The big three
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform account for the vast majority of cloud infrastructure spending. Each has genuine strengths, and the right choice depends on your workload, team skills and existing technology stack.
AWS: breadth and maturity
AWS launched in 2006 and retains the largest market share and the broadest range of services — over 200 at last count. If a service exists in the cloud, AWS almost certainly offers it. The ecosystem of third-party tooling is unmatched. The trade-off is complexity: the sheer number of options can be overwhelming.
Azure: Microsoft integration
For organisations already invested in the Microsoft ecosystem — Office 365, Active Directory, .NET development — Azure is often the natural choice. Identity and access management integration is seamless, and hybrid cloud setups mixing on-premises Windows servers with cloud resources are best supported here.
Google Cloud: data and AI
Google Cloud's BigQuery data warehouse is arguably the best managed analytics platform in the industry, and its AI/ML tools reflect Google's research leadership. Pricing is often competitive and sustained-use discounts are automatic.
How to decide
Start by mapping your existing technology stack. Prototype your most demanding workload on two providers and compare real costs. Consider support tiers and SLAs carefully — downtime costs money.