Microsoft Azure vs UpCloud

Microsoft Azure is strongest for enterprises. UpCloud is strongest for performance-sensitive VPS workloads. Here's how they stack up on price, uptime, and support.

Feature	Microsoft Azure	UpCloud
Starting price	$0.01/mo	$3.5/mo
Best for	Enterprises Windows/.NET workloads Hybrid cloud Regulated industries	Performance-sensitive VPS workloads European data residency Simple predictable billing
Stated uptime SLA	99.99%	99.999%
Storage	SSD	NVME
Regions	60	13
Managed Kubernetes	Yes	Yes
Support channels	Ticket, Phone (paid plans), Docs, Community forum	Ticket, Docs, Community
Compliance	SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, FedRAMP, GDPR, PCI DSS	GDPR, ISO 27001
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	Simple Backups add-on billed as a percentage surcharge on server price (Day +10%, Week +20%, Month +40%, Year +60%) Data transfer beyond the Fair Transfer Policy allowance can incur overage charges despite marketing free egress Premium plans require MaxIOPS block storage which is priced/allocated differently than Starter plan Standard SSD
Last reviewed	2026-07-18	2026-07-18