A Fascinating Behind-the-Scenes Look at AWS, GCP and Azure Comparison
by Douglas Bernardini
With every year that passes, it becomes ever more apparent that migrating to the cloud is the only way for companies to truly compete and remain relevant in the long-term. Instead of wondering if your business should utilize cloud solutions, the question now facing business leaders is: which is the best cloud service provider for their needs?
When assessing cloud providers, CIOs and business owners alike are met with an overwhelming number of providers, features, products, services, hybrid solutions, and training options to consider. Similarly, IT professionals are looking at which products they should build their skillsets on to gain that competitive advantage in the job market, and rightly so.
According to Gartner’s estimations, the value of the worldwide public cloud service market will balloon to $494.7bn by the end of 2022; that’s a compound annual growth rate of 20.4%.
Choosing a cloud service provider
Any professional worth their salt will tell you that when it comes to identifying the kind of cloud services your business needs to operate at maximum efficiency, you can’t expect a one-size-fits-all solution.
Every organization has its own technological fingerprint; its own distinct set of requirements, goals, and operational nuances that need to be taken into consideration.
With that in mind, it’s worth remembering that the perfect fit for your business could be a hybrid approach; combining different products and services from a mix of leading vendors.
Let’s take a closer look at the top three top names in the industry: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

AWS: Pros and cons
AWS jumped into the game early as the very first major cloud vendor in the space around 16 years ago, claiming an impressive 33% of market share and generating $18.44bn in net sales in Q1 of 2022 alone.
The biggest strength AWS possesses is undoubtedly its maturity and dominance in the public cloud market, with its success and popularity linked to the sheer scale of its operation.
AWS boasts a huge, ever-growing range of products and services, and arguably the most comprehensive network of data centers the market currently has to offer. Today, it stands tall as the most established vendor, offering perhaps the richest capabilities when it comes to overseeing a massive number of resources and users.
Gartner’s report on cloud IaaS and PaaS vendors shows that AWS remains a clear leader in the market, dominating the cloud landscape and obviously benefiting from its early entrance into the cloud technology sphere.
Microsoft Azure continues to gain ground as the preferred service of existing Microsoft customers, with Google’s offering entering the cloud battleground relatively recently as a ‘leader’.
While other formidable competitors such as Alibaba Cloud and Oracle Cloud have also increased in popularity, AWS remains a strong front runner in the cloud computing industry, with competitors Azure and Google Cloud carving out their own modest share of the market.
Microsoft Azure: Pros and cons
Microsoft showed up on the cloud scene a little later than AWS, but certainly made up for it by adapting its existing on-premises offerings (e.g. Windows Server, Office, SQL Server, SharePoint, Dynamics, etc.) for the cloud.
Over a decade since its initial launch, Azure is a strong competitor to AWS, providing businesses with a great range of features, robust open-source support, and straightforward integration with other Microsoft tools. This makes it particularly well suited for Microsoft-centric organizations.
As a Microsoft product, Azure no doubt benefits from user familiarity with the brand, which creates an immediate preference for Azure among loyal Microsoft customers. While Azure has an investment focus on making architectural improvements and providing a broad range of enterprise-focused services, in its aforementioned Magic Quadrant report, Gartner noted that “Azure’s novel innovations in the market for IaaS and PaaS relative to its competitors over the past year were substantially less appealing.
Additionally, despite Microsoft Azure’s beginnings as an application PaaS provider, Azure’s product execution and adoption in this segment have been rather mixed.”
Users raised concerns surrounding the resiliency of critical services and the real-world impacts of these services being unavailable. Elsewhere, users also cited issues with commercial complexity and technical support as some primary pain-points when using the provider.
Google Cloud: Pros and cons
As a latecomer to the cloud market, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) naturally offers a more limited range of services and doesn’t command the same global spread of data centers offered by AWS and Azure. It does, however, give customers a highly specialized service in three main streams: big data, machine learning, and analytics, with good scale and stable load balancing, as well as those famously low response times.
Google’s container offering provides users with a significant advantage as it developed the very Kubernetes standard now utilized by competitors AWS and Azure.Customers tend to choose GCP as a secondary vendor in a hybrid solution, though it is becoming increasingly popular with organizations that are direct competitors with Amazon, and therefore cannot use AWS.
It’s important to note that GCP is very open-source- and DevOps-centric, and as a result does not integrate as well with Microsoft Azure.
AWS vs Azure vs Google: Pricing
When it comes to choosing a cloud vendor, pricing structures are notoriously complex and somewhat difficult to digest. This is primarily because there is no single way that providers bill customers; for example, AWS and GCP charge by the second, while Azure bills customers by the minute.
At a glance, this might not seem like much of a difference, however, that quickly changes when calculating the costs of deploying hundreds or thousands of virtual machines.The fact that many vendors also offer discounts makes matters slightly more complicated—a point to bear in mind when looking at the side-by-side comparison AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud: Security
AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud: Security
AWS is hailed for its top-quality security, utilizing the services of cybersecurity giant Fortinet for its Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) across the majority of availability zones on an on-demand basis.
Azure also works with Fortinet to provide optimized security services across its data and applications, minimizing security costs when it comes to migration, while GCP uses FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall for advanced security and firewalling.
AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud: The results
In the battle for cloud supremacy, who comes out of our cloud provider comparison on top?
- Most established: as the very first major cloud vendor, AWS is undoubtedly the most established cloud provider on the market
- Best availability: with the greatest number of regions and availability zones worldwide, AWS comes out on top for the best availability
- Biggest market share: boasting 33% of the market share, AWS remains the most popular cloud provider
- Fastest growth rate: GCP currently has the fastest growth rate of almost 100%
- Number of services: when it comes to the sheer number of services and tools available, AWS comes out on top once more
- Familiarity: as a Microsoft product providing straightforward integration with other Microsoft tools, Azure wins the race when it comes to customer familiarity
- Most cost-effective price: with the most customer-friendly pricing and discount models, GCP leads the way for the most cost-effective pricing
So, which cloud provider is right for me?
With Amazon winning our battle for cloud supremacy, is AWS the best cloud provider for your needs?
Answer: NO! The right answer is MULTICLOUD
The truth is that every cloud migration project is as unique as your own fingerprint and depends on your company’s specific needs, goals, industry, and resources.
A 2022 report has in fact shown that 89% of organizations reported having a multi-cloud strategy; 80% opted for a hybrid solution (combining public and private clouds).
When looking for the right cloud vendor for your enterprise, be sure to consider your particular requirements and workload, and remember that the answer could indeed lie in a combination of two or three cloud providers
SERVICES COMPARISON
AI and machine learning
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
AI containers | AWS Deep Learning Containers | GPU support on AKS | Deep Learning Containers |
AI prediction human review and moderation | Amazon Augmented AI (Amazon A2I) | Azure Content Moderator | N/A |
AI machine images | AWS Deep Learning AMIs | Data Science Virtual Machines | Deep Learning VM Image |
Chat bot builder | Amazon Lex | Azure Bot Service, Health Bot, QnA Maker | Dialogflow |
Data labeling | Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth | Azure Machine Learning data labeling | Vertex Data Labeling |
Document extraction, image content analysis | Amazon Textract | Azure Form Recognizer, Ink Recognizer, Computer Vision, Custom Vision | Vision API |
Image and video recognition, indexing | Amazon Rekognition | Azure Face, Video Indexer | Video AI |
Inference accelerator | Amazon Elastic Inference | GPUs on AKS | Cloud TPU, Edge TPU |
Language recognition, sentiment analysis | Amazon Comprehend | Azure Immersive Reader, Language Understanding, Text Analytics | Cloud Natural Language AI, Healthcare Natural Language AI |
Language translation | Amazon Translate | Speech Translation, Translator | Cloud Translation, Media Translation (beta) |
Machine learning hardware | AWS Inferentia, AWS Trainium (preview*) | FPGA | Cloud TPU |
Managed machine learning platform | Amazon SageMaker | Azure Machine Learning | TensorFlow Enterprise, Vertex AI |
Notebooks | Amazon EMR Notebooks | Integrations through Visual Studio, Azure and GitHub | Notebooks |
Online fraud detection | Amazon Fraud Detector | N/A | reCAPTCHA Enterprise |
Prediction review and moderation | Amazon Augmented AI, Amazon SageMaker Clarify | Azure Content Moderator | N/A |
Recommendation integration | Amazon Personalize | Personalizer | Recommendations AI |
Speech recognition | Amazon Transcribe | Speaker Recognition (preview), Speech to Text | Cloud Speech-to-Text API |
Text-to-speech | Amazon Polly | Text to Speech | Cloud Text-to-Speech API |
Time-series forecasting | Amazon Forecast | N/A | N/A |
Vision/speech modeling packaged devices | AWS DeepLens | Azure Kinect DK | N/A |
Analytics
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Big data processing | Amazon EMR | Azure Databricks, Azure HDInsight | Dataproc |
Business analytics | Amazon QuickSight, Amazon FinSpace | Power BI Embedded, Microsoft Graph Data Connect (preview) | Looker, Google Data Studio |
Data lake creation | Amazon HealthLake (preview), AWS Lake Formation | Azure Data Lake Storage | Cloud Storage |
Data sharing | AWS Data Exchange, AWS Lake Formation | Azure Data Share | Analytics Hub (preview), Cloud Dataprep (partnership with Trifacta) |
Data warehousing | Amazon Redshift | Azure Synapse Analytics | BigQuery |
ETL | AWS Glue, Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose, Amazon SageMaker Data Wrangler | Azure Data Factory | Cloud Data Fusion, Dataflow, Dataproc |
Hosted Hadoop/Spark | Amazon EMR | Azure HDInsight | Dataproc |
Managed search | Amazon CloudSearch, Amazon Elasticsearch Service, Amazon Kendra | Azure Cognitive Search, Bing Search API | Cloud Search |
Managed Kafka | Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka | Azure Event Hubs for Apache Kafka | N/A (available through a partnership with Confluent) |
Real-time data streaming | Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics, Amazon Kinesis Data Streams | Azure Stream Analytics | Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Datastream (preview) |
Query service, data exploration | Amazon Athena, Amazon Elasticsearch Service, Amazon Managed Service for Grafana (preview) | SQL Server ML Services, Big Data Clusters (Spark), Data Lake Analytics, SQL Server Analysis Services, Azure Data Explorer | BigQuery |
Application integration
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
API development and management | Amazon API Gateway, AWS AppSync | Azure API Apps | API Gateway, Apigee, Cloud Endpoints |
Distributed app coordination | Amazon Simple Workflow Service, AWS Step Functions | Logic Apps | Cloud Tasks |
Event routing, third-party integration | Amazon AppFlow, Amazon EventBridge, Amazon Simple Notification Service | Event Grid | Pub/Sub |
Messaging | Amazon MQ, Amazon Simple Queue Service | Azure Web PubSub (preview), Queue Storage, Service Bus | Pub/Sub |
Service discovery | AWS Cloud Map | N/A | N/A |
Service mesh | AWS App Mesh | Open Service Mesh AKS add-on (preview) | Anthos Service Mesh |
Workflow orchestration | AWS Data Pipeline, Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow | Logic Apps | Cloud Composer, Workflows |
Business applications**
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Collaboration tool suite | N/A | Microsoft 365 | Google Workspace |
Document sharing and storage | Amazon WorkDocs | Microsoft Word | Google Docs, Google Workspace Essentials |
Email and calendar | Amazon WorkMail | Outlook | Gmail |
Low-code/no-code | Amazon Honeycode (preview) | Microsoft PowerApps, Project Bonsai (preview) | AppSheet |
Video calls and chat | Amazon Chime | Microsoft Teams | Google Meet |
Voice assistant | Alexa for Business | Cortana | Google Assistant |
Compute
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Autoscaling | AWS EC2 Auto Scaling | Azure Autoscale, Azure virtual machine scale sets | Managed instance groups (MIGs) |
Batch scheduling, executing and processing | AWS Batch | Azure Batch | Batch on GKE (preview), Cloud Scheduler |
Functions as a service | AWS Lambda | Azure Functions | Cloud Functions |
5G-based infrastructure | AWS Wavelength | Azure Edge Zones | Global Mobile Edge Cloud (GMEC) |
High performance computing cluster management | AWS ParallelCluster | Azure CycleCloud, Azure FXT Edge Filer | N/A |
VM image builder | EC2 Image Builder | Azure VM Image Builder | N/A |
Isolated servers | Dedicated Instances | Azure Dedicated Host | Sole-tenant Nodes, Shielded VMs |
PaaS | AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS | App Service, Azure Cloud Services, Azure Spring Cloud, Azure Red Hat OpenShift | App Engine |
On-premises/edge devices | AWS Outposts, AWS Snow Family | Azure Modular Datacenter, Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack HCI, Azure Stack Edge | N/A |
Quantum computing | Amazon Braket | Azure Quantum (preview) | N/A |
Virtual machines | Amazon EC2 | Virtual Machines | Compute Engine |
Virtual private server | Amazon Lightsail | N/A | N/A |
VMware integration | VMware Cloud on AWS | Azure VMware Solution | VMware Engine |
Containers
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Container registry | Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), ECR Public | Azure Container Registry | Artifact Registry, Container Registry |
Managed container service | AWS Copilot, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) | Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) | Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) |
Serverless containers | AWS App Runner, AWS Fargate | Azure Container Instances (ACI) | Cloud Run |
Cost controls
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Long-term commitment discount programs | EC2 Reserved Instances, Savings Plans | Reservations, Azure Hybrid Benefit | Committed use discounts, sustained use discounts |
Low-cost, interruptible VMs | EC2 Spot | Azure Spot Virtual Machines | Preemptible Virtual Machines |
Optimization tools | Amazon CodeGuru, Amazon DevOps Guru, AWS Compute Optimizer, AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Well-Architected Tool | Azure Advisor, Azure Well-Architected Review | Recommender, Network Intelligence Center, Cloud Profiler |
Spending tracker and analysis | AWS Budgets, AWS Cost Anomaly Detection, AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Cost and Usage Report, Reserved Instance Reporting | Azure Cost Management and Billing | Cost Management |
Databases
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Blockchain | Amazon Managed Blockchain, Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) | Azure Blockchain Service (preview), Azure Blockchain Development Kit, Azure Blockchain Workbench (preview), Microsoft Azure Confidential Ledger (preview) | N/A |
Caching | Amazon ElastiCache (Memcached, Redis) | Azure Cache for Redis, Azure HPC Cache | Cloud Memorystore |
NoSQL: Column-family | Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) | Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra (preview) | Cloud Bigtable |
NoSQL: Document | Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility), Amazon DynamoDB | Azure Cosmos DB | Cloud Firestore, Firebase Realtime Database |
NoSQL: Graph | Amazon Neptune | Azure Cosmos DB Gremlin API | N/A |
NoSQL: Key-value | Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Keyspaces | Azure Cosmos DB, Table storage | Cloud Bigtable, Firestore |
Relational database management system | Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, MariaDB), Amazon RDS on VMware | Azure Database (MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL), Azure SQL (Database, Edge, Managed Instance) | Cloud SQL (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server), Cloud Spanner |
Time-series database | Amazon Timestream | Azure Time Series Insights | Cloud Bigtable |
Developer tools
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
App configuration parameter storage | AWS AppConfig | App Configuration | Cloud Storage |
Artifact management | AWS CodeArtifact | Azure Artifacts, GitHub Packages | Artifact Registry (preview) |
Code debugging | AWS X-Ray | Visual Studio Code | Cloud Debugger, Firebase Crashlytics |
CI/CD | AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS CodePipeline, AWS CodeStar | Azure Boards, Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines | Cloud Build, Tekton |
Development kits | AWS Cloud Development Kit, Amazon Corretto | Azure SDKs | Cloud SDK |
IDEs and other tools for interacting with cloud resources | AWS Cloud9, AWS CLI, AWS CloudShell, Amazon EMR Studio | Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, Azure Cloud Shell, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code | Cloud Code, Tools for Eclipse, Tools for PowerShell |
Lab environment | N/A | Azure Lab Services, Azure DevTest Labs | N/A |
Mobile and Web app development | AWS Amplify | App Service, Mobile Apps, Xamarin with Azure, Web Apps, Static Web Apps | Google Firebase |
Private repository | AWS CodeCommit, AWS Serverless Application Repository | Azure Repos | Cloud Source Repositories |
Testing | AWS Device Farm, AWS Fault Injection Simulator | Visual Studio App Center, Azure Test Plans, Azure Internet Analyzer (preview) | Google Firebase Test Lab |
IoT
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Cloud-device connections, data collection and management | AWS IoT Analytics, AWS IoT Core, AWS IoT Device Defender, AWS IoT Device Management, AWS IoT Events, AWS IoT SiteWise | Azure IoT Central, Azure IoT Hub, Azure Defender for IoT, Azure Sphere | Cloud IoT Core |
IoT edge compute | AWS Greengrass | Azure IoT Edge, Azure Percept (preview) | Edge TPU |
Microcontroller OS | FreeRTOS | Azure RTOS | N/A |
Virtual modeling | AWS IoT Things Graph | Azure Digital Twins | N/A |
Management and governance
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Automation | AWS CloudFormation, AWS Proton, AWS OpsWorks | Azure Resource Manager, Azure Automation | Cloud Deployment Manager, Cloud Foundation Toolkit, Cloud Scheduler |
Anomaly detection | CloudWatch Anomaly Detection | Anomaly Detector | Anomaly Detection |
Application portfolio and data governance | AWS Service Catalog | Azure Managed Applications, Azure Blueprints (preview), Azure Purview (preview) | Dataplex, Private Catalog, Service Directory |
Automated Windows Server management | N/A | Azure Automanage (preview) | N/A |
Configuration management | AWS Config | Azure App Configuration | Cloud Asset Inventory |
Health dashboard | Personal Health Dashboard | Resource Health, Azure Service Health | Cloud Monitoring |
Hybrid and multi-cloud management | Amazon EKS Anywhere (preview), Amazon ECS Anywhere | Azure Arc | Google Anthos, Network Connectivity Center (preview) |
License management | AWS License Manager | N/A | N/A |
Monitoring | Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon CloudWatch Logs, AWS Transit Gateway Network Manager, Amazon Lookout for Metrics, Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus (preview) | Azure Monitor, Network Watcher, Log Analytics, Azure Metrics Advisor (preview) | Operations, Cloud Operations for GKE (formerly Stackdriver), Network Intelligence Center |
Multi-account management | AWS Control Tower, AWS Organizations | Azure Management Groups, Azure Lighthouse | N/A |
Policy management | AWS Organizations | Azure Policy | Organization Policy Service |
Telemetry collection and response | AWS Systems Manager, AWS Distro for Open Telemetry (preview) | Azure Monitor | Network Telemetry |
Web-based user interface | AWS Management Console | Azure Portal | Cloud Console |
Migration
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Database migration | AWS Database Migration Service | Azure Database Migration Service | Database Migration Service (preview) |
Data transfer appliance | Snow Family | Data Box | Transfer Appliance |
Disaster recovery | CloudEndure Disaster Recovery | Azure Site Recovery | N/A |
Online data transfer | AWS DataSync, AWS Transfer Family | Azure File Sync | BigQuery Data Transfer Service, Cloud Data Transfer |
On-premises application analysis | AWS Application Discovery Service, Migration Evaluator | Azure Migrate, Movere, Azure Resource Mover | N/A |
On-premises and cloud storage integration | Storage Gateway | StorSimple | N/A (offered by partner Cloudian) |
Migration tracker | AWS Migration Hub | Azure Migrate | N/A |
Server migration | AWS App2Container, AWS Server Migration Service, CloudEndure Migration | Azure Migrate | Migrate for Anthos, Migrate for Compute Engine, VM migration |
Miscellaneous
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Customer engagement | Amazon Connect, Contact Lens for Amazon Connect | Azure Communication Services, Azure SignalR Service | Contact Center AI |
End user communications | Amazon Pinpoint, Amazon Simple Email Service | Azure Notification Hubs | Firebase Cloud Messaging |
Gaming | Amazon GameLift, Amazon Lumberyard | Game Stack | Game Servers |
Geolocation APIs and services | Amazon Maps API, Amazon Location Service | Azure Maps | Google Maps Platform |
Genomics | N/A | Microsoft Genomics | Cloud Life Sciences (preview) |
Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources | FHIR Works on AWS | Azure API for FHIR | Apigee HealthAPIx, Cloud Healthcare API |
Industrial and other workplace monitoring tools | Amazon Lookout for Vision, Amazon Lookout for Equipment, Amazon Panorama (preview), Amazon Monitron | Azure IoT | Vision AI, Visual Inspection AI |
Media services | Amazon Elastic Transcoder, AWS Elemental suite, Amazon Interactive Video Service, Amazon Kinesis Video Streams | Azure Media Player, Content Protection, Encoding, Live and On-Demand Streaming, Azure Video Analyzer (preview), Media Services | OpenCue, Transcoder API (preview) |
Mobile access to internal web apps | Amazon WorkLink | N/A | Identity-Aware Proxy |
Robotics application development | AWS RoboMaker | N/A | Cloud Robotics Core |
Satellite ground stations | AWS Ground Station | Azure Orbital (preview) | N/A |
Virtual desktop | Amazon WorkSpaces, Amazon AppStream 2.0 | Azure Virtual Desktop, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure | N/A |
Virtual reality, mixed reality app development | Amazon Sumerian | Azure Digital Twins, Kinect DK, Object Anchors (preview), Remote Rendering (preview), Spatial Anchors | Google VR |
Networking
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Build, deploy and manage APIs | Amazon API Gateway | Azure API Apps, API Management | Apigee API Management Platform |
Content delivery network | Amazon CloudFront | Content Delivery Network (CDN) | Cloud CDN |
Dedicated fiber connection between VPCs and private network | AWS Direct Connect | Azure ExpressRoute | Cloud Interconnect |
Domain name system | Amazon Route 53 | Azure DNS | Cloud DNS |
Load balancing | Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) | Application Gateway, Load Balancer, Traffic Manager | Cloud Load Balancing |
Network accelerator | AWS Global Accelerator | Accelerated Networking | Premium Network Service Tier |
Network area translation | NAT Gateway | Virtual Network NAT, Azure Route Server (preview) | Cloud NAT |
Satellite ground station | AWS Ground Station | Azure Orbital (preview) | N/A |
Service discovery | Amazon ECS, AWS Cloud Map | N/A | GKE |
Traffic control plane | AWS App Mesh | Azure Front Door, Azure Service Fabric | Traffic Director |
Virtual WAN | N/A | Virtual WAN | N/A |
VPC | Amazon VPC | Azure Virtual Network | Virtual Private Cloud |
VPC/VM secure connector | AWS Transit Gateway, AWS VPN | Azure Bastion, Azure Private Link, Azure VPN gateway | Cloud VPN, Direct Peering, VPC Service Controls |
Security
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Audit and compliance reports and controls | AWS Artifact, AWS Audit Manager | Service Trust Portal | Assured Workloads |
Centralized security management | AWS Security Hub | Security Center | Security Command Center |
Certificate management | AWS Certificate Manager | App Service | Certificate Authority Service |
Confidential computing | AWS Nitro Enclaves | Azure Confidential Computing | Confidential Computing |
Container deploy-time security control | N/A | N/A | Binary Authorization |
Data discovery and classification | Amazon Macie | Data Catalog, Azure Information Protection | Data Catalog, Cloud Data Loss Prevention |
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection | AWS Shield | Azure DDoS Protection | Google Cloud Armor |
End-user identity management | Amazon Cognito | Azure Active Directory B2C | Firebase Authentication |
Firewall management | AWS Firewall Manager, AWS Network Firewall, AWS WAF | Azure Firewall Manager, Web Application Firewall | Cloud Armor, Cloud firewalls |
Identity and access management | AWS Identity and Access Management | Azure Active Directory, role-based access control (Azure RBAC), Azure Active Directory External Identities | BeyondCorp Enterprise, Identity and Access Management, Identity Platform, Identity-Aware Proxy |
Key management | AWS Key Management Service, AWS CloudHSM | Key Vault, Azure Dedicated HSM | Cloud Key Management |
Multifactor authentication | AWS Multi-Factor Authentication | Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication | Google Authenticator, Titan Security Key |
Microsoft Active Directory compatible directory service | AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory | Azure Active Directory Domain Service | Managed Service for Microsoft Active Directory |
Resource access management | AWS Resource Access Manager | Azure Resource Manager | Resource Manager |
Security data analysis | Amazon Detective | Security Center | Chronicle, Risk Protection Program (preview) |
Secrets management | AWS Secrets Manager | Azure Key Vault | Secret Manager |
Single sign-on | AWS Single Sign-On | Azure Active Directory single single-on | Cloud Identity |
Signoff for cloud provider data access requests | N/A | Customer Lockbox | Access Transparency |
Threat Detection | Amazon GuardDuty | Microsoft Azure Attestation, Azure Defender, Azure Sentinel | Chronicle, Phishing Protection, Web Risk, Event Threat Detection (preview) |
Vulnerability scanning | Amazon Inspector | Security Center | Web Security Scanner |
Storage
AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
Archival storage | S3 Glacier, S3 Glacier Deep Archive | Archive Storage | Archive Storage |
Backup | AWS Backup | Azure Backup | N/A |
Block storage | Amazon Block Store (EBS) | Azure Disk Storage | Persistent Disk, Local SSD |
File storage | Amazon Elastic File Service (EFS), Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, Amazon FSx for Lustre | Avere vFXT for Azure, Azure Files, Azure NetApp Files, Azure FXT Edge Filer | Filestore |
Object storage | Amazon S3 | Azure Blob Storage | Cloud Storage, Cloud Storage for Firebase |
*AWS, Google and Microsoft use different terminology to describe services that are in preview, beta or alpha. For the purposes of this piece, any service that is not generally available is listed as being in preview.
**Several Google and Microsoft services in this section are not explicitly available through Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, respectively. They are part of each vendor’s broader cloud portfolio.