Which cloud provider is better? The comparison of AWS, Azure, & Google Cloud
Cloud computing has become a hot topic nowadays. With the increasing number of companies shifting to the cloud, it has become interesting why and how they choose a certain provider. The three main leaders in the market are AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. The article aims at describing the strengths and weaknesses of each of them.
Synergy Research Group noted in their paper that 33% of the market share belongs to Amazon (2020). Then came Microsoft, having an 18% share. Lastly, Google Cloud was mentioned with around 10% of market share. However, this ranking does not mean that the best one is the AWS, and the worst is Google Cloud. Each of them has its own strengths and weaknesses, and depending on what your organization is doing, the best one might vary.
Even though Google Cloud has the least market share among the three, it has one of the most supportive programs for AI, which is increasing in popularity. It is projected that because of this fact alone, the share of Google in this market is going to rise significantly. With the introduction of Google Machine Learning Engineer Certification, which implies several years of experience developing machine learning models on Google Cloud, the number of practitioners is expected to rise.
However, Amazon also offers similar certification for its machine learning engineer users, and this certificate is even more popular than Google’s. The reason is that it was launched much before Google did and already marketed its offerings to the potential market. It becomes a matter of time to wait and see which platform takes over in the AI/ML side of the market.
Key Differences
The biggest of them is AWS, hosted by Amazon, one of the top players in the market. AWS was established the first and is one of the most experienced cloud providers in the market. It offers more variety of services and can be considered a “veteran” of cloud computing. AWS is present in the biggest number of regions, as compared with its competitors.
The next one to come was Microsoft Azure, which has less variety than AWS but is more suitable for enterprise customers. The reason is the high level of support for this group of customers. Azure is one of the key players in the market, as it showed a considerable amount of progress. The number of regions for this provider is less than that of AWS, but still quite satisfactory.
The newest among all three is Google Cloud Platform, backed by Google, one of the most important companies in the tech industry. Since its establishment, Google Cloud has proven itself as one of the most reliable and up-to-date cloud services present in the market. Google Cloud is available only in 20 regions, which is more than three times less than AWS, and two times less than Microsoft Azure.
Let’s review the pros and cons of each of the platforms to see the major differences.
AWS
What makes AWS the leader among all three, is its maturity as shown by the huge number of various services offered as well as a significant number of data centers worldwide. However, it is one of the most ambiguous options when it comes to cost. The pricing of AWS is usually found confusing, which makes it hard for its customers to efficiently manage the costs. This aspect makes AWS less preferred for small businesses, which have a high dependency on the cost structure.
Microsoft Azure
The major benefit of Azure is its integration with other Microsoft services. A significant deal of companies worldwide use Windows and other products of Microsoft, which means this integration is beneficial for them. Microsoft also keeps its customers by providing significant discounts for corporate packages and other benefits. However, it also comes with its own cons, such as the lack of proper documentation, training, and imperfect experience with the platform overall. Usually, the clients rank it as less user-friendly compared to AWS, which is one of the reasons why it still falls behind its competitor.
Google Cloud
The reason for Google’s popularity is the support for artificial intelligence, machine learning, and overall data management. Google has high computing power, as the platform is considered to be used by data and power-intensive tasks. The company has a significant number of data centers and the experience is extremely fast. As a specialist, who used their services, I can tell that if you are in ML or AI, you should definitely go for Google Cloud.
However, Google Cloud also has its downsides. It has fewer ties with corporations and does not offer the same corporate benefits as its competitors, thus making the service less attractive for enterprise customers. However, the situation is changing as the company realizes the need to align with this segment of the market. Apart from that, as Google Cloud is the youngest of the three, it has much less variety of offered services than its competitors.
So what should I choose?!
From the above analysis, we can see that each of the providers has its own ups and downs and there is no universal best for you and your company. Here are a few tips you should consider while choosing your provider.
Firstly, if you need a mature provider that will have almost anything you might need, and you do not need much-tailored solutions, you can go for AWS. Of course, if the cost is not an issue. You should also consider that this option suits best for public cloud.
Secondly, if you are a loyal user of Microsoft products and have the vast majority of their offerings, then Microsoft Azure might be a great choice. Considering its success in hybrid cloud, this provider might be the best for corporations.
Lastly, those who need high speed and data processing capability should choose Google Cloud. Even though this is the youngest of the three, the reputation of GCP is rising each year as the platform proves it to be one of the best for AI and ML. This will also be a good option for small companies that do not need a high variety of services and have a limited budget.
That’s it ;) Hope you found the article useful! Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions for the topic. For more info refer to these articles:
