features
Drawbacks
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Prabin Singh Thakuri is tech-enthusiastic and energetic. His life goals for his work are to be more creative, knowledgeable, and always interested in various fields such as technology, Machine learning, and sports.