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

Can't make heads or tails of Amazon, Microsoft and Google cloud offerings? Use this list to help start your analysis of what's available from the largest cloud providers.

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.

No one can be an expert on everything on a single cloud, let alone all three of the public cloud service providers that operate at this scale. 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 helps. 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.

Not all services are equal -- each has its own set of features and capabilities, and the functionality might vary widely across platforms. 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.

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Here is our cloud services cheat sheet of the services generally available on AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. 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 Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Deep Learning Containers

AI-powered assistant

Amazon Q

Azure OpenAI Service

Gemini for Google Cloud

AI prediction human review and moderation

Amazon Augmented AI (A2I)

Azure AI Content Safety

N/A

Chatbot builder

Amazon Lex

Azure AI Bot Service, Azure Health Bot, Azure AI Language question answering

Dialogflow

Data labeling

Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth

Azure Machine Learning data labeling

Vertex AI data labeling

Document extraction and content analysis

Amazon Textract

Azure AI Document Intelligence

Document AI

Generative AI platforms

Amazon Bedrock

Azure OpenAI Service

Vertex AI

Image recognition and analysis

Amazon Rekognition

Azure AI Vision

Vision AI

Inference accelerator

Amazon Elastic Inference, AWS Inferentia

GPU support on AKS

Cloud Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), Edge TPU

Language translation

Amazon Translate

Azure AI Translator

Translation AI

Machine learning and AI chips

AWS Inferentia, AWS Trainium

Azure Maia 100

Cloud TPU, Trillium TPU

Managed machine learning platform

Amazon SageMaker

Azure Machine Learning

TensorFlow Enterprise, Vertex AI

Notebooks

Amazon EMR Notebooks

Azure Notebooks

Colab Enterprise, Vertex AI Workbench

Online fraud detection

Amazon Fraud Detector

Azure AI Anomaly Detector, Azure Event Hubs and Stream Analytics

reCAPTCHA Enterprise

Preconfigured images/VMs for deep learning

AWS Deep Learning Amazon Machine Images (DLAMI)

Data Science Virtual Machine (DSVM)

Deep Learning VM Image

Recommendation integration

Amazon Personalize

Azure AI Personalizer

Recommendations

Speech recognition and generator

Amazon Transcribe, Amazon Polly

Azure AI Speech

Speech-to-Text API, Text-to-Speech API

Text analysis

Amazon Comprehend

Azure AI Language

Natural Language API

Time-series forecasting

Amazon Forecast

AutoML in Azure Machine Learning

TimesFM, forecasting with AutoML in Vertex AI

Video analysis

Amazon Rekognition Video

Azure AI Video Indexer

Video Intelligence API

Visual inspection

Amazon Lookout for Vision

Azure AI Custom Vision

Visual Inspection AI

Analytics

AWS Azure Google Cloud

Big data processing

Amazon EMR, AWS Glue

Azure Data Lake Analytics, Azure HDInsight

Dataproc

Business analytics

Amazon QuickSight, Amazon FinSpace

Power BI, Microsoft Graph Data Connect, Azure Synapse Analytics

Looker

Data exploration and metadata management

Amazon Athena, AWS Glue Data Catalog

Azure Data Explorer, Azure Data Catalog

Dataplex

Data lake creation

AWS Lake Formation

Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2

Cloud Storage

Data share and exchange

AWS Data Exchange, AWS Lake Formation, Amazon Managed Blockchain (AMB)

Azure Data Share

Analytics Hub, Datashare

Data streaming

Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics, Amazon Data Firehose, Amazon Kinesis Data Streams

Azure Stream Analytics

Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Datastream

Data warehousing

Amazon Redshift

Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Databricks

BigQuery

Data wrangling

AWS Glue DataBrew, Amazon SageMaker Data Wrangler

Azure Data Factory

Google Cloud Dataprep by Trifacta in BigQuery

Extract, transform and load (ETL)

AWS Glue, AWS Data Pipeline

Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics

Cloud Data Fusion, Dataflow, Dataproc

Hosted Hadoop/Spark

Amazon EMR

Azure HDInsight

Dataproc

Managed Kafka

Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (MSK)

Azure Event Hubs for Apache Kafka

Confluent Cloud

Managed search

Amazon CloudSearch, Amazon OpenSearch Service, Amazon Kendra

Azure AI Search, Bing Web Search API

Cloud Search

Query service

Amazon Athena, Amazon Managed Grafana, Amazon Redshift

Azure Data Lake Analytics, Azure Synapse Analytics

BigQuery

Application integration

AWS Azure Google Cloud

API development and management

Amazon API Gateway, AWS AppSync

Azure API Management, Azure API Apps

API Gateway, Apigee API Management

Distributed app coordination

Amazon Simple Workflow Service (SWF), AWS Step Functions

Azure Logic Apps

Cloud Tasks

Event handling

Amazon EventBridge

Azure Event Grid

Eventarc

Integration service

Amazon AppFlow

Azure Logic Apps

Application Integration

Messaging

Amazon MQ, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)

Azure Web PubSub, Azure Queue Storage, Azure Service Bus

Pub/Sub

Service discovery

AWS Cloud Map

DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD) and multicast DNS (mDNS) in Azure Sphere

Service Directory

Service mesh

AWS App Mesh

Open Service Mesh (OSM) in AKS

Cloud Service Mesh

Workflow orchestration

AWS Data Pipeline, AWS Glue, Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (MWAA)

Azure Data Factory

Cloud Composer

Business applications*

AWS Azure Google Cloud

Collaboration tool suite

N/A

Microsoft 365, Azure FluidRelay

Google Workspace

Document sharing and storage

Amazon WorkDocs

Microsoft Word

Google Docs, Google Workspace Essentials

Email and calendar

Amazon WorkMail

Microsoft Outlook

Gmail

Low-code/no-code

Amazon QuickSight, AWS Amplify, AWS App Runner

Microsoft Power Apps

AppSheet

Video calls and chat

Amazon Chime

Microsoft Teams

Google Meet

Voice assistant

Amazon Alexa, Amazon Lex

Azure AI Speech

Google Assistant

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

Compute

AWS Azure Google Cloud

Autoscaling

AWS Auto Scaling, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Auto Scaling

Autoscale in Azure Monitor, Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets

Compute Engine managed instance groups (MIGs)

Batch scheduling, executing and processing

AWS Batch

Azure Batch

Batch

Extended infrastructure

AWS Outposts

Azure Stack

Google Distributed Cloud

Functions as a service, serverless computing

AWS Lambda

Azure Functions

Cloud Run functions

High-performance computing management

AWS ParallelCluster

Azure CycleCloud, Azure FXT Edge Filer

Cluster Toolkit

Isolated servers

Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts

Azure Dedicated Host

Sole-tenant nodes in Compute Engine

PaaS

AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Amazon Lightsail

Azure App Service

App Engine

Quantum computing

Amazon Braket

Azure Quantum

N/A

VMs

Amazon EC2

Azure Virtual Machines

Compute Engine

VM image builder

EC2 Image Builder

Azure VM Image Builder

Packer integration in Compute Engine

VMware integration

VMware Cloud on AWS

Azure VMware Solution

Google Cloud VMware Engine

Containers

AWS Azure Google Cloud

Container migration

AWS App2Container (A2C)

Azure Migrate

Migrate to Containers

Container registry

Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), AWS CodeArtifact

Azure Container Registry

Artifact Registry

Managed container service

AWS Copilot, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS)

Azure Container Apps

N/A

Managed Kubernetes service

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)

AKS

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Serverless containers

AWS App Runner, AWS Fargate

Azure Container Instances (ACI)

Cloud Run

Cost controls

AWS Azure Google Cloud

Architecture assessment and recommendations

AWS Well-Architected Tool (WA Tool)

Azure Well-Architected Review

Google Cloud Architecture Framework

Billing and budgeting tools

AWS Budgets

Microsoft Billing, Microsoft Cost Management

Cloud Billing, Cloud Billing Budget API, Cost Management

Cloud optimization

Amazon CodeGuru Security, AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Compute Optimizer

Azure Advisor, Microsoft Cost Management

Cloud Profiler, Cost Management, Recommenders

Long-term commitment discount programs

Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances (RI), Compute Savings Plans, EC2 Instance Savings Plans

Azure Hybrid Benefit, Azure Reservations, Azure savings plans

Committed use discounts (CUDs), sustained use discounts (SUDs)

Low-cost, interruptible VMs

Amazon EC2 Spot Instances

Azure Spot Virtual Machines

Spot VMs

Spending tracker and analysis

AWS Cost Anomaly Detection, AWS Cost and Usage Reports (CUR), RI Reporting

Microsoft Cost Management analysis and reporting feature

Cost Management

Databases

AWS Azure Google Cloud

Blockchain

Amazon Managed Blockchain (AMB), Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB)

Microsoft Azure confidential ledger

Blockchain Node Engine

In-memory data store

Amazon ElastiCache, Amazon MemoryDB

Azure Cache for Redis

Memorystore

NoSQL: Column-family

Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra)

Azure Cosmos DB

Bigtable

NoSQL: Document

Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility)

Azure Cosmos DB

Firestore, Firebase Realtime Database

NoSQL: Graph

Amazon Neptune

Azure Cosmos DB for Apache Gremlin

Neo4j on Google Cloud

NoSQL: Key-value

Amazon DynamoDB

Azure Cosmos DB

Bigtable, Firestore

Relational database management system

Amazon Aurora, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), Amazon Redshift

Azure SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL, Azure Database for MariaDB

AlloyDB for PostgreSQL, Cloud SQL, Cloud Spanner

Time-series database

Amazon Timestream

Azure Time Series Insights

Bigtable

Developer tools

AWS Azure Google Cloud

App configuration

AWS AppConfig

Azure App Configuration

Firebase Remote Config

Artifact management

AWS CodeArtifact

Azure Artifacts

Artifact Registry

CI/CD

AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS CodePipeline

Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines

Cloud Build, Cloud Deploy

CLI tools

AWS Command Line Interface (CLI)

Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI)

Cloud SDK, gcloud CLI

Code debugging

AWS X-Ray

Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

Cloud Trace, Google Cloud Observability, Firebase Crashlytics

Development kits and client libraries

AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK), Amazon Corretto, AWS SDKs

Azure SDKs

Cloud SDK

Git repositories

AWS CodeCommit, AWS Serverless Application Repository

Azure Repos

Cloud Source Repositories

Integrated development environments and related tools

Amazon EMR Studio, AWS Cloud9, AWS CloudShell

Azure Cloud Shell, VS, VS Code

Cloud Code, Cloud Shell

Mobile and web app development

AWS Amplify

Azure App Service, Azure mobile apps, Azure Static Web Apps, Xamarin apps with Azure

Firebase

PowerShell

AWS Tools for PowerShell

Azure PowerShell

Cloud Tools for PowerShell

Scheduling

Amazon EventBridge

Azure Logic Apps

Cloud Scheduler

Testing

AWS Device Farm, AWS Fault Injection Service (FIS)

VS App Center, Azure Test Plans

Firebase Test Lab

IoT

AWS Azure Google Cloud

Cloud-device connections, data collection and management

AWS IoT Analytics, AWS IoT Device Management, AWS IoT Events, AWS IoT SiteWise

Azure IoT Central, Azure Sphere

Leverege Connect for Google Cloud

Device security management

AWS IoT Device Defender

Microsoft Defender for IoT

N/A

IoT edge compute

AWS IoT Greengrass

Azure IoT Edge

Edge TPU

IoT gateway

AWS IoT Core

Azure IoT Hub

N/A

Virtual modeling

AWS IoT Things Graph, AWS IoT TwinMaker

Azure Digital Twins

N/A

Management and governance

AWS Azure Google Cloud

Anomaly detection

Amazon CloudWatch anomaly detection, Amazon Lookout for Metrics

AI Anomaly Detector

Apigee anomaly detection

Application and data management

AWS Service Catalog

Azure Managed Applications, Azure Blueprints, Microsoft Purview

Dataplex, Service Catalog, Service Directory

Automation

AWS CloudFormation, AWS Proton, AWS OpsWorks

Azure Resource Manager, Azure Automation, Bicep, Azure VM extensions

Cloud Deployment Manager, Cloud Foundation Toolkit, Cloud Scheduler, VM Manager

Configuration management

AWS Config

Azure App Configuration

Cloud Asset Inventory

General monitoring

Amazon CloudWatch

Azure Monitor

Cloud Monitoring

Health service and dashboard

AWS Health

Azure Resource Health, Azure Service Health

Cloud Monitoring

Hybrid and multi-cloud management

AWS Outposts, VMware Cloud on AWS, Amazon ECS Anywhere, Amazon EKS Anywhere

Azure Arc, Azure Stack

Google Distributed Cloud

License management

AWS License Manager

N/A

N/A

Logging

Amazon CloudWatch Logs, AWS CloudTrail

Azure Monitor Logs, Azure Monitor Log Analytics

Cloud Logging, Cloud Audit Logs

Management console

AWS Management Console

Azure Portal

Google Cloud console

Multi-account management

AWS Control Tower, AWS Organizations

Azure Management Groups, Azure Lighthouse

Resource Manager

Network monitoring

AWS Network Manager

Azure Network Watcher

Network Intelligence Center

Policy management

AWS Organizations

Azure Policy

Organization Policy Service

Migration

AWS Azure Google Cloud

Database migration

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)

Azure Database Migration Service

Database Migration Service

Data transfer appliance

AWS Snowball, AWS Snowcone

Azure Data Box

Transfer Appliance

Migration and modernization offerings

AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP), AWS Mainframe Modernization, AWS Migration Hub

Azure Migrate and Modernize, FastTrack for Azure

Rapid Migration and Modernization Program (RaMP)

Online data transfer

AWS DataSync, AWS Transfer Family, AWS Mainframe Modernization

Azure Storage Mover

Storage Transfer Service

On-premises application analysis

AWS Application Discovery Service, Migration Evaluator

Azure Migrate, Azure Resource Mover

N/A

Server migration

AWS Application Migration Service

Azure Migrate

Migrate to Virtual Machines

Miscellaneous

AWS Azure Google Cloud

Customer multichannel communication

Amazon Connect, Amazon Connect Contact Lens

Azure Communication Services

Contact Center AI

End-user communications

Amazon Pinpoint, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)

Azure Notification Hubs

Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)

Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)

AWS HealthLake

Azure Health Data Services

Apigee HealthAPIx, Cloud Healthcare API

Gaming

Amazon GameLift, Amazon Lumberyard

Azure PlayFab

Google Cloud for Games

Genomics

Amazon Genomics CLI

Microsoft Genomics

Batch

Geolocation APIs and services

Amazon Maps API, Amazon Location Service

Azure Maps

Google Maps Platform

Media services

AWS Elemental, AWS Thinkbox, Amazon Interactive Video Service (IVS), Amazon Kinesis Video Streams, Amazon Nimble Studio

Azure AI Video Indexer

Live Stream API, Transcoder API, Video Stitcher API, Video AI

Robotics application development

AWS RoboMaker

N/A

Cloud Robotics Core

Satellite ground stations

AWS Ground Station

Azure Orbital Ground Station

N/A

Virtual desktop

Amazon WorkSpaces, Amazon AppStream 2.0

Azure Virtual Desktop

N/A

Networking and content delivery

AWS Azure Google Cloud

5G-based infrastructure

AWS Wavelength, AWS Private 5G

Azure private multi-access edge compute (MEC), Azure Private 5G Core

N/A

Build, deploy and manage APIs

Amazon API Gateway

Azure API Management

Apigee API Management

Content delivery network (CDN)

Amazon CloudFront

Azure Front Door

Cloud CDN, Media CDN

Dedicated network connection

AWS Direct Connect

Azure ExpressRoute

Cloud Interconnect

Domain name system (DNS)

Amazon Route 53

Azure DNS

Cloud DNS

Load balancing

Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)

Azure Application Gateway, Azure Load Balancer, Azure Traffic Manager

Cloud Load Balancing

Network accelerator

AWS Global Accelerator

Azure Front Door

Premium Network Service Tier

Network address translation (NAT)

Amazon VPC NAT gateways

Azure NAT Gateway

Cloud NAT

Peering

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) peering

Azure Virtual Network peering

VPC Network Peering

Private network connector

AWS PrivateLink

Azure Private Link

Private Service Connect

Service discovery

AWS Cloud Map, Amazon VPC Lattice

N/A

Service Directory

Traffic control plane

AWS App Mesh

Azure Service Fabric

Cloud Service Mesh

Virtual WAN

AWS Cloud WAN

Azure Virtual WAN

Network Connectivity Center

Virtual private cloud (VPC)

Amazon VPC, AWS Transit Gateway

Azure Virtual Network

Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

VPN

AWS VPN, AWS Client VPN

Azure VPN Gateway

Cloud VPN

Security

AWS Azure Google Cloud

Audit and compliance reports and controls

AWS Artifact, AWS Audit Manager

Microsoft Service Trust Portal (STP)

Assured Workloads

Centralized security management

AWS Security Hub

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Security Command Center (SCC)

Certificate management

AWS Certificate Manager

Azure App Service certificate

Certificate Authority Service

Confidential computing

AWS Nitro Enclaves

Azure confidential computing

Confidential Computing

Container security

Amazon ECR

Microsoft Defender for Containers

Artifact Analysis, Binary Authorization

Data discovery and classification

Amazon Macie

Azure Data Catalog, Azure Information Protection

Data Catalog, Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP) in Sensitive Data Protection

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection

AWS Shield

Azure DDoS Protection

Google Cloud Armor

End-user identity management

Amazon Cognito

Azure Active Directory (AD) B2C

Firebase Authentication

Firewall management

AWS Firewall Manager, AWS Network Firewall, AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Azure Firewall, Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Cloud Next Generation Firewall (NGFW)

Identity and access management

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), Amazon Cognito

Azure AD B2C, Microsoft Entra External ID

Identity Platform, Firebase Authentication

Key management

AWS Key Management Service (KMS), AWS Cloud Hardware Security Module (CloudHSM)

Azure Key Vault, Azure Dedicated HSM

Cloud Key Management, Cloud HSM

Microsoft AD-compatible directory service

AWS Directory Service for Microsoft AD

Microsoft Entra Domain Services

Managed Service for Microsoft AD

Regulated services

AWS GovCloud

Azure Government

Assured Workloads

Resource access management

AWS Resource Access Manager

Azure Resource Manager

Resource Manager

Secrets management

AWS Secrets Manager

Azure Key Vault

Secret Manager

Secure access based on identity and/or context

AWS Verified Access

Microsoft Entra application proxy

Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP)

Sign-off for cloud provider data access requests

N/A

Customer Lockbox for Microsoft Azure

Access Transparency and Access Approval

Single sign-on (SSO)

AWS IAM Identity Center

Microsoft Entra Single Sign-On

Cloud Identity

Threat detection

Amazon Detective, Amazon GuardDuty

Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Microsoft Sentinel

SCC

Vulnerability scanning

Amazon Inspector

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Web Security Scanner

Storage

AWS Azure Google Cloud
Archival storage Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) Glacier Instant Retrieval, Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive Azure Archive Storage Archive storage in Cloud Storage
Backup AWS Backup, AWS Resilience Hub Azure Backup Backup and DR Service
Block storage Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) Azure Disk Storage Persistent Disk, Local solid-state drive (SSD) disks, Google Cloud Hyperdisk
File storage

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS), Amazon FSx

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

Editor's note: This article was originally compiled by Trevor Jones and was updated to include new service offerings.

Stephen J. Bigelow, senior technology editor at TechTarget, has more than 20 years of technical writing experience in the PC and technology industry.

Kathleen Casey is site editor for TechTarget Cloud Computing. She plans and oversees the site and covers various cloud subjects, including infrastructure management, development and security.

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