AWS vs Google Cloud vs Azure

Cloud platforms: features, costs, and which one won't surprise you with the bill.

When to Use This Comparison

Deploy this when choosing cloud infrastructure, migrating from on-premise, evaluating multi-cloud strategies, or when current cloud costs feel out of control. Most relevant when infrastructure decisions have long-term implications.

Decision Context

Your ideal cloud platform depends on existing ecosystem, team expertise, specific service needs, cost sensitivity, and whether you're optimizing for breadth versus depth of services. Startups have different needs than enterprises with existing Microsoft contracts.

Key Tradeoffs

AWS offers the broadest service catalog and market dominance but complex pricing and overwhelming options. GCP provides superior data and ML services with cleaner pricing but smaller market share. Azure excels at Microsoft ecosystem integration but service maturity varies.

What we’re judging
Service breadth
Range of services and maturity across categories.
Pricing clarity
How easy it is to understand and predict costs.
Data/ML services
Quality of database, analytics, and ML offerings.
Ecosystem
Tools, integrations, marketplace, and community.
Enterprise support
Compliance, contracts, and support quality.
Verdict
AWS remains the safe default for most companies due to service breadth and ecosystem. GCP is strongest for data and ML workloads. Azure wins for Microsoft-centric enterprises and hybrid cloud scenarios.