Azure Stack vs VMware Cloud Foundation comparison

Microsoft and Broadcom are both solutions in the Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.9, while Broadcom is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.2. Microsoft holds a 22.0% mindshare in HCCP, compared to Broadcom’s 18.9% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Azure Stack

Read 67 Azure Stack reviews

3,210 Views
3,114 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

VMware Cloud Foundation

Read 33 VMware Cloud Foundation reviews

2,930 Views
2,491 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Azure Stack

VMware Cloud Foundation

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Azure Stack and VMware Cloud Foundation compete in the private cloud infrastructure category, with Azure Stack having the upper hand in hybrid flexibility and Microsoft product integration, whereas VMware leads in automation and standardization.

Features: Azure Stack offers seamless PaaS and IaaS integration, compatibility with Microsoft SQL services, and IoT capabilities, enhancing hybrid cloud environments. It also integrates smoothly with Microsoft's ecosystems, providing flexibility in hybrid models. VMware Cloud Foundation automates workload management, simplifies complex virtualization tasks, and provides comprehensive lifecycle management, ensuring robust interoperability and standardization.

Room for Improvement: Azure Stack could benefit from better third-party integrations, enhanced container support, and improved disaster recovery options. It also needs better network integration and pricing transparency. VMware Cloud Foundation's deployment complexity and integration challenge users. Improvements in pricing, licensing models, streamlined upgrade processes, and customer support documentation are needed.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure Stack can be deployed on-premises and in hybrid cloud setups but receives mixed reviews regarding customer support efficiency. VMware Cloud Foundation offers automated and stable deployment but is complex to deploy. Both solutions need to enhance customer service quality, as Azure Stack users experience varied support and VMware customers seek improved technical assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Azure Stack is considered costly with a complex licensing model, offering good ROI when integrated with Microsoft ecosystems. Some organizations report significant returns through resource utilization. VMware Cloud Foundation is expensive but provides extensive features, with higher licensing costs impacting customer satisfaction since post-acquisition price increases.

To learn more, read our detailed Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms Report (Updated: November 2025).

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Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms

November 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

ROI

Sentiment score

5.7

Azure Stack showed mixed results, benefiting large user bases with quick returns, user-friendliness, and cost-effectiveness over alternatives.

Sentiment score

5.7

VMware Cloud Foundation promises future returns with potential savings, despite high costs, through increased efficiency and stability.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Stack report

VMware Cloud Foundation allows cost and time savings by quickly deploying infrastructure requests and integrating automatic ticketing and backup services.

Muneer-Hussain

Credit Analyst - Risk Management at Boubyan Bank

In terms of ROI, although VMware Cloud Foundation is expensive, it saves time in most cases, which indirectly saves costs for users.

Mangesh Parjane

Technical Manager at Owens & Minor, Inc.

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware Cloud Foundation report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.4

Azure Stack support varies; enterprise customers with high-tier support report better experiences, while others face challenges.

Sentiment score

7.0

VMware Cloud Foundation's support is generally responsive and professional, but some users seek improvements in speed and issue resolution.

The technicians handling the tickets do not seem very technical.

JitenderSingh

Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Any support we receive is through Dell EMC, as that's a policy from Microsoft itself.

MohammedAbdulAleem

Lead Enterprise Architect at Integrated Telecom

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Stack report

There are times when support is unclear, and even VMware support personnel may lack familiarity with certain parts, causing difficulties.

Mangesh Parjane

Technical Manager at Owens & Minor, Inc.

Based on my nine years of experience with VMware, I would evaluate their technical support as effective.

Narasimha Reddy Illuri

VMware Administrator at Infosys

The technical support from VMware Cloud Foundation deserves a nine out of ten rating.

MONICA I.

Cyber Security Analyst at Amdari

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware Cloud Foundation report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.6

Azure Stack offers scalable solutions from small to large deployments, praised for flexibility despite some challenges in integration and scaling.

Sentiment score

7.8

VMware Cloud Foundation offers excellent scalability, adaptable for various businesses, though dependent on licensing and hardware configurations.

Monitoring, changing plans, and consolidating things are necessary parts of the process to avoid excessive costs.

reviewer2160696

Vice President Of Engineering at a logistics company with 11-50 employees

Our company seeks cost-effective and more flexible open systems, and we find it difficult to integrate with third-party hardware.

MohammedAbdulAleem

Lead Enterprise Architect at Integrated Telecom

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the scalability of Azure Stack as eight.

JitenderSingh

Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Stack report

When more hosts are added, performance goes slow.

Abid_Ali

Deputy Manager, Customer Services at Jaffer Business Systems

VMware Cloud Foundation supports scalability and company growth.

Muneer-Hussain

Credit Analyst - Risk Management at Boubyan Bank

VMware Cloud Foundation is quite scalable, receiving a rating of eight and a half to nine out of ten.

Mangesh Parjane

Technical Manager at Owens & Minor, Inc.

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware Cloud Foundation report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.7

Azure Stack is praised for stability and reliable support, offering strong service availability despite minor, manageable issues.

Sentiment score

7.7

VMware Cloud Foundation is stable and reliable, with high performance and minimal issues, despite some migration complexities.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Stack report

The stability of VMware Cloud Foundation is very high.

Abid_Ali

Deputy Manager, Customer Services at Jaffer Business Systems

If one component fails to operate in a timely manner, the entire infrastructure can go down because everything is interconnected.

Mangesh Parjane

Technical Manager at Owens & Minor, Inc.

I am currently satisfied with the stability of VMware Cloud Foundation, though having started only two to three months ago, I am still in the monitoring phase.

Narasimha Reddy Illuri

VMware Administrator at Infosys

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware Cloud Foundation report

Room For Improvement

Azure Stack users seek enhanced feature parity, cost management, integration, technical support, AI capabilities, and user-friendly interfaces.

VMware Cloud Foundation requires improved integration, security, user-friendly features, better pricing, and enhanced support, especially post-Broadcom acquisition.

The precision of anonymous activity tracking should be improved, particularly in identifying the correct location because IP information is sometimes inaccurate.

JitenderSingh

Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Many resources get created in Azure Stack, and managing those resources can be challenging.

reviewer2160696

Vice President Of Engineering at a logistics company with 11-50 employees

Management looks for a balanced product that utilizes existing hardware, fulfills external customer demand, and leverages the scalability of the cloud model.

MohammedAbdulAleem

Lead Enterprise Architect at Integrated Telecom

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Stack report

VMware Broadcom needs to include auto resource allocation at the VM levels.

Abid_Ali

Deputy Manager, Customer Services at Jaffer Business Systems

The maintenance cost has increased significantly, especially after Broadcom acquired VMware, with a shift from socket-based licensing to core-based licensing.

Muneer-Hussain

Credit Analyst - Risk Management at Boubyan Bank

Each user needs deep knowledge of every aspect of virtualization.

Mangesh Parjane

Technical Manager at Owens & Minor, Inc.

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware Cloud Foundation report

Setup Cost

Azure Stack pricing varies widely, with mixed cost perceptions influenced by deployment specifics, service requirements, and regional complexities.

VMware Cloud Foundation is costly but valued for comprehensive features, despite post-acquisition price hikes; bundles offer savings.

If Microsoft lowers the price, more small businesses would be able to adopt the Enterprise E5 license.

JitenderSingh

Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Stack report

The cost has become very high, especially after Broadcom's acquisition, altering the licensing model to a more expensive core-based system.

Muneer-Hussain

Credit Analyst - Risk Management at Boubyan Bank

When comparing prices of both clouds, AWS is cheaper because they offer a free section for practice.

MONICA I.

Cyber Security Analyst at Amdari

The price is quite higher than some other vendors.

Abid_Ali

Deputy Manager, Customer Services at Jaffer Business Systems

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware Cloud Foundation report

Valuable Features

Azure Stack offers scalable, flexible solutions with integration, AI tools, and hybrid cloud features, enhancing deployment and development efficiency.

VMware Cloud Foundation offers scalable automation, disaster recovery, and seamless management, enhancing operational efficiency and infrastructure modernization.

They allow me to track all user activities.

JitenderSingh

Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

I am very much impressed with Azure Stack, especially regarding security, complete compliance, data sovereignty, and data security.

MohammedAbdulAleem

Lead Enterprise Architect at Integrated Telecom

We wanted to proceed with an integrated solution from the same cloud provider, so we are using Azure Stack.

reviewer2160696

Vice President Of Engineering at a logistics company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Stack report

The solution now offers auto-deployment of VMs.

Narasimha Reddy Illuri

VMware Administrator at Infosys

All features of VMware Cloud Foundation are valuable to us, as it covers every industry standard protocol and requirement protocol.

Abid_Ali

Deputy Manager, Customer Services at Jaffer Business Systems

VMware Cloud Foundation allows for extensive customization, aligning with our customer requirements.

Muneer-Hussain

Credit Analyst - Risk Management at Boubyan Bank

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware Cloud Foundation report

Categories and Ranking

Azure Stack

Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (2nd)

VMware Cloud Foundation

Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms category, the mindshare of Azure Stack is 22.0%, down from 30.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Cloud Foundation is 18.9%, down from 24.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Azure Stack	22.0%
VMware Cloud Foundation	18.9%
Other	59.1%

Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms

Featured Reviews

MohammedAbdulAleem

Lead Enterprise Architect at Integrated Telecom

Security and compliance shine but integration and pricing need work

The difficulties we face involve the lack of support, which is one reason the product isn't selling well in the market. Perhaps it relates to our sales team's strategy, but management looks for a balanced product that utilizes existing hardware, fulfills external customer demand, and leverages the scalability of the cloud model. An improvement for Azure Stack would be in third-party integration; it feels very restricted and closed concerning hardware. For example, I have Dell EMC hardware, but I want to integrate it with other major hardware such as Cisco, IBM, Lenovo, or Supermicro, and I can't do that. They should also improve third-party integration regarding security and new services such as AI as a service. I expect more towards AI-enabled models, and GPU as a service is also not offered.

Read full review

Narasimha Reddy Illuri

VMware Administrator at Infosys

There is progress in performance and stability, but further advancements are needed for end-user satisfaction

VMware Cloud Foundation's best features include its advanced capabilities, security purposes, and performance levels. The solution offers efficient licensing options. Previously, vSphere essential was available, but now it has moved to VMware Cloud Foundation 8.0. It includes advanced features such as lifecycle manager, patching level, and cluster level patching options. The solution now offers auto-deployment of VMs. Previously, I had to use the content library, right-click, and create VMs manually. With VMware Cloud Foundation, auto-deployment is possible by simply right-clicking and assigning a specific DHCP IP, enabling physical to vCenter level communication for automatic VM deployment. The workload portability feature in VMware Cloud Foundation provides good workload balance. For instance, in a cluster level with four to five ESXi hosts, each host has minimum resources allocated for CPU and memory, resulting in significantly reduced utilization at the VMware Cloud Foundation level.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	32
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	27

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure Stack?

For hybrid cloud operations, the seamless transition it enables is key. Most enterprises have a lot of workloads on-premises, and they want a smooth way to move into the cloud. Some things are on...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Stack?

Maintenance is included as part of the overall cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Stack?

See all answers

What do you like most about VMware Cloud Foundation?

VMware Cloud Foundation provides us with the vSphere dashboard through which we can manage, monitor, schedule, and spin up your virtual machines. We can manage, monitor, and get reports of your inf...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Cloud Foundation?

The price for VMware Cloud Foundation is not cheap, as the market is competitive with AWS cloud. When comparing prices of both clouds, AWS is cheaper because they offer a free section for practice....

See all answers

What needs improvement with VMware Cloud Foundation?

In VMware Cloud Foundation, areas that have room for improvement include the experience between VMware Cloud Foundation and the cloud. I prefer working with the cloud due to my study with the archi...

See all answers

Comparisons

AWS Outposts vs Azure Stack

Compared 32% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) vs Azure Stack

Compared 10% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Azure Stack

Compared 4% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Azure Stack

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Azure VMware vs Azure Stack

Compared 3% of the time

More Azure Stack Competitors

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VMware Cloud Foundation

Compared 14% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs VMware Cloud Foundation

Compared 11% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) vs VMware Cloud Foundation

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs VMware Cloud Foundation

Compared 8% of the time

AWS Outposts vs VMware Cloud Foundation

Compared 7% of the time

More VMware Cloud Foundation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Stack

November 2025

Download Azure Stack product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Cloud Foundation

November 2025

Download VMware Cloud Foundation product report

Overview

Information not available

Microsoft

VMware Cloud Foundation makes it easy to deploy and run a hybrid cloud. VMware Cloud Foundation provides integrated cloud infrastructure (compute, storage, networking, and security) and cloud management services to run enterprise applications in both private and public environments.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Weblink, Fathym, Sage, CFD Support Ltd, The UberCloud Inc.

ricoh, dell technologies, sky

Buyer's Guide

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November 2025

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