Microsoft Azure vs Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

Microsoft Azure is strongest for enterprises. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is strongest for enterprises running Oracle DB workloads. Here's how they stack up on price, uptime, and support.

Feature	Microsoft Azure	Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Starting price	$0.01/mo	$0.01/mo
Best for	Enterprises Windows/.NET workloads Hybrid cloud Regulated industries	Enterprises running Oracle DB workloads Cost-sensitive compute at scale ARM (Ampere) workloads Autonomous Database users
Stated uptime SLA	99.99%	99.95%
Storage	SSD	NVME
Regions	60	49
Managed Kubernetes	Yes	Yes
Support channels	Ticket, Phone (paid plans), Docs, Community forum	Ticket, Docs, Community forum, Phone (paid support tiers)
Compliance	SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, FedRAMP, GDPR, PCI DSS	SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, FedRAMP
Hidden costs to watch for	Windows Server VMs carry a license surcharge on top of the Linux compute rate Outbound bandwidth billed above 100 GB/month pooled free tier, tiered by volume Premium SSD/Ultra Disk IOPS and throughput billed separately from disk capacity Blob Storage Cool/Cold/Archive tiers bill a minimum 128 KiB per object and impose early-deletion penalties (90/180 day minimums) Archive tier retrieval fees are notably high ($6.50/10,000 read ops) AKS Standard tier control plane fee ($0.10/hr per cluster) on top of node VM costs	Block Volume performance (VPU) is billed separately from raw capacity and charged for the tier selected regardless of actual I/O used Autonomous Database storage billed separately from OCPU/ECPU compute Enhanced OKE clusters add a $0.10/hour control-plane fee (capped at $74.40/month) on top of worker node costs Archive Storage restores take hours and carry a 90-day minimum retention charge if deleted early Object Storage Infrequent Access tier carries a per-GB retrieval fee and minimum retention period
Last reviewed	2026-07-18	2026-07-18