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AWS vs. Azure vs. Google - Cloud Comparison (Updated)

Updated Jun 26, 2019

These days, business as well as individuals are using innovative cloud services for supporting their applications and internal services. Instead of creating and maintaining separate inhouse infrastructures, they are opting for shared cloud services to store systems and applications. The advent of technology has brought forth many safe and easy-to-implement solutions in the world of network clouds. These cloud networking solutions are considered to be reliable methods for the storage of different kinds of information.

The question that comes to the mind of users is “Which cloud service would be the right one for them?” While price is an important criterion for figuring out the difference between AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud Platform, it is not the only one. In this article, we will touch upon what are AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Additionally, we will be comparing them on the basis of their content delivery and storage, database, security, networking features, computing ability, etc.

Read on for a closer look at azure vs aws vs GCP.

AWS vs. Azure vs. Google - Comparison Table

1.Computing

Cloud services like AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Azure are useful for faster graphics rendering, calculation and processing of data, data analysis, etc.

Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) provides the most effective solutions for AWS in context to scalable computing on demand. It gives tough competition to Google Cloud Platform’s Compute Engine. It also competes fitfully with Azure’s Virtual Machine Sale Sets and Virtual Machine. There are other iOS, Windows platform, and Android based solution for mobile and web applications.

In case deployment of software containers with the help of Docker is the main goal for users, EC2 Container Registry (ECR) and EC2 Container Service (ECS) by Amazon serve to be good options. Google’s Container Registry and Container Engine provide viable computing solutions as well. The Container Service by Azure has similar features; However, it has no methods for private Docker registries. Azure allows for the deployment of Windows client apps with the help of its RemoteApp services.

AWS

Azure

Google Cloud Platform

Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes

Azure Container Service (AKS)

Compute Engine

Lightsail

VirVirtual Machine Scale Sets

Kubernetes

Batch

Container Instances

Knative

Elastic Container Registry

Batch

 

Elastic Load Balancing

Service Fabric

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

VMware Cloud on AWS

Virtual Machines

Cloud Functions

EC2

Clod Services

Container Security

Fargate

 

App engine

Auto Scaling

 

 

2. Content Delivery and Storage

Vendor Services

Storage

Database

Backup

AWS

  • Elastic Block Storage (EBS)
  • Elastic File System (EFS)
  • Simple Storage Service (S3)
  • Storage Gateway
  • Snowball Edge
  • Snowmobile
  • Snowball

 

  • RDS
  • DynamoDB
  • ElastiCach
  • Database migration service
  • Aurora
  • Neptune
  • Redshift
  • Glacier

Azure

  • Queue Storage
  • File Storage
  • Disk Storage
  • Blob Storage
  • Data Lake Store
  • Data Warehouse
  • Server Stretch Database
  • Cosmos DB
  • Database for MySQL
  • Database for PostgreSQL
  • Table Storage
  • Redis Cache
  • Data Factory
  • SQL Database

 

  • Backup
  • Site Recovery
  • Archive Storage

Google Cloud Platform

  • Persistent Disk
  • Transfer Appliance
  • Cloud Storage
  • Transfer Service
  • Cloud Bigtable
  • Cloud Spanner
  • Cloud SQL
  • Cloud Datastore
  • None

3. Pricing

Though a comparison of these cloud leaders on the basis of pricing is a tricky job, here are some generalizations:

AWS Pricing

Azure Pricing

GCP Pricing

Difficult to attain accurate estimates even with a cost calculator provided by Amazon

Microsoft's complex situation-based discounts and software licensing options makes it tough to understand pricing structure.

Offers "customer-friendly" prices, deep discounts and flexible contracts in contrast to AWS and Azure.

4. Storage

The Simple Storage Service (S3) by AWS offers the longest run amongst the three network cloud service providers. With extensive documentation; many sample codes, articles and libraries; and various tutorials, free webinars and discussion forums, it is a helpful option for users in terms of storage. Microsoft Azure Storage, Google Cloud Storage and Data Lake Store serve to be reliable services as well.

Service Provider GB/month
Simple Storage Service Amazon Web Services $0.03(standard)/$0.0125(infrequent)
Cloud Storage Google Cloud Platform $0.026(standard)/$0.02(DRA)
Storage Microsoft Azure $0.024(LRS)/$0.048(GRS)/$0.061(RA-GRS)
Data Lake Store Microsoft Azure 0.04$

5. Management Tools

Managing and orchestrating cloud-based resources across different business units and complicated infrastructures is a challenge for many. Azure, AWS and GCP offer adequate services and platforms for streamlining processes and providing visibility into organizational modules. They pave the way for appropriate configuration, provisioning, monitoring and deployment of cloud resources. The services provided by them include catalogues of authorized services to a centralized access control unit. It seems that AWS and Azure have made heavier investments in this area in comparison to GCP. AWS also provides outsourced managed services through its application AWS Managed Services.

 

AWS

Azure

GCP

Server management

The AWS Systems Manager offers automation and visibility across different groups of resources.

Azure Operational Insights provides the platform for SaaS and operational data analysis.

N/A

Templates for cloud deployment

AWS Cloud Formation helps create text files for modelling and enabling the provision of cloud resources.

Azure Resource Manager deploys and controls the access to categorized resources. It encompasses templates attributed to Azure Building Blocks.

Resource Manager groups, manages and controls user access to different resources. It also allows for the tracking and management of various projects. The Cloud Deployment Manager enables template- driven deployment of resources in GCP.

What is AWS?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) refers to an evolving and comprehensive cloud computing platform. It is provided by Amazon. AWS features a mixed bag of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), packaged software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) offerings. This Amazon subsidiary is known for its on-demand cloud compute platforms for companies, individuals, and governments. The payment for using AWS is on a metered and pay-as-you-use basis.

AWS offers a primitive, abstract and technical infrastructure. AWS's virtual computer versions emulate many attributes of real computers including local/RAM memory, hardware for processing, different operating systems, networking capabilities, and pre-loaded applications like web servers, CRM, databases, etc.

What is Azure?

Microsoft Azure offers its users an ever-expanding collection of cloud services. It helps organisations manage and meet up to their business challenges. Azure provides users the freedom to construct, manage as well as deploy applications on global networks with its many tools and frameworks. Several layers of security and privacy are built into the Microsoft Azure platform. The solution partners of Azure help in the deployment of existing solutions; they also cater to custom solutions for their clients.

What is Google Cloud Platform?

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) refers to a suite of helpful cloud computing services running on the infrastructure that is provided by Google for end-user products like YouTube and Google Search. GCP offers several management tools, and modular cloud services of the likes of computing, machine learning, data storage and data analytics. Google Cloud Platform is known for its infrastructure as a service, serverless computing environments and platform as a service utility.

Google Cloud vs AWS vs Azure: The Best One?

The selection of the best cloud vendor would be dependent on your workloads and needs. While a first-hand comparison of Google vs aws vs azure may lead you to the best vendor for some of your projects, the selected vendor may not be good enough for your other projects.

The AWS Choice: AWS offers a wide collection of tools/services and scalability. In context to google cloud vs aws, AWS offers a broader catalogue of tools and services for users wanting a worldwide reach.

The Azure Choice: Microsoft shops are an attractive feature of Azure. Net code works on Azure, most server environments connect to Azure, and its tools makes it easy for users to migrate to on-premises apps. Investigate Azure if your organization runs on MS platform and uses different Microsoft software.

The Google Choice: Google’s cloud is built on its in-house strengths, which are scale, machine learning, etc. It is a lucrative option for web-based start-ups.

Which one will you choose- Azure, AWS or GCP?


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