We've been using Azure for a few months now working on a .NET REST API and data service to deploy to it. In the end however while we are building it for Azure

We've been using Azure for a few months now working on a .NET REST API and data service to deploy to it. In the end however while we are building it for Azure we may not end up using. 1. Mediochre deployment story Honestly, it could be far worse. Azure is deployed by uploading a compiled package via an HTTP(S) REST API. There are PS tools allowing this to be scripted too. In fact, all of Azure can be interacted with via their REST API which is one of the good things they did. Despite this, it is nowhere near as nice as a Heroku deployment or any of the other push deployment PaaS providers. 2. The SDK isn't all that great The SDK (now at ver. 1.3) is yet another example of Microsoft's tendency to write nigh untestable APIs (mostly concrete classes, almost no interfaces, etc.). They also apparently don't keep the docs up to date on the latest REST API changes (it was actually suggested that we could use fiddler with their Silverlight management console to figure it out). 3. Azure storage is neat, but in the end insufficient and SQL Azure is missing key features and is expensive Personally, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to build most cloud based applications on top SQL, but that is for another debate. In the end we've chosen to run Mongo on a worker role for our storage needs. I really can't wrap my head around how Azure tables could be useful, and blob storage is really just I way to upload files for CDN or provide storage for VHDs. 4. It's kind of expensive compared to the competition Not much else to say here, but the only reason I can think of for this is that MS doesn't feel the need to compete with the other PaaS providers, which in turn would imply that the typical developer that utilizes PaaS isn't their target market. As seems typical for MS, they are targeting the less competent enterprise and business markets and trying to sell them the cloud like it's the next SQL server, offering lots of integration points (painful as they are to use) with existing Microsoft technology (e.g., you can actually use local AD servers to authenticate with Azure). Bottom line, AFAICT Azure isn't for us.