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A cloud services cheat sheet for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud

Don't know your Neptune from your Front Door? Check what AWS, Microsoft and Google call their myriad cloud services. And yes, those are real service names.

AWS, Microsoft and Google each offer well over 100 cloud services. It's hard enough keeping tabs on what one cloud offers, so good luck trying to get a handle on the products from the three major providers.

Even trying to compare what's available in each cloud can quickly get convoluted, since naming conventions vary by vendor and service. For example, you can be forgiven for not knowing AWS Fargate, Microsoft Azure Container Instances and Google Cloud Run all essentially serve the same purpose.

So, if you ever feel at a loss for what's what, hopefully this cloud services cheat sheet will help. Consider it a guide for cloud directories -- a quick reference sheet for what each vendor calls the same service.

However, you can also use this as a starting point. You'll need to do your homework to get a more nuanced understanding of what distinguishes the offerings from one another. Follow some of the links throughout this piece and take that next step in dissecting these offerings.

That's because not all services are equal -- each has its own set of features and capabilities, and the functionality might vary widely across platforms. And just because a provider doesn't have a designated service in one of these categories, that doesn't mean it's impossible to achieve the same objective. For example, Google Cloud doesn't offer an explicit disaster recovery service, but it's certainly capable of supporting DR.

Editor's Note

Cloud services are constantly evolving. All information in this cheat sheet is up to date as of publication.

We will periodically update the list to reflect the ongoing changes across all three platforms.

Download the PDF version to save for future reference and to scan the categories more easily.

Here is our cloud services cheat sheet of the services available on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure. The list is broken down by category to help you start your cross-cloud analysis.

AI and machine learning

AWS Azure Google Cloud
AI containers AWS Deep Learning Containers GPU support on AKS Deep Learning Containers
AI prediction human review and moderation Amazon Augmented AI (Amazon A2I) Azure Content Moderator N/A
AI machine images AWS Deep Learning AMIs Data Science Virtual Machines Deep Learning VM Image
Chat bot builder Amazon Lex Azure Bot Service, Health Bot, QnA Maker Dialogflow
Data labeling Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth Azure Machine Learning data labeling Vertex Data Labeling
Document extraction, image content analysis Amazon Textract Azure Form Recognizer, Ink Recognizer, Computer Vision, Custom Vision Vision API
Image and video recognition, indexing Amazon Rekognition Azure Face, Video Indexer Video AI
Inference accelerator Amazon Elastic Inference GPUs on AKS Cloud TPU, Edge TPU
Language recognition, sentiment analysis Amazon Comprehend Azure Immersive Reader, Language Understanding, Text Analytics Cloud Natural Language AI, Healthcare Natural Language AI
Language translation Amazon Translate Speech Translation, Translator Cloud Translation, Media Translation (beta)
Machine learning hardware AWS Inferentia, AWS Trainium (preview*) FPGA Cloud TPU
Managed machine learning platform Amazon SageMaker Azure Machine Learning TensorFlow Enterprise, Vertex AI
Notebooks Amazon EMR Notebooks Integrations through Visual Studio, Azure and GitHub Notebooks
Online fraud detection Amazon Fraud Detector N/A reCAPTCHA Enterprise
Prediction review and moderation Amazon Augmented AI, Amazon SageMaker Clarify Azure Content Moderator N/A
Recommendation integration Amazon Personalize Personalizer Recommendations AI
Speech recognition Amazon Transcribe Speaker Recognition (preview), Speech to Text Cloud Speech-to-Text API
Text-to-speech Amazon Polly Text to Speech Cloud Text-to-Speech API
Time-series forecasting Amazon Forecast N/A N/A
Vision/speech modeling packaged devices AWS DeepLens Azure Kinect DK N/A

Analytics

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Big data processing Amazon EMR Azure Databricks, Azure HDInsight Dataproc
Business analytics Amazon QuickSight, Amazon FinSpace Power BI Embedded, Microsoft Graph Data Connect (preview) Looker, Google Data Studio
Data lake creation Amazon HealthLake (preview), AWS Lake Formation Azure Data Lake Storage Cloud Storage
Data sharing AWS Data Exchange, AWS Lake Formation Azure Data Share Analytics Hub (preview), Cloud Dataprep (partnership with Trifacta)
Data warehousing Amazon Redshift Azure Synapse Analytics BigQuery
ETL AWS Glue, Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose, Amazon SageMaker Data Wrangler Azure Data Factory Cloud Data Fusion, Dataflow, Dataproc
Hosted Hadoop/Spark Amazon EMR Azure HDInsight Dataproc
Managed search Amazon CloudSearch, Amazon Elasticsearch Service, Amazon Kendra Azure Cognitive Search, Bing Search API Cloud Search
Managed Kafka Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka Azure Event Hubs for Apache Kafka N/A (available through a partnership with Confluent)
Real-time data streaming Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics, Amazon Kinesis Data Streams Azure Stream Analytics Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Datastream (preview)
Query service, data exploration Amazon Athena, Amazon Elasticsearch Service, Amazon Managed Service for Grafana (preview) SQL Server ML Services, Big Data Clusters (Spark), Data Lake Analytics, SQL Server Analysis Services, Azure Data Explorer BigQuery

Application integration

AWS Azure Google Cloud
API development and management Amazon API Gateway, AWS AppSync Azure API Apps API Gateway, Apigee, Cloud Endpoints
Distributed app coordination Amazon Simple Workflow Service, AWS Step Functions Logic Apps Cloud Tasks
Event routing, third-party integration Amazon AppFlow, Amazon EventBridge, Amazon Simple Notification Service Event Grid Pub/Sub
Messaging Amazon MQ, Amazon Simple Queue Service Azure Web PubSub (preview),  Queue Storage, Service Bus Pub/Sub
Service discovery AWS Cloud Map N/A N/A
Service mesh AWS App Mesh Open Service Mesh AKS add-on (preview) Anthos Service Mesh
Workflow orchestration AWS Data Pipeline, Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow Logic Apps Cloud Composer, Workflows

Business applications**

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Collaboration tool suite N/A Microsoft 365 Google Workspace
Document sharing and storage Amazon WorkDocs Microsoft Word Google Docs, Google Workspace Essentials
Email and calendar Amazon WorkMail Outlook Gmail
Low-code/no-code Amazon Honeycode (preview) Microsoft PowerApps, Project Bonsai (preview) AppSheet
Video calls and chat Amazon Chime Microsoft Teams Google Meet
Voice assistant Alexa for Business Cortana Google Assistant

Compute

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Autoscaling AWS EC2 Auto Scaling Azure Autoscale, Azure virtual machine scale sets Managed instance groups (MIGs)
Batch scheduling, executing and processing AWS Batch Azure Batch Batch on GKE (preview), Cloud Scheduler
Functions as a service AWS Lambda Azure Functions Cloud Functions
5G-based infrastructure AWS Wavelength Azure Edge Zones Global Mobile Edge Cloud (GMEC)
High performance computing cluster management AWS ParallelCluster Azure CycleCloud, Azure FXT Edge Filer N/A
VM image builder EC2 Image Builder Azure VM Image Builder N/A
Isolated servers Dedicated Instances Azure Dedicated Host Sole-tenant Nodes, Shielded VMs
PaaS AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS App Service, Azure Cloud Services, Azure Spring Cloud, Azure Red Hat OpenShift App Engine
On-premises/edge devices AWS Outposts, AWS Snow Family Azure Modular Datacenter, Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack HCI, Azure Stack Edge N/A
Quantum computing Amazon Braket Azure Quantum (preview) N/A
Virtual machines Amazon EC2 Virtual Machines Compute Engine
Virtual private server Amazon Lightsail N/A N/A
VMware integration VMware Cloud on AWS Azure VMware Solution VMware Engine

Containers

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Container registry Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), ECR Public Azure Container Registry Artifact Registry, Container Registry
Managed container service AWS Copilot, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
Serverless containers AWS App Runner, AWS Fargate Azure Container Instances (ACI) Cloud Run

Cost controls

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Long-term commitment discount programs EC2 Reserved Instances, Savings Plans Reservations, Azure Hybrid Benefit Committed use discounts, sustained use discounts
Low-cost, interruptible VMs EC2 Spot Azure Spot Virtual Machines Preemptible Virtual Machines
Optimization tools Amazon CodeGuru, Amazon DevOps Guru, AWS Compute Optimizer, AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Well-Architected Tool Azure Advisor, Azure Well-Architected Review Recommender, Network Intelligence Center, Cloud Profiler
Spending tracker and analysis AWS Budgets, AWS Cost Anomaly Detection, AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Cost and Usage Report, Reserved Instance Reporting Azure Cost Management and Billing Cost Management

Databases

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Blockchain Amazon Managed Blockchain, Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) Azure Blockchain Service (preview), Azure Blockchain Development Kit, Azure Blockchain Workbench (preview), Microsoft Azure Confidential Ledger (preview) N/A
Caching Amazon ElastiCache (Memcached, Redis) Azure Cache for Redis, Azure HPC Cache Cloud Memorystore
NoSQL: Column-family Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra (preview) Cloud Bigtable
NoSQL: Document Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility), Amazon DynamoDB Azure Cosmos DB Cloud Firestore, Firebase Realtime Database
NoSQL: Graph Amazon Neptune Azure Cosmos DB Gremlin API N/A
NoSQL: Key-value Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Keyspaces Azure Cosmos DB, Table storage Cloud Bigtable, Firestore
Relational database management system Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, MariaDB), Amazon RDS on VMware Azure Database (MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL), Azure SQL (Database, Edge, Managed Instance) Cloud SQL (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server), Cloud Spanner
Time-series database Amazon Timestream Azure Time Series Insights Cloud Bigtable

Developer tools

AWS Azure Google Cloud
App configuration parameter storage AWS AppConfig App Configuration Cloud Storage
Artifact management AWS CodeArtifact Azure Artifacts, GitHub Packages Artifact Registry (preview)
Code debugging AWS X-Ray Visual Studio Code Cloud Debugger, Firebase Crashlytics
CI/CD AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS CodePipeline, AWS CodeStar Azure Boards, Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines Cloud Build, Tekton
Development kits AWS Cloud Development Kit, Amazon Corretto Azure SDKs Cloud SDK
IDEs and other tools for interacting with cloud resources AWS Cloud9, AWS CLI, AWS CloudShell, Amazon EMR Studio Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, Azure Cloud Shell, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code Cloud Code, Tools for Eclipse, Tools for PowerShell
Lab environment N/A Azure Lab Services, Azure DevTest Labs N/A
Mobile and Web app development AWS Amplify App Service, Mobile Apps, Xamarin with Azure, Web Apps, Static Web Apps Google Firebase
Private repository AWS CodeCommit, AWS Serverless Application Repository Azure Repos Cloud Source Repositories
Testing AWS Device Farm, AWS Fault Injection Simulator Visual Studio App Center, Azure Test Plans, Azure Internet Analyzer (preview) Google Firebase Test Lab

IoT

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Cloud-device connections, data collection and management AWS IoT Analytics, AWS IoT Core, AWS IoT Device Defender, AWS IoT Device Management, AWS IoT Events, AWS IoT SiteWise Azure IoT Central, Azure IoT Hub, Azure Defender for IoT, Azure Sphere Cloud IoT Core
IoT edge compute AWS Greengrass Azure IoT Edge, Azure Percept (preview) Edge TPU
Microcontroller OS FreeRTOS Azure RTOS N/A
Virtual modeling AWS IoT Things Graph Azure Digital Twins N/A

Management and governance

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Automation AWS CloudFormation, AWS Proton, AWS OpsWorks Azure Resource Manager, Azure Automation Cloud Deployment Manager, Cloud Foundation Toolkit, Cloud Scheduler
Anomaly detection CloudWatch Anomaly Detection Anomaly Detector Anomaly Detection
Application portfolio and data governance AWS Service Catalog Azure Managed Applications, Azure Blueprints (preview), Azure Purview (preview) Dataplex, Private Catalog, Service Directory
Automated Windows Server management N/A Azure Automanage (preview) N/A
Configuration management AWS Config Azure App Configuration Cloud Asset Inventory
Health dashboard Personal Health Dashboard Resource Health, Azure Service Health Cloud Monitoring
Hybrid and multi-cloud management Amazon EKS Anywhere (preview), Amazon ECS Anywhere Azure Arc Google Anthos, Network Connectivity Center (preview)
License management AWS License Manager N/A N/A
Monitoring Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon CloudWatch Logs, AWS Transit Gateway Network Manager, Amazon Lookout for Metrics, Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus (preview) Azure Monitor, Network Watcher, Log Analytics, Azure Metrics Advisor (preview) Operations, Cloud Operations for GKE (formerly Stackdriver), Network Intelligence Center
Multi-account management AWS Control Tower, AWS Organizations Azure Management Groups, Azure Lighthouse N/A
Policy management AWS Organizations Azure Policy Organization Policy Service
Telemetry collection and response AWS Systems Manager, AWS Distro for Open Telemetry (preview) Azure Monitor Network Telemetry
Web-based user interface AWS Management Console Azure Portal Cloud Console

Migration

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Database migration AWS Database Migration Service Azure Database Migration Service Database Migration Service (preview)
Data transfer appliance Snow Family Data Box Transfer Appliance
Disaster recovery CloudEndure Disaster Recovery Azure Site Recovery N/A
Online data transfer AWS DataSync, AWS Transfer Family Azure File Sync BigQuery Data Transfer Service, Cloud Data Transfer
On-premises application analysis AWS Application Discovery Service, Migration Evaluator Azure Migrate, Movere, Azure Resource Mover N/A
On-premises and cloud storage integration Storage Gateway StorSimple N/A (offered by partner Cloudian)
Migration tracker AWS Migration Hub Azure Migrate N/A
Server migration AWS App2Container, AWS Server Migration Service, CloudEndure Migration Azure Migrate Migrate for Anthos, Migrate for Compute Engine, VM migration

Miscellaneous

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Customer engagement Amazon Connect, Contact Lens for Amazon Connect Azure Communication Services, Azure SignalR Service Contact Center AI
End user communications Amazon Pinpoint, Amazon Simple Email Service Azure Notification Hubs Firebase Cloud Messaging
Gaming Amazon GameLift, Amazon Lumberyard Game Stack Game Servers
Geolocation APIs and services Amazon Maps API, Amazon Location Service Azure Maps Google Maps Platform
Genomics N/A Microsoft Genomics Cloud Life Sciences (preview)
Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources FHIR Works on AWS Azure API for FHIR Apigee HealthAPIx, Cloud Healthcare API
Industrial and other workplace monitoring tools Amazon Lookout for Vision, Amazon Lookout for Equipment, Amazon Panorama (preview), Amazon Monitron Azure IoT Vision AI, Visual Inspection AI
Media services Amazon Elastic Transcoder, AWS Elemental suite, Amazon Interactive Video Service, Amazon Kinesis Video Streams Azure Media Player, Content Protection, Encoding, Live and On-Demand Streaming, Azure Video Analyzer (preview), Media Services OpenCue, Transcoder API (preview)
Mobile access to internal web apps Amazon WorkLink N/A Identity-Aware Proxy
Robotics application development AWS RoboMaker N/A Cloud Robotics Core
Satellite ground stations AWS Ground Station Azure Orbital (preview) N/A
Virtual desktop Amazon WorkSpaces, Amazon AppStream 2.0 Azure Virtual Desktop, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure N/A
Virtual reality, mixed reality app development Amazon Sumerian Azure Digital Twins, Kinect DK, Object Anchors (preview), Remote Rendering (preview), Spatial Anchors Google VR

Networking

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Build, deploy and manage APIs Amazon API Gateway Azure API Apps, API Management Apigee API Management Platform
Content delivery network Amazon CloudFront Content Delivery Network (CDN) Cloud CDN
Dedicated fiber connection between VPCs and private network AWS Direct Connect Azure ExpressRoute Cloud Interconnect
Domain name system Amazon Route 53 Azure DNS Cloud DNS
Load balancing Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) Application Gateway, Load Balancer, Traffic Manager Cloud Load Balancing
Network accelerator AWS Global Accelerator Accelerated Networking Premium Network Service Tier
Network area translation NAT Gateway Virtual Network NAT, Azure Route Server (preview) Cloud NAT
Satellite ground station AWS Ground Station Azure Orbital (preview) N/A
Service discovery Amazon ECS, AWS Cloud Map N/A GKE
Traffic control plane AWS App Mesh Azure Front Door, Azure Service Fabric Traffic Director
Virtual WAN N/A Virtual WAN N/A
VPC Amazon VPC Azure Virtual Network Virtual Private Cloud
VPC/VM secure connector AWS Transit Gateway, AWS VPN Azure Bastion, Azure Private Link, Azure VPN gateway Cloud VPN, Direct Peering, VPC Service Controls

Security

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Audit and compliance reports and controls AWS Artifact, AWS Audit Manager Service Trust Portal Assured Workloads
Centralized security management AWS Security Hub Security Center Security Command Center
Certificate management AWS Certificate Manager App Service Certificate Authority Service
Confidential computing AWS Nitro Enclaves Azure Confidential Computing Confidential Computing
Container deploy-time security control N/A N/A Binary Authorization
Data discovery and classification Amazon Macie Data Catalog, Azure Information Protection Data Catalog, Cloud Data Loss Prevention
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection AWS Shield Azure DDoS Protection Google Cloud Armor
End-user identity management Amazon Cognito Azure Active Directory B2C Firebase Authentication
Firewall management AWS Firewall Manager, AWS Network Firewall, AWS WAF Azure Firewall Manager, Web Application Firewall Cloud Armor, Cloud firewalls
Identity and access management AWS Identity and Access Management Azure Active Directory, role-based access control (Azure RBAC), Azure Active Directory External Identities BeyondCorp Enterprise, Identity and Access Management, Identity Platform, Identity-Aware Proxy
Key management AWS Key Management Service, AWS CloudHSM Key Vault, Azure Dedicated HSM Cloud Key Management
Multifactor authentication AWS Multi-Factor Authentication Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication Google Authenticator, Titan Security Key
Microsoft Active Directory compatible directory service AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory Azure Active Directory Domain Service Managed Service for Microsoft Active Directory
Resource access management AWS Resource Access Manager Azure Resource Manager Resource Manager
Security data analysis Amazon Detective Security Center Chronicle, Risk Protection Program (preview)
Secrets management AWS Secrets Manager Azure Key Vault Secret Manager
Single sign-on AWS Single Sign-On Azure Active Directory single single-on Cloud Identity
Signoff for cloud provider data access requests N/A Customer Lockbox Access Transparency
Threat Detection Amazon GuardDuty Microsoft Azure Attestation, Azure Defender, Azure Sentinel Chronicle, Phishing Protection, Web Risk, Event Threat Detection (preview)
Vulnerability scanning Amazon Inspector Security Center Web Security Scanner

Storage

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Archival storage S3 Glacier, S3 Glacier Deep Archive Archive Storage Archive Storage
Backup AWS Backup Azure Backup N/A
Block storage Amazon Block Store (EBS) Azure Disk Storage Persistent Disk, Local SSD
File storage Amazon Elastic File Service (EFS), Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, Amazon FSx for Lustre Avere vFXT for Azure, Azure Files, Azure NetApp Files, Azure FXT Edge Filer Filestore
Object storage Amazon S3 Azure Blob Storage Cloud Storage, Cloud Storage for Firebase

*AWS, Google and Microsoft use different terminology to describe services that are in preview, beta or alpha. For the purposes of this piece, any service that is not generally available is listed as being in preview.

**Several Google and Microsoft services in this section are not explicitly available through Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, respectively. They are part of each vendor's broader cloud portfolio.

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