Both Amazon EC2 and Azure VM provide a wide selection of VM types optimised to fit different use cases. An instance or VM is combinations of virtual CPU, virtual memory, temporary storage, and networking capacity and give a customer the flexibility to choose the appropriate mix of resources for workloads. Both AWS EC2 and Azure offers instances at scale for the requirements of any target workload. Both EC2 and Azure provide the option to store VM in persistent storage called EBS in Amazon terminology or Blob Storage in Azure terminology.
Available Windows/Linux VM both Cloud Services Providers:
| Type | Description | Azure VM
Windows & Linux |
AWS EC2
Windows & Linux |
| General purpose | Balanced CPU-to-memory ratio. | B, Dsv3, Dv3, DSv2, Dv2, Av2 | T2, M4, M5 |
| Compute-optimised | High CPU-to-memory ratio. | Fsv2, Fs, F | C4, C5 |
| Memory-optimised | High memory-to-CPU ratio. Great for database servers | Esv3, Ev3, M, GS, G, DSv2, Dv2 | X1e, X1, R5, R4, Z1d |
| Storage optimised | High disk throughput and IO. | Ls | H1, i3, D2 |
| GPU | Specialized for heavy graphic rendering and video editing | NV, NC, NCv2, NCv3, ND | P3, P2, G3, F1 |
| High performance compute | fastest and most powerful CPU | H | C4, C5 |
Both AWS and Azure are utility pricing model analogous to your gas, water or power bills. Both Amazon and Azure provide standard instance as PAYG model, and also some instances are available in the reserved pricing model. In a reserved pricing model, you pay upfront at a cheaper rate for instance but commit for certain months or years. In a reserved instance, you pay additional for -storage consumption and network utilisation if it’s cross-geo connectivity. Both AWS and Azure have vast marketplace from where you can pick up and deploy any instance of your requirements at Scale.
Here is where Microsoft differentiate from AWS, you can save up to 72% over pay-as-you-go pricing with an upfront one- or three-year commitment in Azure Cloud. You can also exchange or cancel the RI at any time. Microsoft also offers Hybrid benefits, i.e. 40% off when you bring in Microsoft Windows/Linux workloads from On-prem to Azure. You can use your on-premises Windows Server or SQL Server licences with Software Assurance to make big savings when migrating a few workloads or entire data centres to the cloud.
You can get discounted rates on Azure for your ongoing development and testing, including no Microsoft software charges on Azure Virtual Machines and special dev/test pricing on other services.
Microsoft also offers US$5000 credit for the validated Not-for-Profit organisation for the use of Azure Cloud whilst signing
Relevant References:
Offset IT Cost with Azure Cloud
Microsoft Azure credits now available to eligible not-for-profit organisations
Blog by Raihan Al-Beruni 
Thanks for sharing the comparison here Raihan.
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