Beam
vs
Azure
What's good about each
- Pay-per-millisecond billing, only while code is running
- Sub-second cold starts from memory snapshots
- No egress or bandwidth fees on any plan
- Runs in your own AWS, GCP or Azure account
- Recurring monthly credit on every plan
- Integrates with Entra ID, Microsoft 365, GitHub and Visual Studio
- Azure Arc and Azure Stack for hybrid and multicloud
- OpenAI models served through Azure AI Foundry
- 100+ compliance offerings, regional and industry-specific
- 60+ regions worldwide
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | Beam | Azure | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | -- Not listed | $6.77 /mo 2 vCPU, 1 GB RAM (B2ats v2) | |
| Medium VM | -- Not listed | $95.76 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (B4als v2) | |
| Large VM | -- Not listed | $231.84 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (D8als v6) | |
| Block storage | $2.10 /mo 100 GB beyond free allowance · First 1 TB included | $7.92 /mo 100 GB (Premium SSD v2) | 73% cheaper on Beam |
| Object storage | -- Not listed | $35.25 /mo 1 TB | |
| PostgreSQL | -- Not listed | $54.71 /mo 2 vCPU, 4 GiB RAM, 50 GB storage (Flexible Server B2s) | |
| Redis | -- Not listed | $23.04 /mo 1 GB RAM (Managed Redis Balanced B1) | |
| Load balancer | -- Not listed | $23.00 /mo Standard | |
| Serverless | -- Not listed | $35.00 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration | |
| Egress allowance | Free and unlimited | 100 GB / mo | |
| Egress | -- Not listed | $87.00 /TB $0.087 / GB (Premium network North America) |
Heads up: Figures take each provider's closest plan to a common setup, and vary by region and usage. Hover a service for the reference configuration. Verify before provisioning. More on how we price.
GPUs
Beam and Azure each offer 10 GPU models. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | Beam | Azure | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
H100
2 configs · 20 configs
|
$1.83 /GPU/hr On-demand | $6.98 /GPU/hr On-demand | 74% cheaper on Beam |
|
RTX PRO 6000
1 config · 40 configs
|
$1.09 /GPU/hr On-demand | $5.50 /GPU/hr On-demand | 80% cheaper on Beam |
|
H200
2 configs · 4 configs
|
$2.09 /GPU/hr On-demand | $13.78 /GPU/hr On-demand | 85% cheaper on Beam |
|
A100
1 config · 20 configs
|
$1.36 /GPU/hr On-demand | $3.40 /GPU/hr On-demand | 60% cheaper on Beam |
|
B300
1 config
|
-- On request | -- | Beam only |
|
B200
2 configs
|
$4.11 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- | Beam only |
|
RTX 5090
1 config
|
$0.72 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- | Beam only |
|
GB200
4 configs
|
-- | $11.90 /GPU/hr Reserved (36 mo) | Azure only |
MI300X
4 configs
|
-- | $1.60 /GPU/hr Spot | Azure only |
|
V100
6 configs
|
-- | $0.28 /GPU/hr Spot | Azure only |
Beam bills on-demand; Azure bills on-demand, spot and reserved (12 or 36 months). The line under each price names the billing type shown.
Services
Managed services each provider offers.
Compliance
Frameworks each provider states on its own site, each linked to its source.
| Framework | Beam | Azure |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II | Type II |
| ISO 27001 | -- | Yes |
| HIPAA | -- | Yes |
| GDPR | Yes | Yes |
| PCI DSS | -- | Level 1 |
| FedRAMP | -- | High |
Heads up: Each entry links to the provider's own statement. An attestation can cover one tier, one region or the platform alone rather than every service. Verify the scope before you rely on it. A dash means we found nothing to link to, not that the provider lacks it.
Company details
| Fact | Beam | Azure |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2021 | 2008 |
| Headquarters | USA | USA |
| Locations | -- | 66 |
| Example customers | Coke, Ogilvy, EdgeImpulse, Magellan AI, Geospy, Frase | General Motors, NHS, Fujitsu, NBA |
| Website | www.beam.cloud | azure.microsoft.com |
Alternatives to consider
Compare Beam and Azure against other cloud providers.
Our data for Beam was last updated on Oct. 1, 2026, and for Azure on Oct. 1, 2026.