Microsoft Azure

Open and flexible cloud services

As of 30 August 2026, Microsoft Azure is free to use. Microsoft Azure is an ever-expanding set of cloud services to help your organization meet its business challenges. Softwr lists it under Cloud. Microsoft Azure is made by Microsoft Corporation, launched in 2010, available on Web, API, Windows, macOS.

Visit siteVisit Microsoft Azure

Overview

What Microsoft Azure does

Microsoft Azure is an ever-expanding set of cloud services to help your organization meet its business challenges. It's the freedom to build, manage, and deploy applications on a massive, global network using your preferred tools and frameworks.

What people use it for

Cloud infrastructure and computing
Database and storage services
AI and machine learning services
Enterprise application hosting

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Microsoft Azure.

The 12 months of free services is available only to new customers who have not previously had an Azure account or received 12 months of free services
The 12 months free offer is not available to customers who sign up directly for pay as you go in China and India
Customers who try Azure free must move to pay as you go within 30 days to keep receiving the 12 months of free services
Free services are capped at specified monthly amounts, and only some of them are always free

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Microsoft Azure

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

Microsoft Azurevs
DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean: The developer cloud
Microsoft Azurevs
Grafana Cloud
Grafana Cloud: Composable observability platform
Microsoft Azurevs
Neon
Neon: Serverless Postgres for modern developers
Microsoft Azurevs
AWS (Amazon Web Services)
AWS (Amazon Web Services): The leading cloud computing platform

Pricing

What Microsoft Azure costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Free Account

Free

$200 credit for 30 days
Popular services 12 months free
40+ services always free
Community support

Capabilities

Features

Virtual Machines
App Service
SQL Database
Blob Storage
Azure Cosmos DB
Functions
Service Fabric
API Management
Active Directory
Integration with Active Directory
Office 365
Integration with Office 365
Dynamics 365
Integration with Dynamics 365
Power BI
Integration with Power BI

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

How much does Microsoft Azure cost?

Azure uses consumption-based pricing where you pay only for resources used and scale as you grow, with no fixed monthly fee. Prices are listed in USD globally, and pricing varies by service, region, and usage patterns.

Source

How can I save money on Azure services?

Azure offers savings up to 65% on select compute services through Azure Savings Plans with one- or three-year commitments. Using Azure Hybrid Benefit with existing Windows Server and SQL Server licenses plus reservations can save up to 85% compared to standard rates.

Source

Does Azure offer a free tier?

Azure provides free tier services for new users and perpetually free options, including free Spot Virtual Machines, dev/test pricing for development workloads, and access to the Azure Pricing Calculator to estimate monthly costs before deployment.

Source

Behind it

Who makes Microsoft Azure

Company: Microsoft Corporation
Based in: Redmond, WA

Keep looking

Where to go from Microsoft Azure

Best Cloud software for

Compare Microsoft Azure with

Other Cloud software

AWS (Amazon Web Services)
The leading cloud computing platform
Free plan12 researched notes
DigitalOcean
The developer cloud
Free, then $4/mo12 researched notes
Grafana Cloud
Composable observability platform
Free, then $19/mo13 researched notes
Neon
Serverless Postgres for modern developers
Free plan10 researched notes
Google Cloud Platform
Trusted by millions of enterprises
Free plan13 researched notes
Hetzner Cloud
Affordable cloud servers in Europe
Free, then €3.29/mo13 researched notes
Linode
Affordable cloud hosting and infrastructure
Free, then $5/mo11 researched notes
Vultr
High performance cloud compute
Free, then $2.5/mo5 researched notes
Encore
Automated infrastructure for humans and agents
Free, then $49/mo8 researched notes
IBM Cloud
Enterprise cloud solutions from a trusted partner
Free plan9 researched notes
Zeabur
AI-powered cloud deployment platform for developers
Free, then $5/mo10 researched notes
Nomad
Flexible workload orchestration
Free plan12 researched notes
OpenEBS
Open source container-attached storage for Kubernetes
Open source11 researched notes
OVHcloud
Advanced cloud services for businesses
From €3.5/mo9 researched notes
Puppet
Infrastructure automation for enterprises
Free plan10 researched notes
Qovery
Deployment platform that provisions and operates Kubernetes inside your own cloud account
Pricing on request12 researched notes
Scaleway
European cloud for developers
Free, then €0.01/hour10 researched notes
Skopeo
Inspect, copy and sign container images without pulling them
Open source7 researched notes

Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Microsoft Azure, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.