Comparing top cloud infra software marketplaces

As technology continues to advance, businesses are increasingly relying on cloud infrastructure and services to support their day-to-day operations. The rise of cloud computing has led to the creation of software marketplaces offered by cloud infrastructure providers. These marketplaces serve as a centralized hub for businesses to access a diverse range of certified and optimized third-party applications, tools, and services that run seamlessly on the provider's cloud platform. With accessible pricing and availability models, these marketplaces are quickly becoming an essential component of modern business operations.

In this article, we will provide an overview of the top cloud infrastructure providers and their marketplaces. We will also analyze the different marketplace tools and compare the features of the major marketplaces.

Cloud Infrastructure Providers: Offerings

Cloud infrastructure providers offer cloud-based computing resources such as computing power, storage, and networking through their data centers, which are made available to customers over the internet. These resources are typically offered on a pay-as-you-go model, allowing businesses to only pay for the resources they use. 

The core offerings of cloud infrastructure providers typically include:

Computing power

Cloud infrastructure providers offer virtual machines (VMs) that can be used to run applications and services. These VMs can be customized to meet the specific needs of businesses, such as the amount of CPU and memory required.

Storage

Cloud infrastructure providers offer scalable storage solutions that can be used to store data, files, and documents. This storage is accessible from anywhere with an internet connection.

Networking

Cloud infrastructure providers offer networking services that allow businesses to create virtual networks and connect resources to each other. This enables businesses to build complex architectures that are highly available and scalable.

Security

Cloud infrastructure providers offer a range of security solutions to protect data and resources hosted on their platforms. This includes firewalls, access control, and encryption.

Management and monitoring

Cloud infrastructure providers offer tools and services that allow businesses to manage and monitor their resources. This includes tools for provisioning, automation, and monitoring of resources.

Software Marketplaces: A one-stop shop for cloud services

Software marketplaces offered by cloud infrastructure providers provide businesses access to a wide range of third-party applications, tools, and services. These marketplaces offer a convenient way to discover, purchase, and deploy integrated applications and services built for their respective cloud platforms.

The top cloud infrastructure providers and their marketplaces are:

The top cloud infrastructure providers and their marketplaces are:

Let's take a quick look at each one of them now. 

AWS Marketplace

The AWS Marketplace is an online catalog of third-party software, data, and services that customers can use to purchase, deploy, and manage solutions for their businesses. It offers thousands of software listings across various categories, including security, machine learning, business applications, and data products. It also offers industry-specific solutions, such as those for healthcare, financial services, and telecommunications.

Azure Marketplace

The Azure Marketplace from the Microsoft stable is a one-stop-shop for discovering, purchasing, and deploying integrated applications and services built for Microsoft Azure. It offers a range of certified solutions optimized to run on Azure, including open-source container platforms, threat detection tools, and blockchain solutions.

Google Cloud Platform Marketplace

The Google Cloud Marketplace provides pre-configured development stacks, solutions, and services that can accelerate the development process. The marketplace offers ready-to-go components for building and deploying applications, allowing developers to spend less time on installation and more time on developing their products.

IBM Cloud Catalog

The IBM Cloud Catalog provides a wide range of products and services covering a variety of areas, including data, containers, artificial intelligence, internet of things, and blockchain technologies. In addition, IBM Cloud Satellite enables users to deploy cloud services on-premises, in multi-cloud environments, and at the edge.

DigitalOcean Marketplace is focused on providing a streamlined ecosystem for developers to quickly discover and launch services, components, and tools from their favorite open-source projects and companies. It features a range of partner-built 1-Click Apps, which are pre-configured software and infrastructure stacks that run on DigitalOcean.

DigitalOcean Marketplace

The DigitalOcean Marketplace is focused on providing a streamlined ecosystem for developers to quickly discover and launch services, components, and tools from their favorite open-source projects and companies. It features a range of partner-built one-click Apps, which are pre-configured software and infrastructure stacks that run on DigitalOcean.

How do the marketplaces compare?

When it comes to managing your data, ensuring your security, analyzing your information, and implementing AI/ML, you have plenty of options in the world of cloud computing. AWS Marketplace, Microsoft Azure Marketplace, Google Cloud Platform Marketplace, IBM Cloud Marketplace, and DigitalOcean Marketplace all offer a wide range of software and services to support your business needs.

Data Management: For data management, each of the marketplaces provides a variety of solutions such as databases, data warehouses, data lakes, and ETL tools. AWS Marketplace offers solutions like Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, and AWS Glue, while Azure Marketplace offers solutions like Azure SQL Database, Azure Synapse Analytics, and Azure Data Factory. Google Cloud Platform Marketplace provides solutions like Google Cloud SQL, BigQuery, and Cloud Dataflow. IBM Cloud Marketplace offers solutions such as IBM Db2, IBM Cloudant, and IBM DataStage. DigitalOcean Marketplace offers solutions such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis.

Security: Security is a top priority for any business, and all five marketplaces offer a variety of security solutions including firewalls, identity and access management, and encryption tools. AWS Marketplace provides solutions such as AWS WAF, AWS IAM, and AWS Key Management Service, while Azure Marketplace offers solutions like Azure Firewall, Azure Active Directory, and Azure Key Vault. Google Cloud Platform Marketplace provides solutions like Google Cloud Armor, Google Cloud Identity, and Google Cloud KMS. IBM Cloud Marketplace offers solutions such as IBM Security Access Manager, IBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence, and IBM Key Protect. DigitalOcean Marketplace offers solutions such as Cloud Firewalls and DigitalOcean Spaces.

Analytics: Analyzing your data is crucial to staying competitive, and each of the marketplaces provides a variety of analytics solutions, including business intelligence tools, data visualization tools, and predictive analytics tools. AWS Marketplace offers solutions like Amazon QuickSight and AWS Lake Formation, while Azure Marketplace offers tools like Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Data Factory, and more.Google Cloud Platform offers BigQuery for data warehousing and analysis, and IBM Cloud Marketplace offers IBM Watson Studio for data science and machine learning. DigitalOcean Marketplace provides a variety of analytics tools such as Grafana, Prometheus, and more.

AI/ML: Lastly, AI/ML services are critical for businesses to gain insights and optimize their operations. AWS provides a wide range of AI/ML services such as Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Rekognition, and more. Azure provides a wide range of AI/ML services such as Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services, and more.Google Cloud Platform offers AI/ML services such as AutoML, while IBM Cloud Marketplace offers IBM Watson Studio for data science and machine learning. Unfortunately, DigitalOcean Marketplace does not offer any AI/ML services at this time.

With each marketplace offering unique features and benefits, it's important to evaluate your business needs carefully to determine which marketplace is the right fit for you.

Here is a comparative analysis of popular cloud marketplaces:

The top cloud infrastructure providers and their marketplaces offer a wide range of solutions for businesses of all sizes to leverage the power of cloud computing. Third-party applications, tools, and services available in these marketplaces provide end-users with a one-stop-shop experience for their cloud needs, including data management, security, analytics, and AI/ML.

We are excited to announce that Packagecloud is now available on the DigitalOcean Marketplace!

Packagecloud provides a unified, developer-friendly package management platform for software artifacts - written in any language, delivered to any infrastructure. The platform, which incidentally can also be installed on-prem or within your network perimeter, is a best in class software package manager trusted by Fortune 500 companies. If you are not already a Packagecloud user, get your free trial account now!