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I'd be interested in hearing HN's experiences about Azure and how it stacks up against AWS and GCP. What I've been seeing in enterprise settings is that compan

I'd be interested in hearing HN's experiences about Azure and how it stacks up against AWS and GCP. What I've been seeing in enterprise settings is that companies that are already using Windows Virtual Desktops feel more comfortable using Azure vs the competition.

ianai 7y ago
Many places are just Microsoft shops with very few (meaning 1) or no other sorts of systems. They’re not shopping around for options outside Ms.
Miraste 7y ago
Azure has solid integration with most Microsoft products. The more of a Microsoft tech stack a company already has, the easier a sell it is. If you're using .NET, Azure is easier to set up and easier to maintain. If you're not already on the Microsoft side of the fence, I'm not sure how they compare, but I suspect AWS is better--although we did have that story a while back about how Azure runs more Linux than Windows Server.
michannne 7y ago
From using both, my recommendation is AWS for anything Node-based, Azure for anything else. GCP is severely lacking to both and has never struck me as a serious contender, but maybe there are industries that benefit from the simplicity. I like the control AWS gives you, but it is overwhelming at times. On Azure, everything feels easier to find, and there is not such a steep learning curve. I can set up a site, a repo, my CI/CD pipeline, and a DB within minutes, complete with qa, staging and production deployment cycles, telemetry, and alerts. The reason I wouldn't recommend Node-based deployments with this flow is because Visual Studio and VSTS does not play well with node, feels like it is constantly fighting you to use anything but Node, but for a project in React and an ASP Net Core server, it's incredibly seamless. Meanwhile on AWS, I feel like the control of VMs is a lot better to control. It is more intuitive to set up load balancing schemes on AWS, and the CDN makes just enough more sense than Azure CDN to make me prefer it, but it can't beat the productivity gains I have in Azure, though I feel I just don't have the right use cases to benefit from whatever imrpovements AWS offers. All in all, at this point, you don't lose by choosing either AWS or Azure, other than spending time to learn how AWS services are integrates and what parts of the ecosystem is relevant, so I am not surprised MS is benefiting greatly from Azure.
- nullbyte 7y ago
  GCP has made some great improvements, and in my opinion has the most intuitive interface for developing cloud apps (ESPECIALLY when compared to an interface like AWS). If you haven't used it in a while, give it a try!
  - AsyncAwait 7y ago
    Agree on the interface vs AWS. I still think the way all of the big providers deal with things is way overcomplicated & GCP's web console is inconsistent in terms of the exposed functionality across products like Spanner, BiqQuery & BigTable etc., but I agree it's still the cleanest interface of the big cloud providers from what I've seen.
- fernandotakai 7y ago
  GCP's kubernetes solution is light-years ahead of azure's and AWS'.
  - michannne 7y ago
    I agree but in the industries where I've worked there were never needs to use Kubernetes or Docker or any container-based solution.
    - AsyncAwait 7y ago
      Funnily enough, I just recently started at a place that's all in on Docker + Kubernetes and they're 100% on GCP.
- tallanvor 7y ago
  VS plays nicely with Node, although I can't speak for VSTS. But I've only been playing around, and haven't tried setting up any CI/CD with VSTS or GitHub. The biggest hassle with using VS and publishing to Azure is that you need to use an Azure Node template.
Spinfusor 7y ago
Azure's Java support is not up to par and doesn't seem to get much love, so I'd use AWS or GCP given the choice.

ianai 7y ago

Many places are just Microsoft shops with very few (meaning 1) or no other sorts of systems. They’re not shopping around for options outside Ms.

Miraste 7y ago

Azure has solid integration with most Microsoft products. The more of a Microsoft tech stack a company already has, the easier a sell it is. If you're using .NET, Azure is easier to set up and easier to maintain. If you're not already on the Microsoft side of the fence, I'm not sure how they compare, but I suspect AWS is better--although we did have that story a while back about how Azure runs more Linux than Windows Server.

michannne 7y ago

From using both, my recommendation is AWS for anything Node-based, Azure for anything else. GCP is severely lacking to both and has never struck me as a serious contender, but maybe there are industries that benefit from the simplicity. I like the control AWS gives you, but it is overwhelming at times. On Azure, everything feels easier to find, and there is not such a steep learning curve. I can set up a site, a repo, my CI/CD pipeline, and a DB within minutes, complete with qa, staging and production deployment cycles, telemetry, and alerts. The reason I wouldn't recommend Node-based deployments with this flow is because Visual Studio and VSTS does not play well with node, feels like it is constantly fighting you to use anything but Node, but for a project in React and an ASP Net Core server, it's incredibly seamless. Meanwhile on AWS, I feel like the control of VMs is a lot better to control. It is more intuitive to set up load balancing schemes on AWS, and the CDN makes just enough more sense than Azure CDN to make me prefer it, but it can't beat the productivity gains I have in Azure, though I feel I just don't have the right use cases to benefit from whatever imrpovements AWS offers. All in all, at this point, you don't lose by choosing either AWS or Azure, other than spending time to learn how AWS services are integrates and what parts of the ecosystem is relevant, so I am not surprised MS is benefiting greatly from Azure.

nullbyte 7y ago
GCP has made some great improvements, and in my opinion has the most intuitive interface for developing cloud apps (ESPECIALLY when compared to an interface like AWS). If you haven't used it in a while, give it a try!
- AsyncAwait 7y ago
  Agree on the interface vs AWS. I still think the way all of the big providers deal with things is way overcomplicated & GCP's web console is inconsistent in terms of the exposed functionality across products like Spanner, BiqQuery & BigTable etc., but I agree it's still the cleanest interface of the big cloud providers from what I've seen.
fernandotakai 7y ago
GCP's kubernetes solution is light-years ahead of azure's and AWS'.
- michannne 7y ago
  I agree but in the industries where I've worked there were never needs to use Kubernetes or Docker or any container-based solution.
  - AsyncAwait 7y ago
    Funnily enough, I just recently started at a place that's all in on Docker + Kubernetes and they're 100% on GCP.
tallanvor 7y ago
VS plays nicely with Node, although I can't speak for VSTS. But I've only been playing around, and haven't tried setting up any CI/CD with VSTS or GitHub. The biggest hassle with using VS and publishing to Azure is that you need to use an Azure Node template.

Spinfusor 7y ago

Azure's Java support is not up to par and doesn't seem to get much love, so I'd use AWS or GCP given the choice.