Amazon Web Services vs. IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon Web Services
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing services. With over 165 services offered, AWS services can provide users with a comprehensive suite of infrastructure and computing building blocks and tools.
$0
per month
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers are customizable, public or private, cloud-based servers available from IBM. User can launch applications and software across blended, hybrid environments as the servers integrate with all cloud models.
$0.01
per hour
Pricing
Amazon Web ServicesIBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Editions & Modules
Free Tier
$0
per month
Basic Environment
$100 - $200
per month
Intermediate Environment
$250 - $600
per month
Advanced Environment
$600-$2500
per month
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers (dedicated host)
starting at $0.22
per hour
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers (dedicated host)
starting at $149.00
per month
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers (multi-tenant)
starting at $0.038
per hour
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers (multi-tenant)
starting at $25.21
per month
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers (reserved)
starting at $0.02
per hour
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers (reserved)
starting at $13.27
per month
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers (transient)
starting at $0.01
per hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon Web ServicesIBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsAWS allows a “save when you commit” option that offers lower prices when you sign up for a 1- or 3- year term that includes an AWS service or category of services.IBM Cloud virtual servers include 250 GB of outbound public bandwidth, unmetered inbound public bandwidth, and unmetered private and management network bandwidth.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon Web ServicesIBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Considered Both Products
Amazon Web Services
Chose Amazon Web Services
In my personal experience, AWS is superior to both GCP and Azure in the majority of usable applications. GCP suffers from the near total misunderstanding of how support system is even supposed to work, and while _some_ services are pretty nifty and well-polished, some are …
Chose Amazon Web Services
AWS stands out in its ability to adapt technology more quickly. All the new features, first adapted by AWS, make it the market leader. The key metrics, such as MTTR, are among the best among all other cloud service providers. The AWS dashboard and analytics features are very …
Chose Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services Lambda supports more triggers, richer language/runtime support, and has tighter integrations with Amazon Web Services, as compared to Azure/Google Cloud functions.Amazon Web Services also has better global infrastructure, with 33 regions and 105 availability …
Chose Amazon Web Services
We tried various other cloud providers and features provided by them.
Many of the cloud providers have similar features but there are few factors which make Amazon Web Services cloud as preferable choice of our bank are cost, location of Amazon Web Services datacenter where it …
Chose Amazon Web Services
Apart from Amazon Web Services, we use Microsoft Azure in some of our projects. I have some basic experience in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) as well. If given a choice, I would prefer using Amazon Web Services over Azure or GCP. I find provisioning of resources relatively faster …
Chose Amazon Web Services
we feel that Azure is a little more clunky and not as user friendly as the AWS model.
Chose Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services is better among all of them due to its performance, stability, security and navigation. It effectively saves the cost and provides better facilities than the other competitors. It plays great role when it comes to user friendly interface. It also provided …
Chose Amazon Web Services
AWS has the largest market share and most established and over 200 services for diverse needs. AWS has a very power user interface and pay as you go work well that others. AWS has the by far largest network of data centers for low latency and high availability. The regular …
Chose Amazon Web Services

Better global availability and use across industries.
AWS has a great ecosystem of experts, developers, solution architects and it helps to get to know them at various AWS events across the world
Chose Amazon Web Services
Ive only used amazon web services for cloud computing, and the decision was made by the CTO.
Chose Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services is much more mature than all of the cloud service providers out in the market. It has 300+ services that solve almost all of your cloud problems.
Chose Amazon Web Services
Compared to other providers like Google Cloud Platform(GCP) and Microsoft Azure, [Amazon Web Services] has a wider range of services, which help you easier implement the solution you want. Also, they have been in the market for more years than their competitors. Moreover, they …
Chose Amazon Web Services
Amazon SageMaker is being extensively used by our R&D department for machine learning models development and research purposes. We work in Jupyter notebooks hosted on SageMaker notebook instances rather than notebooks hosted in local machines by doing so most ML algorithms …
Chose Amazon Web Services
Terrible. Same as above.
Chose Amazon Web Services
I feel AWS usage of services by global clients has been the most compared to Azure or Openshift.
AWS service offering's and usage are economical and much more secured. Its has build an ecosystem of providing all the services capabilities under one umbrella . It provides …
Chose Amazon Web Services
The decision was made to go with AWS because of name recognition and familiarity by contractors we hired. I checked out Google Compute Engine a few years ago, and it did have similar option set, however Google in general was behind Amazon's offerings.
Chose Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services fits best for all levels of organisations like startup, mid level or enterprise. The services are easy to use and doesn't require a high level of understanding as you can learn via blogs or youtube videos. AWS is Reasonable in cost as the plan is pay as you …
Chose Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services is well suited when we have a huge amount of data to store, process, manipulate and get meaningful information out of. It is also suitable when we need very fast data retrieval from the database. They provide a superior product at a fair price which allows …
Chose Amazon Web Services
Both the services are in the field for quite sometime. And the biggest competitor of Amazon Web Services is Microsoft Azure. Though, Azure easily connects with Microsoft services like a jelly, even in AWS its so easy. And the best thing is due to its vast variety community …
Chose Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services has a much more seasoned and known set of tools. The learning resources and documentation is much more prevalent and applicable to more scenarios which definitely helps with implementation. Google cloud does offer comparable products, and the user interface …
Chose Amazon Web Services
We evaluated Google Cloud and Azure at the beginning of our cloud journey but at that time, AWS was so far ahead of the other public cloud providers that there was no question about whether or not to go with AWS. They have the broadest catalog of services and their support is …
Chose Amazon Web Services
We have investigated Azure as well, for this specific need it made the most sense to go with [Amazon Web Services], the design was much simpler to get going. We have also used Azure for some of the other deployments that we have done with SaaS systems. These are the two …
Chose Amazon Web Services
Our tech team was comfortable with Amazon Web Services and that is why we started with Amazon Web Services. In the meantime, we searched for other services like Amazon Web Services but it seems that facilities like Elastic Bean and the first year free made us stick to Amazon …
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
We found it necessary to look at some alternatives to our normal cloud and server services. For the larger temorary projects, and trouble shooting issues we found IBM Cloud was suitable.
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
We have not necessarily used any other products, we may be using them in our junior companies or our sub-workplaces but there's nothing that I know off so far.
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Have used it because of previous IBM partership, and also because of the need to test Linux on Z series.
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers offer more customization options than Amazon EC2, with the ability to select from a range of operating systems, storage types, and network configurations. IBM also provides a wide range of tools and services to help manage and optimize your virtual …
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
We decided to make use of IBM Virtual Cloud Servers because we were offered IBM Credits and assistance for set up. Our experience was unfortunately negative and in particular, we feel that IBM Cloud Virtual Servers would benefit from having more personnel available to provide …
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Overall, IBM is more expensive, but provides a lot of support for these cloud virtual servers as well as makes it very easy to configure these servers to the desired needs. The usability of IBM is sometimes not as good as others, but the availability of these servers is fairly …
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
IBM virtual server is the most trusted brand to get good supports and high productivity. We used it for the most scalable servers to use and meet the needs. It provides scalability, security all in a single place to backup and use and store your data without any worry.
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
I think both IBM Cloud Virtual Servers and Google Compute Engine are good products. Each works the best when they are being used with other solutions in their respective clouds. When products in each ecosystem are used in conjunction, they work really well. When working with …
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
We have our running cloud projects hosted on Amazon EC2 and our primary option is always amazon because the team are more experienced with AWS, now we are looking into other options in the market
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
The selection of Virtual servers is easy and deployments and upgrades are easy to handle compared to the IBM cloud. Firstly UI is very easy and helps us to choose and customize fast without delay in critical times.AWS has a lot of varieties in instances we can choose based on …
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
IBM Power Virtual server offers machines certified by SAP. This means that SAP HANA runs perfectly without bottlenecks due to underpowered hardware.
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
This is our first foray into the Virtual Servers world, so I cannot give an accurate comparison to any other services yet.
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
AWS ec2 instance sometimes stops accidentally without any cloud watch alarms and sometimes instance not reachable. I used to connect with support for it but [it] never got resolved. IBM Cloud [Virtual Servers] has dedicated support with free support options and direct call …
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Google Compute Engine and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Google Compute Engine
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Cloudflare is awesome for [a] global edge -- accelerate end-user accessibility. We use IBM Cloud Virtual Servers as the backend service layer.
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers is much more appropriate than IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers as a remote development machine, as it is only being billed for a third of the day. However, it has fewer options (such as not having access to the T4 GPU).

Compared to IBM Watson Machine …
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Not used others to provide a comparison, but will be delighted to provide once others are used.
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
They are equally in power with the competitor, with some give or takes, easy to use and very flexible.
Chose IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
We used to have our virtual machines at a contender, however, IBMs item range is substantially more practical which expanded our ROI. When I started using IBM for all my hosting solutions, I became a really big fan. They have well-built security and other features.
Features
Amazon Web ServicesIBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Web Services
8.2
Ratings
2% above category average
IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
8.7
Ratings
8% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime9.30 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Dynamic scaling9.00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Elastic load balancing9.70 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Pre-configured templates7.40 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Monitoring tools7.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images6.50 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Operating system support8.10 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Security controls8.30 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Automation8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon Web ServicesIBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Small Businesses
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 8.7 out of 10
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.5 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.5 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon Web ServicesIBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.2
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Web ServicesIBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC
Likelihood to Recommend
We are using RDS for the database services. With RDS, we don't have to manage much, as most of the DBA tasks are automated. For development purposes, we are using Kubernetes pods, which makes it easy to deploy applications and scale up as needed. AWS integration with in-house applications is seamless, making it easy to keep a data-sensitive application on-premises while still utilizing AWS services.
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One scenario that immediately came to my mind was large-scale data processing, IBM Cloud Virtual Servers is well-suited for organizations that require high-performance computing capabilities, particularly when processing large amounts of data. It can also be useful for companies or organizations that wish to migrate their workplace to the cloud and it may suite companies that have strict compliance requirements since the servers have robust security features.
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Pros
  • Starting an instance and accessing it for testing purpose, demo or production deployment its always easy.
  • All the things which are available over AWS are pretty well managed and easy to use.
  • You might find everything you required for an product and other development over AWS.
  • Its suitable for both either an enterprise or an startup
  • Various resources and documentation are available in case you struck somewhere.
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  • Scalability: IBM Cloud Virtual Servers enable businesses to simply and quickly scale up or down the resources they require in response to changing business demands. This enables firms to respond to traffic spikes, requests for new services, or changes in business size without the need for additional hardware purchases or maintenance.
  • Cost savings: By employing virtual servers in the cloud, enterprises can decrease capital expenditures for hardware and infrastructure while also lowering ongoing operational expenses by removing server maintenance and management costs. This can result in significant cost savings for enterprises, particularly those that need to raise or decrease their computer capacity fast and easily.
  • High availability: IBM Cloud Virtual Servers is built with high availability in mind, giving enterprises the certainty that their applications and data will be available and accessible even if hardware fails or other disruptions occur. This assists enterprises in maintaining business continuity and lowering the chance of downtime, which is crucial for firms that rely on 24/7 access to their systems. Furthermore, IBM's comprehensive network and security features aid in the prevention of data breaches and other security risks, assuring the availability and reliability of their applications and data.
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Cons
  • The AWS Management Console can be overwhelming. so a better dashboard and organizing it would improve usability.
  • The pricing models are complex. We need a more clear price calculators and cost management tools to manage our expenses better.
  • Enhancements in cross service compatibility and easier third party integrations could streamline workflow.
  • Simplifying model training in SageMaker and improving IAM for granular access control would make AWS more user friendly
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  • Softlayer is designed primarily for advanced clients, and can be a little finicky like many other advanced services, such as highly-customizable options for nearly every part of a service. You build your servers by specs, just like a real server, rather than clicking a few buttons to get a basic cookie-cutter server.
  • Costs are much higher than one would expect, however, you do get what you pay for, and having high-quality equipment available at hourly rates is going to cost.
  • Support is surprisingly mediocre, and the primary cause of most complaints about softlayer. I personally have had no problems with support, but, remember that this is an "advanced" service, and even my eyes go cross-eyed looking at the config options of a server. I would imagine support is focused and trained for dealing with experienced Linux admins, and developers, and would not be of much help to anyone that accidentally ventured in, expecting an EC2 style experience.
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Likelihood to Renew
I would gladly rely on AWS for any large-scale application deployment. For prototyping and small-scale applications, a more heavily managed environment on top of the 'bare metal' virtual infrastructure, such as Heroku or Elastic Bean Stalk, is probably a more productive approach in most cases
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It has a flexible and affordable pricing, easy to configure and manage. It is easy to spawn one or multiple instances and have them up and running in no time
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Usability
Amazon Web Services is a great tool when it comes to middle size organizations like us. It provides multiple tools and functionalities in low costs. The best feature we have to pay as we go. No financial burden on company for the unused instances. It also comes with greater level of security such as two level authorization such as multi factor authorization.
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No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Availability is very good, with the exception of occasional spectacular outages.
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Always available when you need an instance.
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Performance
AWS does not provide the raw performance that you can get by building your own custom infrastructure. However, it is often the case that the benefits of specialized, high-performance hardware do not necessarily outweigh the significant extra cost and risk. Performance as perceived by the user is very different from raw throughput.
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Most of the instances work on hypervisors with good processors, but not all of them.
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Support Rating
The customer support of Amazon Web Services are quick in their responses. I appreciate its entire team, which works amazingly, and provides professional support. AWS is a great tool, indeed, to provide customers a suitable way to
immediately search for their compatible software's and also to guide them in a
good direction. Moreover, this product is a good suggestion for every type of
company because of its affordability and ease of use.
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It is adequate, but you need to be ready to argue your point - which is fair enough, I suppose, but being given the opposite of the benefit of the doubt every time does not necessarily result in an enjoyable user experience.
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Implementation Rating
The API's were very well documented and was Janova's main point of entry into the services.
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We did not use IBM professional services to implement IBM Cloud Virtual Servers.
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Alternatives Considered
In my personal experience, AWS is superior to both GCP and Azure in the majority of usable applications. GCP suffers from the near total misunderstanding of how support system is even supposed to work, and while _some_ services are pretty nifty and well-polished, some are mindbogglingly designed black boxes with self-conflicting documentation. Some of it comes from having legacy systems, sure, but AWS somehow manages, even having a rather big lead start. Azure, from my limited experience, is limited to people somehow coerced into its usage by external constraints. That being said, IF you can design and implement something there, it will probably run fine.
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IBM Cloud Virtual Servers offer more customization options than Amazon EC2, with the ability to select from a range of operating systems, storage types, and network configurations. IBM also provides a wide range of tools and services to help manage and optimize your virtual servers, including a web-based console, CLI, and API.

AWS EC2 is a more managed platform, with a focus on providing a simple and easy-to-use interface. Amazon provides a range of predefined instance types, each with different specs and pricing, to make it easy to find the right option for your needs. AWS also offers a number of management and monitoring tools, but these are often more basic than what is available from IBM.
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
It worked well for us in the beginning, it works well for us when we have more instances.
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Return on Investment
  • Provisioning resources like large database instances is really quick. We can easily scale our instances up or down as per need.
  • Storing files in S3 instead of onprem NAS drives is much more economical, especially for the files stored in glacier deep archive for compliance purposes.
  • Backup snapshots of EBS volumes and RDS instances may increase the cost of cloud if not cleaned up properly.
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  • IBM Cloud Virtual Servers has allowed us to reduce our costs of training and development by 100%. We no longer need hardware that is specific to the development environment. This means we can act more quickly on new business initiatives since they are not hampered by the availability of hardware, downtime, or maintenance windows. The time savings stemming from this alone makes the investment pay for itself.
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