Choosing a Cloud Provider: AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud

Choosing between AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud usually comes down to ecosystem fit rather than raw capability: AWS offers the broadest catalogue, Azure integrates tightly with Microsoft tools, and Google Cloud leads on data and machine learning. Team familiarity and compliance requirements typically matter more than small pricing differences.

All three major cloud providers can run most workloads well, so the decision usually comes down to ecosystem fit rather than raw capability. AWS has the broadest service catalogue and the deepest talent pool. Azure integrates tightly with Microsoft enterprise tools like Active Directory and Office 365. Google Cloud tends to lead on data analytics and machine learning tooling.

We also weigh existing team familiarity and regional data-residency requirements heavily, since retraining a team or navigating compliance constraints can outweigh minor pricing differences.

For most of our clients, the right answer is whichever platform your compliance and existing tooling already lean toward, unless a specific technical requirement points elsewhere.

A concrete example: a healthcare client already standardised on Microsoft 365 and Active Directory for identity management will generally find Azure's tighter integration outweighs any marginal pricing advantage another provider might offer for the same workload.

A common pitfall is choosing a provider based on a single benchmark or a feature comparison chart, without accounting for the migration cost of retraining a team on unfamiliar tooling, which often dwarfs the actual compute cost difference between providers.

Regional data-residency rules are another factor teams underestimate early on; a provider's global footprint matters less than whether it has a compliant region for the specific data your business handles.

We help clients build a short weighted comparison against their actual requirements, existing tooling, compliance needs, and expected workload shape, rather than defaulting to whichever provider is currently most discussed.