Flightcontrol The AWS experience you didn't think was possible Sponsored Learn more

Azure vs RunPod

In this page:

What's good
Price comparison
What services do they offer
Company details
Alternatives to consider

What's good about...

Microsoft Azure

Integrations with the rest of Microsoft's products
Extensive range of managed services, from serverless to databases to queues to AI
Generous free tier, and compute savings plans available
60+ datacenter locations around the world

RunPod

Affordable GPUs in various configurations
Packed with features: hot-reloading, managed containers, logging & monitoring
Available in 30+ regions across the world

Price comparison

How do Microsoft Azure's prices compare against RunPod?

Example configuration	Microsoft Azure	RunPod
VM Small	$7.49 / mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM (B1s)	$43.20 / mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM (Compute-Optimized)
VM Medium	$137.52 / mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (A4v2)	$86.40 / mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (Compute-Optimized)
VM Large	$288.00 / mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (A8v2)	$172.80 / mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (Compute-Optimized)
Block Storage	$9.60 / mo 128 GiB	$10.00 / mo $0.10 / GB / mo 100 GB
Object Storage	$21.50 / mo 1 TB	--
Load Balancer	$23.25 / mo Standard	--
Managed PostgreSQL	$131.89 / mo 2 vCPU, 4 GiB RAM, 50 GB storage (Gen 5)	--
Managed Redis®*	$39.60 / mo 1 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (Basic C1)	--
Serverless 25M Executions	$29.80 / mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration	--
Free egress allowance	100 GB / mo	--
1 TB of egress beyond allowance	$87.00 $0.087 / GB (Premium network North America)	Free and unlimited

Azure offers GPUs in the following configurations:

Name	GPUs	VRAM	vCPUs	RAM	Price/h
NC4as T4 v3	1x T4	16GB	4	28GB	$0.53
NC8as T4 v3	1x T4	16GB	8	56GB	$0.75
NC6	1x K80	12GB	6	56GB	$0.90
NV6	1x M60	8GB	6	56GB	$1.14
NV12s v3	1x M60	8GB	12	112GB	$1.14
NC16as T4 v3	1x T4	16GB	16	110GB	$1.20
NC12	2x K80	24GB	12	112GB	$1.80
NC6s v2	1x P100	16GB	6	112GB	$2.07
ND6s	1x P40	24GB	6	112GB	$2.07
NV12	2x M60	16GB	12	112GB	$2.28
NV24s v3	2x M60	16GB	24	224GB	$2.28
NC6s v3	1x V100	16GB	6	112GB	$3.06
NC24	4x K80	48GB	24	224GB	$3.60
NC24r	4x K80	48GB	24	224GB	$3.96
NC12s v2	2x P100	32GB	12	224GB	$4.14
ND12s	2x P40	48GB	12	224GB	$4.14
NC64as T4 v3	4x T4	64GB	64	440GB	$4.35
NV48s v3	4x M60	32GB	48	448GB	$4.56
NV24	4x M60	32GB	24	224GB	$4.56
NC24ads A100 v4	1x A100	80GB	24	220GB	$4.78	Launch
NC12s v3	2x V100	32GB	12	224GB	$6.12
ND24s	4x P40	96GB	24	448GB	$8.28
NC24s v2	4x P100	64GB	24	448GB	$8.28
ND24rs	4x P40	96GB	24	448GB	$9.11
NC24rs v2	4x P100	64GB	24	448GB	$9.11
NC24s v3	4x V100	64GB	24	448GB	$12.24
NC24rs v3	4x V100	64GB	24	448GB	$13.46
ND40rs v2	8x V100	256GB	40	672GB	$22.03
ND96asr A100 v4	8x A100	320GB	96	900GB	$27.20

RunPod offers GPUs in the following configurations:

Name	GPUs	VRAM	vCPUs	RAM	Price/h
RTX3070	1x RTX3070	8GB	16	31GB	$0.13
A4000	1x A4000	16GB	4	17GB	$0.17
A4500	1x A4500	20GB	4	29GB	$0.19
A4000 Ada	1x A4000	20GB	4	31GB	$0.20
A30	1x A30	24GB	8	31GB	$0.22
A5000	1x A5000	24GB	4	24GB	$0.22
RTX4090	1x RTX4090	24GB	7	24GB	$0.44
A40	1x A40	48GB	9	50GB	$0.47
A6000	1x A6000	48GB	8	50GB	$0.49
L40S	1x L40S	48GB	12	62GB	$0.79
A6000 Ada	1x A6000	48GB	14	62GB	$0.79
MI250	1x MI250	128GB	--	--	$0.90
L40	1x L40S	48GB	16	250GB	$0.99
A100 PCIe	1x A100	80GB	8	83GB	$1.19
A100 SXM	1x A100	80GB	16	125GB	$1.94
H100 PCIe	1x H100	80GB	16	176GB	$2.69
H100 SXM	1x H100	80GB	24	125GB	$2.99
MI300X	1x MI300X	192GB	24	283GB	$3.99

Note: Our pricing examples are based on several assumptions. Your actual costs may differ. Always check the cloud provider's website for the most up-to-date pricing.

Which services do they offer?

Here are some of the managed services that Microsoft Azure and RunPod offer:

Service	Microsoft Azure	RunPod
Block Storage
Content Delivery Network (CDN)		--
Container Registry		--
GPU-powered Servers
Load Balancer		--
Managed Containers
Managed Kubernetes		--
Managed MySQL		--
Managed PostgreSQL		--
Managed Redis®*		--
Object Storage		--
Serverless Cron Jobs		--
Serverless Functions		--
Static Sites		--
Virtual Private Server (VPS)

Company details

	Microsoft Azure	RunPod
Website	azure.microsoft.com	www.runpod.io
Headquarters	United States of America 🇺🇸	United States of America 🇺🇸
Founded	2008	2022
Data Center Locations	66	24
Example Customers	General Motors, NHS, Fujitsu, NBA	AfterShoot, Replika, Otovo, Data Science Dojo, Abzu

	Microsoft Azure
Website	azure.microsoft.com
Headquarters	United States of America 🇺🇸
Founded	2008
Data Center Locations	66
Example Customers	General Motors, NHS, Fujitsu, NBA

	RunPod
Website	www.runpod.io
Headquarters	United States of America 🇺🇸
Founded	2022
Data Center Locations	24
Example Customers	AfterShoot, Replika, Otovo, Data Science Dojo, Abzu