Compare cloud services across OCI and other cloud providers

We often hear the question, “What OCI service matches to service X on cloud Y?” Some answers are easy, such as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)’s Container Engine for Kubernetes (OKE) matching Kubernetes offerings on other cloud providers. Things get a bit fuzzier when you ask about application monitoring or remote access.

An internet search for service comparisons between cloud providers can show incomplete listings, outdated spreadsheets, and hundreds of services to track. That’s why we created the cloud service comparison page. It’s a single place to look at all services on OCI and how they compare to services on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

You might be surprised at the depth of services that OCI offers—another reason we created the page. Everyone knows that all the cloud providers have compute, storage, network, and database offerings, but what about visualization, data preparation, or a low code environment? Scroll through the list and you find a significant number of capabilities. We even included OCI services that have entered public beta, so you know where we are expanding.

How can I use the service comparison?

The comparison page has a free-form filter that looks through all fields. For example, if you want integration services but aren’t sure what those services are called, typing “integration” shows all of the rows that include the word “integration,” regardless of the actual service names. This function comes in handy as some services names have seemingly nothing to do with the actual service capability.

For convenience, we have also linked all the OCI services to their product or documentation page.

How we compared services across multiple cloud vendors

Comparing services across public cloud vendors is difficult and time intensive. How should they be categorized? What if there’s overlap? Is duplication allowed? These challenged were just some of examples that we encountered.

Commonality exists across the services, such as compute, storage, and network. However, each cloud provider builds their cloud to solve different challenges, so they’re not exactly alike. For example, Oracle built OCI for enterprise computing with mission-critical workloads instead of virtual reality or Internet of Things (IoT). So, we created a new taxonomy that focuses on the capability provided by a service. This system compares services based on the value provided, which is how users and developers view services. For simplicity, we then assigned each capability into a “best fit” category, even if it applies to more.

We want the comparisons to be accurate and fair, so we were generous in listing services from any cloud provider in as many capabilities that made sense. So, a service can appear multiple times, such as Identity and Access Management (IAM). A single capability can also show multiple services if they have overlapping qualities. This distinction is unique because most other comparison charts that we’ve seen tend to place a service in just one comparison, even if it should be included in different categories.

Includes 90% of required services

While some might be surprised at the number of services offered in OCI, the analyst firm Gartner is not. The last Solution Scorecard from Gartner ranks cloud providers on how many of the required services each offers. This report helps customers break through the distraction of ancillary offerings to understand how well each cloud vendor can support typical workloads.

OCI received a 90% on required services, behind only AWS and Azure. Looking at the cloud service comparison page, it’s readily apparent how OCI achieves a 90% rating because it stands toe-to-toe with the other cloud providers in services offered.

Information is dynamic

Information is constantly changing. Cloud providers are continually adding new services and features. We want the comparison page to remain fresh and relevant. So, we constantly monitor service announcements and upgrades from ourselves, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to keep the page up to date. This process is a significant investment of time, but we’re committed to our customers to provide accurate information, which benefits their projects and use cases.

If you find something that we could have worded better and categorized differently, let us know! We take it as a sign that the service comparison is providing value to you.

Try OCI for free

You can evaluate OCI today for free with no commitment. For more details on the many services offered by OCI, check out the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure page.

If you’re familiar with the other cloud providers, feel free to explore the Cloud Adoption Framework for in-depth architectures, guides, and tutorials to accelerate your move to OCI. We also offer a technical guide that explains the major concepts of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for AWS professionals and Azure professionals.