Top Cloud Computing Examples Based on Service Types and Models in 2024

Amazon S3 and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (known as EC2) are the storage and computing components of AWS, which is the largest cloud computing provider in the world. S3 provides users pay-as-you-go cloud storage, while EC2 offers virtual machines, instances and processing power.

• History: Initially focused entirely on web hosting, AWS was founded in 2002. In 2006, the service added both Amazon S3 and EC2 to its list of products. This marked its entry into the cloud computing space and, in many ways, set the standard for what modern cloud computing looks like. 
• Features:Amazon S3 offers data storage and backup, while EC2 allows users to set up custom virtual machines or instances and pay for processing power (also known as “compute”) as they need it.
• Benefits:The largest benefit of using Amazon S3 or EC2 is undoubtedly their integration with the wider AWS ecosystem. With more than 200 different apps and products, AWS is the gold standard for cloud computing features. Because of its wide adoption, it’s also very easy to find documentation and experts to help solve issues.
• Drawbacks:The drawbacks of Amazon S3 and EC2 (and the larger AWS ecosystem) are related to its benefits. Since AWS has so many products and services, there’s a steep learning curve. It’s also a bit pricier than its competitors, and the billing structure can be confusing. Lastly, AWS often struggles with performance on its East Coast data centers due to overload.
• Pricing:AWS offers a 12-month free tier with 5GB of storage, 750 hours per month with one VM instance and other integrated services. If you want more storage or compute, or you’ve used your 12 free months, then AWS charges for its services on a pay-as-you-go basis that varies depending on the rented infrastructure’s performance.

Microsoft Azure is the second biggest cloud computing platform and provides IaaS in the form of virtual machine computing power and object storage. These services are branded as Azure Virtual Machines and Azure Blob Storage, respectively.

• History: Although the Azure platform was announced in 2008, the virtual machine and object storage functionality was added in 2010 as part of Windows Azure before it was renamed to Microsoft Azure in 2014.
• Features: Microsoft Azure offers storage and computing infrastructure that integrates with the rest of the cloud computing suite and other Microsoft products such as .NET, Visual Studio and Active Directory.
• Benefits: The biggest benefit of Microsoft Azure is its integration with all other Microsoft products and solutions. If your company or organization is already invested in the Microsoft ecosystem, whether that’s through .NET development or the Windows operating system, then Azure will easily integrate with your existing systems.
• Drawbacks: The most obvious drawback to Microsoft Azure is its pricing, as it generally charges about 1.5 times what AWS or GCP does. It also requires quite a bit of setup and thought from the systems developer to ensure a solid foundation.
• Pricing: You pay per GB of storage or per minute of CPU usage; prices also vary depending on the performance required. Azure’s free tier splits into two categories: some services are available for 12 months (750 hours of Windows or Linux VMs and 5GB of free storage), while others stay free forever (SQL database, functions, app service, etc.)

Rounding out the “big three” of cloud computing, we have the Google Compute Engine and Google Cloud Storage, both part of the Google Cloud Platform.

• History: Google Cloud launched in 2008 — the same year as Microsoft Azure — but it wasn’t until 2010 that it added Google Cloud Storage to the platform. GCE didn’t launch until 2012.
• Features: Google Compute Engine and Google Cloud Storage offer scalable storage and computing infrastructure, as well as predefined and custom virtual machines. Both services integrate with the wider Google Cloud ecosystem.
• Benefits: Despite not having the same number of services as AWS or Azure, it still has far more integrations to take advantage of compared to a smaller niche service (more on these below). Google Cloud is also generally easier to learn and use than AWS or Azure, with many of its services having a simplified workflow.
• Drawbacks: Being newer, Google Cloud has fewer services and products than its two big competitors. Its main drawbacks are its limited selection of programming languages and its documentation being harder to find when compared to other big providers. It also has a smaller global network of centers, and creating nonstandard or niche VMs can be a little cumbersome.
• Pricing: Google Cloud charges based on resources used, be that storage or computing power. The price also depends on the type of instance or virtual machine you run. The free tier comes with one low-performance VM instance, 30GB-months of persistent storage and 1GB of outbound data transfer, plus limited use of other services within the Google Cloud Platform.

Leaving the “big three” behind, we get to our first niche cloud computing service on this list. IBM Cloud offers many of the same basic IaaS solutions as the previous three providers, such as virtual machines, storage and computing power — though with nowhere near the same number of services. It’s notable for its bare-metal cloud servers and industry-specific solutions.

• History: Originally founded in 2005 as SoftLayer, IBM acquired the service in 2013 and repackaged it as IBM Cloud in 2017.
• Features: Although it doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of services and tools as the previous examples, IBM Cloud offers some niche features not found elsewhere. This includes integration with IBM Watson, a long-running, mature AI-powered platform that can analyze data, convert speech to text, create custom neural networks and AI models, and more.
• Benefits: IBM Cloud is mostly known for its bare-metal servers. It also specializes in solutions for the banking, finance and healthcare industries, with a focus on large enterprise solutions. Rather than reinventing the wheel, IBM Cloud allows multicloud integration with AWS, Azure and Google Cloud to make up for some of its shortcomings. Since IBM owns Red Hat, it also offers a slightly higher guaranteed uptime for its Red Hat Cloud integration.
• Drawbacks: The main drawback of IBM Cloud is that it offers far fewer services and features than the “big three” providers if you’re not an enterprise-level company in one of its targeted sectors (finance, banking and healthcare). The pricing structure also makes it difficult to manage cloud costs over time.
• Pricing: IBM Cloud offers a free tier with access to more than 40 of its services, including 25GB of object storage and 100,000 vCPU seconds of compute per month. If you need more, you can opt for a standard pay-as-you-go model or a committed-use plan, which is cheaper but ties you down to a minimum amount of monthly resources.

Elastic Beanstalk is Amazon’s PaaS offering and integrates with the wider AWS ecosystem.

• History: AWS Elastic Beanstalk was initially released in 2011 as a way to provide easier access and use of its various AWS components.
• Features: Elastic Beanstalk allows for managed access to AWS’ IaaS components (S3, EC2, CloudWatch, etc.) without having to manually configure and maintain each resource. It supports a wide range of platforms and languages, and it lets developers create and deploy applications more easily using AWS infrastructure and components.
• Benefits: As part of the AWS ecosystem, the sheer number of features and abilities that Elastic Beanstalk offers is unmatched by any other PaaS provider. It supports a wide range of platforms and programming languages, and it’s easy to find documentation and expert support. Finally, it has better automatic scaling and load balancing options than its competitors.
• Drawbacks: Like the rest of AWS, Elastic Beanstalk has a steep learning curve due to its sheer scale. While you don’t technically pay for Elastic Beanstalk itself, AWS’ underlying cloud infrastructure is often more expensive than other providers.
• Pricing: As mentioned, Elastic Beanstalk is technically free. It’s included as part of the AWS free tier, but you have to pay for IaaS resources if you exceed the free limits.

Like Elastic Beanstalk, the Azure App Engine is a PaaS framework for developing and deploying web applications. 

• History: The Azure App Service was originally added to the overarching Microsoft Azure ecosystem in 2013 under the name “Azure Web Apps,” but it was rebranded in 2015.
• Features: Azure App Service supports web app development with frameworks for PHP, ASP.NET, Java, Node.js and Python. You can deploy applications to Windows and Linux systems, and they automatically scale based on need. Azure App Service integrates with a host of other Azure services for authentication, virtualization, automation and more.
• Benefits: The biggest benefit to the Azure App Service is familiarity for developers who are accustomed to the .NET programming ecosystem, as well as the ability to use other Azure services for Windows and Linux deployment. Its dedicated deployments for both Visual Studio and popular Java IDEs allow developers to keep using their favorite tools.
• Drawbacks: Like the rest of Microsoft Azure, the App Service has a steep learning curve for beginners, especially for those who aren’t familiar with .NET architecture. Like Azure’s other services, it’s also generally more expensive than its big competitors.
• Pricing: Azure App Service has a free tier with 60 CPU-minutes per day, 1GB of RAM and 1GB of storage that can host 10 apps. From there, you pay as you go depending on the tier you choose, starting at $0.013 per CPU-hour for the basic paid tier.

Coming back to the “big three,” we have Google’s PaaS solution: Google App Engine, also known as GAE. 

• History: Google App Engine was the first big PaaS solution on the market, releasing in 2008 as part of the initial launch of the Google Cloud Platform.
• Features: Google App Engine provides developers with a managed development and testing environment that automatically handles deployment and scaling. It offers deep integration and uses other Google Cloud Platform services.
• Benefits: One of the main benefits of Google App Engine is that it’s easier to use than other big PaaS solutions. It has a less punishing learning curve and a more streamlined approach to both scalability and deployment.
• Drawbacks: Out of the “big three,” Google App Engine is the most limited in terms of supported platforms and languages. It also has fewer features in total due to the lower number of services included in GCP compared to AWS or Azure.
• Pricing: Google App Engine is priced per hour of use, but the cost varies depending on the type of instance you’re using — higher performing instances will increase the hourly price. You can also use the App Engine on Google Cloud’s free tier, but with a limited selection of instance classes and usage hours per day.

AWS Fargate is AWS’ container service and provides an easier way to deploy applications using the Amazon ECS and EKS infrastructure. Fargate is serverless but still comprises containerized applications, so it straddles the line between FaaS and CaaS. AWS also offers a service called App Runner, an even simpler environment intended for users with no prior cloud computing experience.

• History: Fargate was added to the AWS platform in 2017. Amazon later added AWS App Runner in 2021.
• Features: Amazon Fargate simplifies the AWS development process by packaging different components into standardized containers that can be deployed anywhere. App Runner abstracts it even further, making it better for simple use cases and those who lack cloud computing experience.
• Benefits: Fargate saves developers from worrying about provisioning infrastructure or ensuring compatibility when deploying their apps. It specifically integrates with Amazon’s wider AWS infrastructure, essentially automating tasks you’d normally do using IaaS solutions like Amazon’s elastic storage (S3) and computing (EC2).
• Drawbacks: Compared to the underlying IaaS solutions, Fargate is expensive. Its conveniently managed systems also come with less control over infrastructure and resources, which is crucial for some use cases. It’s less flexible and customizable than working with the components directly, which is especially true for App Runner. The price structure is also confusing.
• Pricing: Both Fargate and App Runner charge for the amount of resources your apps utilize, whether it’s processing power, storage or RAM. The price varies depending on what virtual configuration you use, and it’s calculated in GB-hours and CPU-hours. There’s no access to either service on the AWS free tier. 

Microsoft also offers two separate CaaS products, namely Azure Container Apps (ACA) and Azure Container Instances (ACI). ACA is more heavily abstracted with things like load balancing, certificates and scaling automatically included. By contrast, ACI operates at a lower level of abstraction, requiring the developer to take a more active role in provisioning resources.

• History: Out of the two CaaS solutions, Azure Container Instances came first in 2017, building on the now defunct Azure Container Service. ACA was introduced much more recently in 2022 to provide a managed way to indirectly access Kubernetes APIs.
• Features: Azure Container Apps is built on Kubernetes and lets developers create microservices and event-driven applications that rely on multiple different services and dependencies. On the other hand, Azure Container Instances focuses on serverless applications that don’t rely on other components or services to function. 
• Benefits: Aside from simplifying things like provisioning resources and scaling, ACA and ACI’s containers have much faster start-up times than regular virtual machines, greatly increasing performance for small apps and services. Where most CaaS solutions only support Linux, ACI is the only major one that also works on Windows.
• Drawbacks: Like other CaaS solutions, the main drawback of both ACA and ACI is decreased control and flexibility compared to interacting with the underlying components directly.
• Pricing: For ACI, you pay as you go for both storage and vCPU time. The same is true for ACA, but here you also have the option of billing per million requests made by your app. There’s no free access to ACI, but ACA provides the user with 180,000 vCPU-seconds, 360,000 GiB-seconds and 2 million requests each month for free.

Unlike Amazon and Microsoft, Google offers a unified CaaS solution that is significantly more managed than its counterparts. This can cut both ways, either leading you to feel that “it just works” or causing frustration with the lack of control and insight into the backend.

• History: Beta access Cloud Run was added to the Google Cloud Platform in April 2019 before it moved on to general availability for all GCP customers later that year in November.
• Features: Google Cloud Run uses HTTP containers (rather than the more common Docker implementation) to deploy applications and to automatically scale and provision resources. Like AWS Fargate, Google Cloud Run is serverless, meaning it combines some of the features of FaaS with more traditional CaaS features. 
• Benefits: Google Cloud Run is far more managed than its counterparts, making it an easier solution to learn and master. Because it uses HTTP requests, it also supports a much wider range of programming languages than either AWS or Azure’s CaaS solutions.
• Drawbacks: Like most of GCP’s services, Google Cloud Run doesn’t offer the same degree of flexibility and control that its counterparts from Microsoft or Amazon do. 
• Pricing: Google Cloud Run’s Standard tier (or Tier 1) offers slower routing at a lower cost and only charges based on vCPU-seconds and GB-seconds. The Premium tier has more powerful servers, but it costs more and also charges per million requests made to your container. The free quota gives you 450,000 GB-seconds/240,000 vCPU-seconds on Tier 1 and 375,000 GB-seconds/200,000 vCPU-seconds on Tier 2, as well as 2 million requests.

AWS Lambda is Amazon’s FaaS solution and is the most mature service of its kind.

• History: AWS Lambda was released in 2014 and is considered to be the first fully formed FaaS solution to enter the market.
• Features: AWS Lambda allows developers to deploy code in Java, Go, PowerShell, Node.js, C#, Python or Ruby, which waits for an event to trigger. This code (or function) can then interact with over 200 of AWS’ other services.
• Benefits: Some benefits of AWS Lambda are its fast start-up times and a high maximum timeout for requests (15 minutes), making it very suitable for small tasks and larger batch jobs. It’s also a highly flexible solution with lots of customizable options for developers to tweak.
• Drawbacks: Because of its high degree of flexibility, AWS Lambda can have a steeper learning curve depending on your prior experience. It also doesn’t include HTTP integration by default (it’s billed as a separate service), which is one of the most common types of endpoints for FaaS solutions.
• Pricing: Lambda is priced per request and per GB-second of compute time. The free tier includes 1 million requests and 400,000 GB-seconds per month. After those resources are used, it costs $0.20 per 1 million requests and $0.00001667 for every GB-second.

Microsoft quickly followed Amazon’s lead by releasing Azure Functions.

• History: The preview build for Azure Functions released in March 2016, followed by the full version later that year in November.
• Features: Azure Functions offers the same functionality as Lambda — namely event-driven serverless compute service — but instead, it integrates with the overall Azure ecosystem, which is sizable but not as expansive as AWS. Azure supports C#, Python, Node.js, Java, Powershell, Go and Typescript, but notably lacks native support for Ruby.
• Benefits: Azure Functions’ max timeout is even longer than Lambda’s (30 minutes), and it has much of the same flexibility and customization. It also has a better HTTP integration that streamlines the process of setting up web-based endpoints.
• Drawbacks: Microsoft Azure has start-up times that are notably slower than both of its main competitors, which can greatly impact performance if you’re running a lot of small jobs.
• Pricing: Azure Functions is billed in the same way as Lambda, calculating the cost based on requests and resource consumption. The similarities don’t stop there — the free tier offers an identical amount of requests and GB-seconds, and the prices per request and GB-second are the same once you exceed the free limit.

Once again, we’ll use Google to round out our list of examples with Google Cloud Functions.

• History: Google Cloud Functions is the youngest of the three big FaaS solutions, launching as a beta in 2017 that was followed by a full release in 2018.
• Features: Google Cloud Functions supports code written in Node.js, Python, Go, Java, C#, Ruby and PHP. While Azure has added support for Go (developed by Google), Cloud Functions doesn’t support Microsoft’s PowerShell.
• Benefits: Ease of use has become a theme for Google’s solutions, and Google Cloud Functions is significantly more user-friendly and easy to learn than the two aforementioned services. It also has a very streamlined HTTP integration that makes it simple to set up endpoints.
• Drawbacks: Perhaps due to its focus on ease of use, Google Cloud Functions doesn’t have the same amount of advanced features or customizability as Lambda or Azure. It also has a lower max memory (capping out at 8192MB) and a shorter max timeout (nine minutes).
• Pricing: Google Cloud Functions’ free tier is more generous than AWS and Azure’s, with 2 million free requests per month (though the free compute limit is the same at 400,000 GB-seconds). Once past the free tier, Google Cloud Functions charges double for requisitions at $0.40 per 1 million, but compute time is cheaper at $0.0000025 per GB-second.

Salesforce CRM is the original SaaS platform and provides businesses with a tool to manage customer interactions and relations.

• History: Founded in 1999 by a former Oracle executive, Salesforce pioneered the SaaS space with its CRM solution. Salesforce acquired many other software companies over the years, including Heroku and Slack.
• Features: Salesforce CRM offers a customizable cloud-based platform that enables users to communicate with customers, analyze data and manage relationships with other businesses, vendors and services.
• Benefits: Salesforce is a mature and comprehensive CRM platform that comes with plenty of functionality covering most business scenarios. It’s much easier to scale compared to traditional software, and many repetitive tasks can be automated.
• Drawbacks: Since it’s been around for a while, getting started with Salesforce can be difficult, as all its different components have a steep learning curve. Customer data is stored remotely and can be accessed only with an internet connection, so it might not be suitable for businesses that handle highly sensitive data or are based in places with poor connectivity.
• Pricing: Salesforce offers a range of cloud-based software programs depending on use case, but the basic CRM suite starts at $25 per-user, per-month.

Zoom is a communication tool that specializes in video conferencing but also offers instant messaging and Voice over IP (VoIP).

• History: Zoom originally launched in 2012, but it wasn’t until 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic that it became a household name. In the first two months of 2020, the service gained more new users than it had in the entirety of 2019, quickly becoming almost synonymous with remote work.
• Features: Zoom is a relatively simple cloud-based software platform. It mainly offers video conferencing with meetings capable of hosting up to 1,000 attendees and lasting 30 hours on the most expensive plan. Zoom also offers a mail and chat client, a notes app, cloud storage and an AI companion, among other integrated services.
• Benefits: Zoom supports a larger number of participants for its video calls than most comparable providers. It’s also very easy to use and offers a wide range of supporting features like screen sharing, breakout rooms and polls.
• Drawbacks: Privacy concerns have been raised about Zoom — in particular, it settled a lawsuit in 2021 over sharing user data with unauthorized third parties, and it changed its terms of service in 2023 to allow the use of customer’s video and audio to train AI.
• Pricing: Zoom has a fairly limited free plan, restricting users to 40 minute meetings, which is short compared to alternatives. Paid plans start at $15.99 per user per month and can add up quickly.

Google Workspace is one of the most widely used SaaS solutions in the world. If you’re on the internet, chances are you have an account in some form. This includes Gmail, Google Drive, Chrome, Google Docs and more. Google Workspace has gone through many changes and updates throughout the years, to the point where it’s unrecognizable from its beginnings.

• History: Google Workspace dates back to the 2006 launch of “Google Apps for Your Domain” (shortened to “Google Apps”), which had Gmail and a few other apps like beta versions of Google Calendar and Google Docs. Google Drive added cloud storage in 2012, which was unified with Gmail’s storage in 2013. The service rebranded to GSuite in 2016 before rebranding again as Google Workspace in 2020.
• Features: Because of its many apps, Google Workspace has a wide range of features including communication (Gmail, Google Chat and Google Contacts), cloud storage (Google Drive), document collaboration (Google Docs, Slides and Sheets), note-taking (Google Keep) and video calls (Google Meet).
• Benefits: The two biggest benefits of Google Workspace are its widespread use and the fact that you can use it entirely for free unless you need more storage. The collaboration platform is easy to use and simplifies data sharing, communication and planning in several areas.
• Drawbacks: Privacy is the greatest drawback to any Google product. The company is well known for using customer data to improve its algorithms and ad platform, which makes it unsuitable for any confidential or sensitive data or processes.
• Pricing: Most Google Workspace services are free — examples include Gmail, Google Docs and Google Keep — but if you want more than 10GB of storage, you need to sign up for a paid plan starting at $1.99 per month.

Slack is another communication solution focused on businesses and teams. Whereas Zoom specializes in video, Slack is primarily about text-based communication.

• History: Slack was first released in 2013 after IRC initially developed it to be the communication tool for an online game called Glitch. After the game was abandoned, the product was renamed Slack, an acronym for the phrase “Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge.”
• Features: Slack offers most basic communication features, including direct messages, multi-user channels, @mentions, custom user statuses, file-sharing, reactions and more. 
• Benefits: A huge benefit of Slack is that it’s widely adopted, so many people already know how to use it, which makes it easier for teams to implement. All of its core features are available on the free version, so you can test it out and see if it’s the right choice before committing.
• Drawbacks: The biggest drawback to Slack is its high price and the limitations imposed on free plans. It also has inconsistent video call quality and a disappointing privacy policy.
• Pricing: As mentioned, Slack is expensive. There’s a free plan, but you’re limited to 90 days of conversation history, 10 external integrations, and 1:1 video or audio calls only. For those wanting to get around these limits, the cheapest paid plan starts at $8.75 per user per month, which can quickly balloon into a huge cost for large teams.