AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud: Comparing the Top 3 Providers

AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud are all major players in the cloud computing market. They each offer similar platforms and capabilities as a baseline.

In this blog post, we will compare the top 3 providers: AWS, Azure, and Google. Taking a look at the current state of the cloud market and their market share.

Market share and growth is not evenly distributed across the top three cloud providers, with two of the three reporting increasing losses in Q2. However, AWS and Azure continue to dominate the group by a considerable amount.

Many businesses are making the switch to cloud-based offerings, some because they see an opportunity and some because it's change or die.

Each business has a different core reason for moving to the cloud but some of the most common are:

• Scalability: Cloud computing allows software businesses to easily scale their infrastructure up or down based on demand, ensuring they can handle varying levels of traffic and workload without significant upfront investments in hardware.

• Cost Savings: By moving to the cloud, software businesses can change the model from CapEx lump sum investment to OpEx monthly cost. Almost going from owning a building to leasing it and not having to build it in the first place.

• Global Reach: One model can be applied locally anywhere in the world. This can be done without a lump sum investment, the new deployment can be ready within hours.

• Security and Reliability: Reputable cloud service providers implement advanced security measures, encryption, and data backups, often surpassing what many on-premises setups can achieve. This enhances data protection and business continuity.

Cloud market growth projections

Gartner has estimated that spending on public cloud services will near if not exceed $500 billion in 2022. Gartner has also estimated this would equate to around 20% growth this year. Synergy Research Group put the estimate for year-on-year growth at 34% for 2022.

Cloud computing has quickly moved to one of the biggest sectors in IT over a very short period. So as an IT professional or a business owner its important to understand the roadmap and how this can affect your business.

Cloud Market Share 2022

The current market share of the top three public cloud providers is 65% and it's far from an equal split.

As of Q1 2022, the market share is:

• In top place  Amazon with 33%
• In second  Microsoft 22% - Still trying to catch up to Amazon
• Google (GPC) 10% - Training by a large margin
• Next 10 companies 21%
• Others 14%

Note: This data excludes China. Microsoft and Google could include their SaaS offerings like Office365.

The growth has not been even across the top three cloud providers either with two out of the three posting increased losses in Q2.

• Amazon - 30% growth but $2bn loss in the wider business
• Microsoft - 12% growth but a $4bn saving delivered by extending the life of its servers
• Google - Revenue growth but 45% higher posted losses. Although this is for the wider business so includes their other services such as search and advertising.

In the current climate, it's unsurprising that Microsoft wants to sweat its underlying hardware as there is a global chip shortage so new servers are becoming harder to find, costing more and have longer lead times. If you want to find out more about what we think are the main cloud trends for 2022 / 2023 read more here.

For an in-depth comparison of AWS vs Azure please read our article here.