Azure vs AWS vs GCP — Cloud Services Comparison
☁️ Azure vs AWS vs GCP — Cloud Services Comparison
Section titled “☁️ Azure vs AWS vs GCP — Cloud Services Comparison”If you know Azure well, AWS service names can be confusing — Azure names are descriptive (Virtual Machine, Blob Storage, Virtual Network), while AWS uses invented product names (EC2, S3, VPC). This page maps every major service across all three clouds, organized by category.
Reading guide: 🔵 Microsoft Azure → 🟧 Amazon AWS → 🔴 Google Cloud (GCP)
🔵 🟧 🔴 Cloud Colour Key
Section titled “🔵 🟧 🔴 Cloud Colour Key”| Cloud | Brand | Short name |
|---|---|---|
| 🔵 | Microsoft Azure | Azure |
| 🟧 | Amazon Web Services | AWS |
| 🔴 | Google Cloud Platform | GCP |
💻 Compute — Virtual Machines
Section titled “💻 Compute — Virtual Machines”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 🖥️ Virtual Machine (VM) | EC2 — Elastic Compute Cloud | Compute Engine |
| 🖼️ Azure VM Image / Compute Gallery | AMI — Amazon Machine Image | Machine Image / Custom Image |
| 📋 Azure VM Generation (size family) | EC2 Instance Type (e.g. t3.micro, m6i.large) | Machine Type (e.g. n2-standard-2) |
| 📄 Azure VM Template / Custom Image | Launch Template | Instance Template |
| 📎 Azure VM Extension | EC2 User Data (startup script) | Startup Script |
| 🎛️ Azure Instance Metadata Service | EC2 Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) | Metadata Server |
| 🔄 VM Scale Sets (VMSS) | ASG — Auto Scaling Group | Managed Instance Group |
| 📊 Azure Autoscale (scale rule) | ASG Scaling Policy | Autoscaler Policy |
| ⚡ Azure Functions | Lambda | Cloud Functions |
| 📦 Azure Container Apps | ECS Fargate | Cloud Run |
| 🧱 Azure Container Instances (ACI) | ECS / Fargate (one-off task) | Cloud Run Jobs |
| ☸️ Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) | EKS — Elastic Kubernetes Service | GKE — Google Kubernetes Engine |
| 🏃 Azure App Service (Web Apps PaaS) | Elastic Beanstalk / App Runner | App Engine |
| 🎯 Azure Spot VM | EC2 Spot Instance | Spot VM (Preemptible) |
| 📅 Azure Reserved VM Instance | Reserved Instance / Savings Plans | Committed Use Discount |
| 🛁 Azure Batch | AWS Batch | Cloud Batch |
| 🧵 Azure Service Fabric | Amazon ECS (advanced scheduling) | GKE Enterprise |
🗄️ Storage
Section titled “🗄️ Storage”🪣 Object Storage (Blob / S3)
Section titled “🪣 Object Storage (Blob / S3)”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 🪣 Azure Blob Storage | S3 — Simple Storage Service | Cloud Storage |
| 🔥 Blob — Hot tier | S3 Standard | Cloud Storage Standard |
| ❄️ Blob — Cool tier | S3 Standard-IA (Infrequent Access) | Cloud Storage Nearline |
| 🥶 Blob — Cold tier | S3 One Zone-IA | Cloud Storage Coldline |
| 🧊 Blob — Archive tier | S3 Glacier Deep Archive | Cloud Storage Archive |
| 🤖 Azure Blob — Auto-tiering | S3 Intelligent-Tiering | Cloud Storage Autoclass |
| 🌍 Azure Blob geo-redundancy (GRS) | S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) | Cloud Storage Multi-Region |
| 🚀 Azure Blob — Transfer | S3 Transfer Acceleration | Cloud Storage — no direct equivalent |
| 🌐 Static website hosting (Blob) | S3 Static Website Hosting | Cloud Storage — Static Website |
💿 Block Storage (Disk)
Section titled “💿 Block Storage (Disk)”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 💿 Azure Managed Disk — Standard SSD | EBS gp3 — General Purpose SSD | Persistent Disk (Balanced) |
| ⚡ Azure Managed Disk — Premium SSD | EBS io2 — Provisioned IOPS SSD | Persistent Disk (SSD) |
| 🏎️ Azure Managed Disk — Ultra Disk | EBS io2 Block Express | Extreme Persistent Disk |
| 📀 Azure Managed Disk — Standard HDD | EBS st1 / sc1 — HDD | Persistent Disk (Standard) |
| 📸 Azure Disk Snapshot | EBS Snapshot | Persistent Disk Snapshot |
📁 File Storage (Shared Filesystem)
Section titled “📁 File Storage (Shared Filesystem)”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 📁 Azure Files (SMB/NFS) | EFS — Elastic File System (NFS) | Filestore |
| 🪟 Azure Files — Windows SMB | FSx for Windows File Server | n/a |
| 🚀 Azure Files — High Performance | FSx for Lustre (HPC / ML) | Filestore High Scale |
| 🗄️ Azure NetApp Files | FSx for NetApp ONTAP | NetApp Cloud Volumes (partner) |
🧰 Backup & Disaster Recovery
Section titled “🧰 Backup & Disaster Recovery”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 🔒 Azure Backup | AWS Backup | Google Cloud Backup |
| 🔁 Azure Site Recovery (DR) | AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery | Google Cloud DR |
| 🌉 Azure Storage Gateway / StorSimple | AWS Storage Gateway | Storage Transfer Service |
🌐 Networking
Section titled “🌐 Networking”🔗 Virtual Networks & Subnets
Section titled “🔗 Virtual Networks & Subnets”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 🌐 Virtual Network (VNet) | VPC — Virtual Private Cloud | VPC — Virtual Private Cloud |
| 🧩 Subnet | Subnet | Subnet |
| 🔒 Network Security Group (NSG) — stateful | Security Group — stateful | Firewall Rules |
| 🛡️ NSG at subnet level (stateless rules) | Network ACL (NACL) — stateless | VPC Firewall Rules |
| 🌍 Internet access for public resources | Internet Gateway (IGW) | Cloud Router / Internet access |
| 🔄 Outbound internet for private subnets | NAT Gateway | Cloud NAT |
| 🌐 Static public IP | Elastic IP (EIP) | Static External IP |
| 🔌 Network Interface Card (NIC) | ENI — Elastic Network Interface | Network Interface |
| 🔗 VNet Peering | VPC Peering | VPC Peering |
| 🌀 Azure Virtual WAN (hub-spoke) | AWS Transit Gateway | Cloud Network Connectivity Center |
| 🔒 Azure Private Endpoint / Private Link | AWS PrivateLink / VPC Endpoint | Private Service Connect |
⚖️ Load Balancers
Section titled “⚖️ Load Balancers”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| ⚖️ Azure Load Balancer (L4 — TCP/UDP) | NLB — Network Load Balancer | Cloud Load Balancing (TCP/UDP) |
| 🌐 Azure Application Gateway (L7 — HTTP/S) | ALB — Application Load Balancer | Cloud Load Balancing (HTTP(S)) |
| 🔗 ALB — Path-based routing | ALB Listener Rules | URL Map (Backend Services) |
| 🌍 Azure Front Door (global L7 + CDN) | CloudFront + Route 53 | Cloud CDN + Cloud Armor |
| 🚀 Azure Front Door — Global Acceleration | AWS Global Accelerator | Cloud CDN + Premium Tier Networking |
🌍 DNS, CDN & Connectivity
Section titled “🌍 DNS, CDN & Connectivity”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 🌍 Azure DNS | Route 53 | Cloud DNS |
| 🚦 Azure Traffic Manager (routing policies) | Route 53 Routing Policies | Cloud DNS + Traffic Director |
| ⚡ Azure CDN | CloudFront | Cloud CDN |
| 🔌 Azure ExpressRoute (dedicated line) | AWS Direct Connect | Cloud Interconnect |
| 🛡️ Azure VPN Gateway | AWS VPN Gateway | Cloud VPN |
| 🔒 Azure Bastion (secure VM access) | AWS Systems Manager Session Manager | Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) |
| 🛡️ Azure DDoS Protection | AWS Shield | Cloud Armor |
| 🧱 Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) | AWS WAF | Cloud Armor (WAF rules) |
| 🔌 Azure API Management (APIM) | API Gateway | Cloud Endpoints / Apigee |
🔑 Identity & Access Management
Section titled “🔑 Identity & Access Management”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 👤 Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) | IAM — Identity and Access Management | Cloud Identity / Google Workspace |
| 🏢 Azure AD Tenant | AWS Account | GCP Project |
| 👥 Azure AD Groups | IAM Groups | Google Groups |
| 🎭 Azure Managed Identity | IAM Role (for EC2 / Lambda / ECS) | Service Account |
| 📎 Azure Managed Identity — instance level | IAM Instance Profile (attaches role to EC2) | Service Account (attached to VM) |
| 🎫 Azure AD App Registration / Service Principal | IAM Role + OIDC | Service Account |
| 📋 Azure RBAC — Role Definition | IAM Policy (JSON document) | IAM Role (YAML) |
| 🔐 Azure RBAC — Role Assignment | IAM Policy Attachment | IAM Binding |
| 🌍 Azure Subscriptions + Management Groups | AWS Organizations + Organizational Units (OUs) | GCP Organization + Folders |
| 🎯 Azure Policy at management group | SCP — Service Control Policy | Organization Policy |
| 🛂 Azure Privileged Identity Management (PIM) | IAM Access Analyzer + temporary role assumption | IAM Recommender |
| 🪪 Azure AD B2C (external users) | Amazon Cognito | Firebase Authentication / Identity Platform |
| 🎫 Short-lived credentials | AWS STS — Security Token Service | Workload Identity Federation |
| 🔗 Federated identity (SAML/OIDC) | IAM Identity Center (SSO) | Cloud Identity (SSO) |
| ✅ Conditional Access | IAM Conditions + SCPs | VPC Service Controls + Context-Aware Access |
🗃️ Databases
Section titled “🗃️ Databases”📊 Relational Databases
Section titled “📊 Relational Databases”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 🗃️ Azure SQL Database | RDS for SQL Server | Cloud SQL (SQL Server) |
| 🐘 Azure Database for PostgreSQL | RDS for PostgreSQL | Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL |
| 🐬 Azure Database for MySQL | RDS for MySQL | Cloud SQL for MySQL |
| 🐱 Azure Database for MariaDB | RDS for MariaDB | Cloud SQL (MariaDB-compatible) |
| 🏢 Azure SQL Managed Instance (full SQL) | RDS for SQL Server Multi-AZ | Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus |
| 🚀 Azure SQL Hyperscale | Amazon Aurora (MySQL/PostgreSQL compat.) | AlloyDB |
| ☁️ Azure SQL Serverless | Aurora Serverless v2 | Cloud SQL Autoscale |
| 🔄 Read replica | RDS Read Replica | Cloud SQL Read Replica |
| 🛡️ High availability / failover | RDS Multi-AZ | Cloud SQL HA |
| 📸 Database snapshot | RDS Snapshot | Cloud SQL Backup |
| 🔌 Database proxy (connection pooling) | RDS Proxy | Cloud SQL Auth Proxy |
📦 NoSQL Databases
Section titled “📦 NoSQL Databases”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 🌍 Azure Cosmos DB | DynamoDB | Firestore / Datastore |
| 📄 Cosmos DB (MongoDB API) | Amazon DocumentDB | Firestore (document model) |
| 🗂️ Cosmos DB (Cassandra API) | Amazon Keyspaces (Managed Cassandra) | Bigtable / Managed Cassandra |
| 🕸️ Cosmos DB (Gremlin / Graph API) | Amazon Neptune | n/a |
| 🏷️ Cosmos DB (Table API) | DynamoDB | Cloud Bigtable / Firestore |
| 🌐 Cosmos DB Global Distribution | DynamoDB Global Tables | Firestore Multi-region |
| ⚡ Cosmos DB — Change Feed | DynamoDB Streams | Firestore — Change Streams |
⚡ In-Memory / Caching
Section titled “⚡ In-Memory / Caching”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| ⚡ Azure Cache for Redis | ElastiCache for Redis | Memorystore for Redis |
| 🔧 Azure Cache — Memcached | ElastiCache for Memcached | Memorystore for Memcached |
| 🚀 DynamoDB in-memory cache | DAX — DynamoDB Accelerator | n/a |
📈 Analytics & Data Warehousing
Section titled “📈 Analytics & Data Warehousing”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 📊 Azure Synapse Analytics | Amazon Redshift | BigQuery |
| ⚙️ Azure Data Factory (ETL/ELT) | AWS Glue (ETL) | Cloud Data Fusion / Dataflow |
| 🌊 Azure Stream Analytics | Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics | Dataflow (streaming) |
| 🔥 Azure Databricks | AWS Databricks / Amazon EMR | Dataproc |
| 🗂️ Azure Data Catalog / Purview | AWS Glue Data Catalog | Data Catalog |
| 🔍 Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) | S3 + AWS Lake Formation | Cloud Storage + BigLake |
📨 Messaging & Eventing
Section titled “📨 Messaging & Eventing”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 📬 Azure Service Bus Queue | SQS — Simple Queue Service | Cloud Tasks |
| 📢 Azure Service Bus Topic (pub/sub) | SNS — Simple Notification Service | Cloud Pub/Sub |
| 📬 Azure Service Bus — FIFO | SQS FIFO Queue | Cloud Tasks (ordered) |
| ☠️ Dead-letter queue | SQS Dead Letter Queue (DLQ) | Cloud Pub/Sub dead-letter topic |
| ⚡ Azure Event Grid (event routing) | Amazon EventBridge | Cloud Eventarc |
| 🌊 Azure Event Hubs (streaming) | Amazon Kinesis Data Streams | Cloud Pub/Sub |
| 🐘 Azure Event Hubs — Kafka | Amazon MSK (Managed Kafka) | Confluent Cloud / Pub/Sub |
| 📱 Azure Notification Hubs (mobile push) | Amazon SNS (Mobile Push) | Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) |
| 🔗 Event-driven workflow | Amazon EventBridge Pipes | Eventarc |
🔧 DevOps & CI/CD
Section titled “🔧 DevOps & CI/CD”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 🔧 Azure DevOps Pipelines | CodePipeline + CodeBuild + CodeDeploy | Cloud Build + Cloud Deploy |
| 📂 Azure Repos (Git hosting) | CodeCommit (or GitHub) | Cloud Source Repositories |
| 📦 Azure Artifacts (package registry) | CodeArtifact | Artifact Registry |
| 🐳 Azure Container Registry (ACR) | ECR — Elastic Container Registry | Artifact Registry |
| 📝 ARM Templates (declarative IaC) | CloudFormation | Cloud Deployment Manager |
| 🔨 Bicep (code-based IaC) | AWS CDK — Cloud Development Kit | Pulumi / Config Connector |
| 🛠️ Azure Cloud Shell | AWS CloudShell | Cloud Shell |
💻 Azure CLI (az) | AWS CLI (aws) | gcloud CLI |
| 💡 Azure DevTest Labs | AWS Cloud9 + EC2 dev environments | Cloud Workstations |
| 🚀 Azure App Service Deploy | CodeDeploy to Elastic Beanstalk | Cloud Deploy |
| 🐙 GitHub Actions (hosted runners) | CodeBuild compute | Cloud Build workers |
📊 Monitoring & Observability
Section titled “📊 Monitoring & Observability”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 📊 Azure Monitor (metrics) | Amazon CloudWatch (metrics) | Cloud Monitoring |
| 📋 Log Analytics Workspace | CloudWatch Logs | Cloud Logging |
| 🔍 KQL — Kusto Query Language | CloudWatch Logs Insights | Logs Explorer |
| 🔎 Application Insights (APM) | AWS X-Ray + CloudWatch ServiceLens | Cloud Trace + Cloud Profiler |
| 📈 Azure Monitor Workbooks (dashboards) | CloudWatch Dashboards | Cloud Monitoring Dashboards |
| 🚨 Azure Monitor Alerts | CloudWatch Alarms | Cloud Monitoring Alerting |
| 📜 Azure Activity Log (API audit) | AWS CloudTrail | Cloud Audit Logs |
| 🏥 Azure Service Health | AWS Health Dashboard | Google Cloud Status |
| 🔬 Azure Monitor — Container Insights | CloudWatch Container Insights | Cloud Monitoring (GKE) |
| 🧵 Distributed tracing | AWS X-Ray | Cloud Trace |
| 🤖 Metric anomaly detection | CloudWatch Anomaly Detection | Cloud Monitoring Alerting |
🔒 Security & Compliance
Section titled “🔒 Security & Compliance”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 🛡️ Microsoft Defender for Cloud (CSPM) | AWS Security Hub + GuardDuty | Security Command Center |
| 🔍 Microsoft Defender for Servers | Amazon Inspector (vulnerability scan) | Security Command Center |
| 🗃️ Microsoft Defender for Storage | Amazon Macie (sensitive data discovery) | Sensitive Data Protection |
| 🔑 Azure Key Vault — Secrets | AWS Secrets Manager | Secret Manager |
| 🗝️ Azure Key Vault — Encryption Keys | AWS KMS — Key Management Service | Cloud KMS |
| 📜 Azure Key Vault — Certificates | AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) | Certificate Manager |
| 🔄 Secret rotation | Secrets Manager automatic rotation | Secret Manager auto-rotation |
| 🕵️ Microsoft Sentinel (SIEM) | Amazon Security Lake + Partner SIEM | Chronicle SIEM |
| 📋 Azure Policy (compliance rules) | AWS Config Rules + SCPs | Organization Policy Service |
| 🏗️ Azure Blueprints | AWS Control Tower | Assured Workloads |
| 👁️ Threat detection / anomaly | Amazon GuardDuty | Security Command Center |
| 🌐 WAF (Web Application Firewall) | AWS WAF | Cloud Armor |
| 🛡️ DDoS protection | AWS Shield (Standard = free, Advanced = paid) | Cloud Armor |
| 📊 Compliance posture score | AWS Security Hub — Findings | Security Command Center Score |
🤖 AI & Machine Learning
Section titled “🤖 AI & Machine Learning”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 🧠 Azure Machine Learning (ML platform) | Amazon SageMaker | Vertex AI |
| 💬 Azure OpenAI Service (GPT, DALL-E) | Amazon Bedrock (Claude, Titan, Llama, Mistral) | Vertex AI — Gemini |
| 🎓 Azure ML — Training Compute | SageMaker Training Jobs | Vertex AI Training |
| 🚀 Azure ML — Online Endpoints | SageMaker Real-Time Endpoints | Vertex AI Online Prediction |
| 📊 Azure ML — Batch Endpoints | SageMaker Batch Transform | Vertex AI Batch Prediction |
| 🔬 Azure ML Pipelines | SageMaker Pipelines | Vertex AI Pipelines |
| 📦 Azure ML Model Registry | SageMaker Model Registry | Vertex AI Model Registry |
| 🧩 Azure ML — Feature Store | SageMaker Feature Store | Vertex AI Feature Store |
| 🎯 Azure ML — AutoML | SageMaker Autopilot | Vertex AI AutoML |
| 🖼️ Azure Computer Vision | Amazon Rekognition | Vision AI |
| 🗣️ Azure Speech Services (STT/TTS) | Amazon Transcribe (STT) + Amazon Polly (TTS) | Speech-to-Text + Text-to-Speech |
| 📝 Azure Language (NLP / Text Analytics) | Amazon Comprehend | Natural Language AI |
| 🌍 Azure Translator | Amazon Translate | Translation AI |
| 🤖 Azure Bot Service | Amazon Lex | Dialogflow CX |
| 🔍 Azure AI Search / Cognitive Search | Amazon Kendra | Vertex AI Search |
| 📄 Azure Document Intelligence / Form Recognizer | Amazon Textract | Document AI |
| 🎬 Azure Video Indexer | Amazon Rekognition Video | Video Intelligence AI |
| 🛡️ Azure Content Moderator | Amazon Rekognition (content moderation) | Cloud Vision SafeSearch |
⚡ Serverless & Integration
Section titled “⚡ Serverless & Integration”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| ⚡ Azure Functions (serverless compute) | AWS Lambda | Cloud Functions |
| ⏱️ Azure Functions — Timer trigger | Lambda + EventBridge Scheduler | Cloud Scheduler + Cloud Functions |
| 🔗 Azure Functions — Bindings | Lambda + SDK integrations | Cloud Functions triggers |
| 🔄 Azure Logic Apps (workflow) | AWS Step Functions | Workflows |
| 🧩 Azure Logic Apps — Connectors | Amazon EventBridge Pipes | Application Integration |
| 🔁 Azure Durable Functions (stateful) | AWS Step Functions (Standard) | Workflows |
| 🤖 Power Automate | n/a (partner tools) | AppSheet Automation |
| 🌐 Azure API Management (gateway) | Amazon API Gateway | Cloud Endpoints / Apigee |
| 🔗 Azure Event-driven orchestration | Amazon EventBridge + Step Functions | Eventarc + Workflows |
🏭 Containers & Kubernetes
Section titled “🏭 Containers & Kubernetes”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| ☸️ AKS — Azure Kubernetes Service | EKS — Elastic Kubernetes Service | GKE — Google Kubernetes Engine |
| 🐳 AKS Node Pool (VM-backed) | EKS Managed Node Group | GKE Node Pool |
| ☁️ AKS Virtual Nodes (serverless) | EKS Fargate Profile | GKE Autopilot |
| 🤖 AKS — KEDA (event-driven scaling) | KEDA on EKS | Cloud Run (event-driven) |
| 🔑 AKS Workload Identity | IRSA — IAM Roles for Service Accounts | Workload Identity |
| 📦 Azure Container Registry (ACR) | ECR — Elastic Container Registry | Artifact Registry |
| 🌊 Helm chart deploy | Helm on EKS | Helm on GKE |
| 🏃 Azure Container Apps (serverless) | ECS Fargate | Cloud Run |
| 🧱 Azure Container Instances (ACI) | ECS task (on-demand) | Cloud Run Jobs |
| 🐳 Docker image build in cloud | AWS CodeBuild | Cloud Build |
🌐 IoT & Edge
Section titled “🌐 IoT & Edge”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 📡 Azure IoT Hub | AWS IoT Core | Cloud IoT Core (→ Pub/Sub) |
| 🖥️ Azure IoT Edge (on-prem) | AWS Greengrass | Edge TPU / Anthos |
| 🕹️ Azure Digital Twins | AWS IoT TwinMaker | n/a |
| ⏱️ Azure Time Series Insights | Amazon Timestream | BigQuery + Cloud IoT |
| 🏭 Azure IoT Central | AWS IoT SiteWise | n/a |
🖥️ Virtual Desktop & End-User Computing
Section titled “🖥️ Virtual Desktop & End-User Computing”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 🖥️ Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) | Amazon WorkSpaces (managed desktops) | Chrome Enterprise / Cloud Workstations |
| 📺 Azure RemoteApp (streamed apps) | Amazon AppStream 2.0 | n/a |
| 💻 Dev Box (dev workstation in cloud) | AWS Cloud9 + EC2 | Cloud Workstations |
🏢 Management & Governance
Section titled “🏢 Management & Governance”| 🔵 Microsoft Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|
| 💳 Azure Subscription (billing boundary) | AWS Account | GCP Project |
| 🏢 Azure Management Group | AWS Organizational Unit (OU) | GCP Folder |
| 📁 Azure Resource Group | AWS Resource Group (tags-based grouping) | GCP Project (no sub-grouping) |
| 🌍 Azure Tenant | AWS Organization | GCP Organization |
| 🏷️ Azure Tags | AWS Tags (Resource Tags) | GCP Labels |
| 💰 Azure Cost Management + Billing | AWS Cost Explorer + AWS Budgets | Cloud Billing + Budget Alerts |
| 🤖 Azure Advisor (recommendations) | AWS Trusted Advisor | Active Assist Recommendations |
| 📋 Azure Policy (guardrails) | AWS Config Rules + SCPs | Organization Policy |
| 🏗️ Azure Resource Manager (ARM) | AWS CloudFormation / CDK | Cloud Deployment Manager |
| 🔄 Azure Automation (runbooks) | AWS Systems Manager (SSM) Automation | Cloud Run Jobs / Workflows |
| 🌐 Azure Arc (hybrid cloud) | AWS Outposts / ECS Anywhere | Anthos |
| 🔧 Remote VM access (SSH-free) | AWS Systems Manager Session Manager (SSM) | Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) Tunnelling |
| 📊 Azure Monitor Metrics | Amazon CloudWatch Metrics | Cloud Monitoring |
| 📜 Patch management | AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager | OS Config |
💰 Pricing Models
Section titled “💰 Pricing Models”| 💡 Concept | 🔵 Azure | 🟧 AWS | 🔴 GCP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💳 Pay per use | Pay-as-you-go | On-Demand | On-Demand |
| 📅 1-year commitment | Reserved Instance (1yr) | Reserved Instance (1yr) / Savings Plans | Committed Use Discount (1yr) |
| 📅 3-year commitment | Reserved Instance (3yr) | Reserved Instance (3yr) / Savings Plans | Committed Use Discount (3yr) |
| 🎯 Flexible commitment | Azure Savings Plan for Compute | Compute Savings Plans | CUD — flexible |
| 🎰 Spare capacity (cheapest) | Azure Spot VM | EC2 Spot Instance | Spot VM (Preemptible) |
| 🏠 Physical server for you | Azure Dedicated Host | EC2 Dedicated Host | Sole-tenant Node |
| 🆓 Free tier | 12 months + always-free services | 12 months + always-free services | $300 credit (90 days) |
| 🧮 Pricing calculator | Azure Calculator | AWS Calculator | GCP Calculator |
🔤 Name Translation Quick Reference (Azure → AWS)
Section titled “🔤 Name Translation Quick Reference (Azure → AWS)”For Azure professionals who keep forgetting what things are called in AWS. 🔵 → 🟧
| 🔵 What you call it in Azure | 🟧 What AWS calls it | 💡 Memory tip |
|---|---|---|
| 🖥️ Virtual Machine | EC2 — Elastic Compute Cloud | ”Elastic Computer” |
| 🖼️ VM Image / Managed Image | AMI — Amazon Machine Image | ”Amazon’s VM snapshot” |
| 📋 VM Size / SKU | Instance Type (t3.micro, m6i.large) | Each letter = a family |
| 🔄 VM Scale Set (VMSS) | ASG — Auto Scaling Group | ”Auto Scaling Group” |
| 🌐 App Service (PaaS web hosting) | Elastic Beanstalk | AWS’s PaaS |
| ⚡ Azure Functions | Lambda | Named after lambda calculus |
| 📦 Container Apps | ECS Fargate | ECS = Elastic Container Service |
| ☸️ AKS | EKS | Elastic Kubernetes Service |
| 🪣 Blob Storage | S3 — Simple Storage Service | ”S3 = Storage Service” |
| 💿 Managed Disk (SSD) | EBS gp3 — Elastic Block Store | ”Block = Disk” |
| 📁 Azure Files | EFS — Elastic File System | NFS shared filesystem |
| 🪟 Azure Files (Windows) | FSx for Windows | Windows-native SMB on AWS |
| 🌐 Virtual Network (VNet) | VPC — Virtual Private Cloud | ”Virtual Private Cloud” |
| 🔒 Network Security Group (NSG) | Security Group (+ NACL for subnet) | SG = stateful, NACL = stateless |
| 🌐 Static Public IP | Elastic IP (EIP) | Same concept — “Elastic = fixed” |
| 🌐 Internet Gateway | Internet Gateway (IGW) | Same name! |
| 🔄 NAT Gateway | NAT Gateway | Same name! |
| ⚖️ Load Balancer (L4) | NLB — Network Load Balancer | ”Network = TCP/UDP” |
| 🌐 Application Gateway (L7) | ALB — Application Load Balancer | ”Application = HTTP/S” |
| 🌍 Azure Front Door | CloudFront (CDN) + Route 53 | Split into two services in AWS |
| 🚀 Global traffic acceleration | AWS Global Accelerator | Dedicated AWS backbone routing |
| 🌍 Azure DNS | Route 53 | Port 53 = DNS port |
| 🗃️ Azure SQL Database | RDS — Relational Database Service | ”Managed DB service” |
| 🚀 Azure SQL Hyperscale | Amazon Aurora | AWS’s premium DB engine |
| 🌍 Cosmos DB | DynamoDB | AWS’s NoSQL flagship |
| ⚡ Azure Cache for Redis | ElastiCache | ”Elastic Cache” |
| 📬 Service Bus Queue | SQS — Simple Queue Service | ”Simple Queue” |
| 📢 Service Bus Topic / Event Grid | SNS — Simple Notification Service | ”pub/sub notifications” |
| 🌊 Event Hubs | Kinesis | AWS streaming data |
| 🔑 Key Vault (Secrets) | Secrets Manager | Stores & rotates secrets |
| 🗝️ Key Vault (Keys) | KMS — Key Management Service | Encryption keys |
| 📜 Key Vault (Certificates) | ACM — Certificate Manager | TLS certificates |
| 👤 Entra ID / Azure AD | IAM | Identity + access combined |
| 🎭 Managed Identity | IAM Role (attached via Instance Profile) | No credentials stored anywhere |
| 📎 IAM Role on a VM | IAM Instance Profile | Wrapper that attaches a role to EC2 |
| 🔐 Short-lived credentials | AWS STS — Security Token Service | Temporary tokens |
| 🏢 Management Group + Subscriptions | AWS Organizations + Accounts | Multi-account management |
| 📊 Azure Monitor | CloudWatch | Metrics + logs + alarms |
| 📋 Log Analytics | CloudWatch Logs | Centralised log storage |
| 🔍 Application Insights | X-Ray | Distributed tracing |
| 📜 Azure Activity Log | CloudTrail | Every API call logged |
| 🛡️ Microsoft Defender for Cloud | Security Hub + GuardDuty | Split across two services |
| 👁️ Threat detection (anomalies) | GuardDuty | ML-based threat detection |
| 🔍 Vulnerability scanning | Amazon Inspector | OS + container CVE scanning |
| 📋 Azure Policy | AWS Config Rules + SCPs | Resource compliance rules |
| 🔧 Azure DevOps Pipelines | CodePipeline + CodeBuild + CodeDeploy | Three services = one pipeline |
| 📦 Azure Container Registry (ACR) | ECR — Elastic Container Registry | Private Docker registry |
| 📝 ARM Templates | CloudFormation | Declarative YAML/JSON IaC |
| 🔨 Bicep / Pulumi | AWS CDK | Code-based IaC (TypeScript, Python…) |
| 🔧 Remote VM access (no SSH open) | SSM Session Manager | No bastion needed |
| 🌐 Azure Arc | AWS Outposts / ECS Anywhere | Run cloud services on-prem |
This comparison reflects service capabilities as of 2025–2026. Cloud providers continuously release new services — always verify with official documentation.