Report:

Magic Quadrant for Cloud Application Platforms

Top Vendor Products for Cloud Application Platforms in 2024

• Amazon Web Services
• Google
• Microsoft
• Red Hat
• Salesforce (Heroku)

Cloud Application Platforms Vendor Product Comparisons 2024

• Amazon Web Services - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • The AWS cloud application platform suite provides teams with multiple options. AWS Lambda supports serverless functions. AWS App Runner provides a serverless runtime for containers and tooling to build container images from native code. Both platforms support modern architectures, multiple languages and frameworks, and provide cost-effective scalability, flexibility, performance and streamlined DevOps workflows. AWS Elastic Beanstalk supports a three-tier architecture and provides a platform for lift-and-shift migrations.
  • AWS Lambda and App Runner are integral parts of the AWS serverless suite of complementary cloud services that help customers build, deliver and maintain secure, high-performance applications. AWS' marketplace of third-party solutions and native integrations also helps to streamline application delivery.
  • AWS continues to invest in its serverless platforms. One recent upgrade allows Lambda functions to scale more rapidly than before. AWS Lambda can allocate up to 1,000 additional execution environment instances, or 10,000 additional requests, to each function every 10 seconds. AWS is also making significant strides in its generative AI capabilities that simplify cloud computing.

  Cons:

  • AWS' vast array of interconnected services can overwhelm new customers who don't have deep knowledge of the AWS portfolio. The complexity of the AWS offerings can make it challenging for new users to get started and efficiently manage their organization's cloud infrastructure. The complexity can also impact budgeting because users might not be aware that some services are still running after an application has completed.
  • AWS Lambda customers may find it difficult to replatform applications to other cloud providers. While AWS Lambda is not conducive to multicloud deployments, AWS' comprehensive platform portfolio provides a wide range of services that may reduce the need for a multicloud strategy.
  • AWS has a wide range of cloud application platform offerings that sometimes overlap. Customers at times struggle to select the right service for a given use case — for example, mapping AWS App Runner and AWS Fargate to the right use cases.


• Cloudflare - Challenger
  

  Pros:

  • Cloudflare offers a global network of edge computing resources, supporting CDN services, cloud cybersecurity and distributed denial of service (DDoS) mitigation. Its CDN also provides customers with a secure, high-performance edge-computing platform for serverless functions.
  • Cloudflare has achieved more than 50% annual growth in cloud application platform sales for each of the past three years. Cloudflare excels in cross-selling its cloud application platform to its large, diverse base of existing customers, appealing to customers' needs to support extensive edge-computing initiatives.
  • Cloudflare has recently released Workers AI, a GPU-based compute resource that offers advanced computational capabilities at the edge and the ability to deploy machine learning and large language models (LLMs). Cloudflare also provides a graphical workflow tool for building AI applications. Cloudflare continues to innovate in the area of generative AI by steadily adding more natively deployed LLMs. Cloudflare is currently running a container platform in production for internal workloads and is planning to open container management functionality widely to customers in 2025. This expansion will enhance the development and runtime capabilities available to customers.

  Cons:

  • Cloudflare Developer Platform supports development and deployment of functions, but not containers or native code. It supports JavaScript, Python, Rust and WebAssembly, where developers can write in Go and C. These limitations make the platform less suitable for modernization and lift-and-shift cloud migration scenarios.
  • Cloudflare has a relatively small partner program and does not offer a marketplace for community extensions, templates or plug-ins that can extend its core functionality. Its emphasis on edge execution does not appear to resonate with a broad audience. All these factors limit Cloudflare's ability to expand its ecosystem and appeal to new customers.
  • Cloudflare's marketing strategy assumes that customers prioritize edge computing and serverless functions as the preferred architecture. While these are important trends, this focus may limit the company's ability to explore broader market opportunities.


• Google - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • Google Cloud Run offers serverless computing for both functions and containers, supporting an exceptionally broad set of languages and frameworks. Google Cloud buildpacks can build container images directly from code, eliminating the need for developers to manually build containers. Gemini Cloud Assist provides contextual and personalized AI guidance to help manage application life cycles. Google App Engine supports a more traditional three-tier architecture and provides a platform for lift-and-shift migrations.
  • Google demonstrates an awareness of developers' need for flexibility in development and deployment. The Google platform services give customers the choice to use any language, any library and any binary. Customers can deploy functions, containers or native code. They can build cloud-native microservices or function-based architectures, or they can lift and shift monolithic systems.
  • Google is integrating generative AI capabilities across its platform, with features like "Explain this log" (currently in GA) and "Help me create" for synthetic monitors (currently in public preview). These features go beyond code assistance to support developers with operational insights and configuration.

  Cons:

  • Google offers uptime service-level agreements (SLAs) and supports platform zero downtime updates, but it does not offer end-user latency guarantees. Google will not negotiate higher SLA guarantees.
  • The products in Google's portfolio are deeply integrated and the workflows are more strongly opinionated than those of other Leaders' platforms. If teams are accustomed to integrating complex compositions of cloud services in novel ways, they may find the Google opinionated environment constraining.
  • Google Cloud has a wide range of cloud application platform offerings that sometimes overlap. Customers at times struggle to select the right service for a given use case — for example, mapping Google Cloud Run and Google Kubernetes Engine to the right use cases.


• Huawei - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Huawei has broadened the platform's support for open-source development frameworks, which are popular in China. These include Apache ServiceComb, Spring Cloud Huawei and Sermant. In our customer survey, customers indicated that they value Huawei's internal feature flag product, Dark Launch, as it helps them support canary deployments.
  • Huawei invested 23.4% of its 2023 revenue back into R&D, demonstrating its commitment to research and innovation for cloud services and Cloud Application Engine in particular.
  • Huawei has a strong product roadmap for the next 12-18 months. Enhancements include buildpack tooling to support multiple languages and frameworks, infrastructure-as-code-based environment extensions, extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF)-based mesh and AI assistants for cloud.

  Cons:

  • For its cloud application platform product portfolio, Huawei primarily targets customers in China and the Asia/Pacific region. Huawei plans to expand sales and support for this platform into Europe and South America, but economic sanctions will limit its ability to reach customers in the U.S. and some other markets. Huawei offers availability zones in the following regions: South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, China and Asia/Pacific.
  • Cloud Application Engine's SLA for uptime and end-user latency guarantees lag those of its competitors in most regions, which may impact customer confidence in Huawei's service reliability. In our customer survey, customers reported a need for expanded documentation, tutorials and community support to help them use the platform's features and troubleshoot issues more effectively.
  • Huawei offers a relatively limited list of plug-ins and integrations compared with Leaders in this Magic Quadrant. In our customer survey, customers expressed a desire for a greater degree of integration with both internal and external solutions to help accelerate development.


• Microsoft - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • In our customer survey, customers praised the Azure platforms for ease of use, reliability, availability and scalability. Azure Functions provides scalable, serverless compute for modern, cloud-native architectures. Azure App Service supports traditional three-tier architectures and offers a seamless platform for lift-and-shift migrations, simplifying the transition of legacy applications to the cloud.
  • Microsoft tooling is intuitive, enabling developers to learn how to use the platforms quickly. Microsoft also provides extensive documentation, guidance, training and certification programs to assist teams in learning cloud-native best practices.
  • Azure Functions offers deep integration with Azure DevOps, Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. This seamless integration simplifies the development life cycle, enabling developers to write, test, deploy and run code efficiently while automating workflows. With the added strength of the .NET ecosystem, Microsoft provides a unified platform that offers a streamlined experience.

  Cons:

  • Microsoft offers uptime SLAs and supports platform zero downtime updates, but it does not offer end-user latency guarantees. Microsoft will not negotiate higher SLA guarantees.
  • Azure Functions customers may find it difficult to replatform applications to other cloud providers, which limits their ability to implement a multicloud strategy. While Azure Functions is not conducive to multicloud deployments, the Microsoft platform portfolio provides a wide range of services that may reduce the need for a multicloud strategy.
  • Microsoft Azure offers a wide range of cloud application platform services that sometimes overlap. Customers at times struggle to select the right service for a given use case — for example, mapping Azure Container Apps and Azure Kubernetes Service to the right use cases.


• Mia-Platform - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Mia-Platform provides a unique no-code Design section, which enables customers to configure and deploy applications on Kubernetes or serverless environments. It provides an internal developer portal and a Backstage plug-in. The platform is extensible with third-party tools and custom interfaces. Mia-Platform also offers Mia Assistant, an AI companion that streamlines onboarding for new users and provides insights into product usage, project and runtime statuses, and the current configuration of development applications.
  • Mia-Platform demonstrates a strong awareness of customer needs by providing a multicloud offering that is fully managed on all major cloud platforms. The platform is also available as self-managed software for on-premises or cloud deployment.
  • Mia-Platform Expert Program and Mia-Platform Academy provide customers with workshops, training sessions and an exclusive sandbox environment to experiment with new solutions. Mia-Platform Partner Program offers consulting and professional services, and enables customers to publish technical components within the Mia-Platform ecosystem.

  Cons:

  • Mia-Platform primarily targets customers in Europe. Although it has some customers in North America and South America, it has limited sales and support resources outside of Europe. While Mia-Platform offers a managed service, it's important to note that provisioning and support is done per customer. Customers should verify if Mia-Platform can effectively serve organizations in their region.
  • In our customer survey, respondents highlighted the complexity of the onboarding process, noting that the steep learning curve cannot be addressed through self-service deployment, as this option is not available. Instead, direct support from Mia-Platform or one of its certified partners is required to successfully deploy and integrate the solution.
  • Mia-Platform has a 100% organic innovation strategy and no acquisitions planned for the next 12 months. Given the company's size constraints, this preference to postpone strategic acquisitions may delay its ability to deliver new capabilities to customers.


• Netlify - Visionary
  

  Pros:

  • Netlify has delivered several innovative features with Netlify Connect and Netlify Create, including AI-enabled deploy assist for debugging, caching durability and GraphQL API over web app content and data. It also offers website visual editing through the recent acquisition of Stackbit. Moreover, Netlify supports and promotes the modern front-end architecture style known as Jamstack.
  • Netlify recognizes the value of using a composable web architecture to maximize flexibility, performance and scalability for web applications. Netlify's prebuilt web app templates and web framework support are reinforced by serverless architecture based on Netlify edge functions.
  • Netlify offers flexible integration packages so users can build applications quickly. It offers self-serve subscription bundles, including a free tier, so prospective clients can try out the platform at low to no cost.

  Cons:

  • While Netlify includes back-end features like serverless functions and compatibility with frameworks such as Next.js, Astro or Remix, its platform is primarily designed for front-end-adjacent, back-end workloads. For more complex back-end needs, Netlify customers should separately source back-end compute or rely on their existing back ends and integrate these components.
  • Netlify offers limited industry-specific solution packages. Prospective customers with industry-specific requirements should assess Netlify's suitability for their needs.
  • Netlify will need to grow its market share and expand into new regions like South America, Asia/Pacific (including China) and the Middle East to remain viable in a market dominated by megavendors. Expanding its sales and support teams to other regions, like South America and the Middle East, could be a challenge without establishing local teams or partners. Prospective customers should monitor Netlify's financial performance and growth.


• Platform.sh - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Platform.sh offers a flexible solution that supports multiple languages and frameworks while automating infrastructure tasks such as scaling and backups. Upsun provides a self-service platform designed to support scalable architecture across all major cloud providers. It enables teams to efficiently scale individual applications, optimizing resource use without impacting overall system performance.
  • Platform.sh takes a developer-focused approach by offering a Git-centric solution with a high degree of flexibility. Upsun includes full-stack project cloning of all application code, data and services, which enables customers to replicate environments with improved efficiency. It also enhances multicloud portability by minimizing vendor lock-in.
  • Platform.sh has positioned itself as a champion of sustainability and cost-effectiveness. Its carbon footprint modeling reports help customers to understand the impact of their deployments, and its support for migrating projects to greener regions enables customers to improve their energy efficiency and cut costs. This focus on sustainability and cost efficiency resonates with a wide range of organizations.

  Cons:

  • Platform.sh offers a relatively limited selection of packaged solutions for specific industries. While its offering complies with some industry standards, including SOC 2, PCI DSS Level 1 and HIPAA, prospective customers with industry-specific compliance requirements should review Platform.sh's suitability for their needs.
  • Platform.sh's product roadmap does not include the release of generative AI innovations to enhance its platform capabilities. The company's main focus is on improving the resilience and developer experience of its existing platform.
  • Platform.sh primarily targets customers in the U.S. and Europe, with some customers in Asia/Pacific but limited implementation and hosting support in other regions. Prospective customers should verify if Platform.sh can effectively serve organizations in their region.


• Red Hat - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • Red Hat is a leading multicloud vendor, providing customers with high flexibility in where to run the platform, relatively easy portability across cloud providers and on-premises platforms, and seamlessly integrated services across its own platform. OpenShift supports deployment of functions, containers and native code. It provides multiple managed language runtimes and DevOps tooling to create and deploy containers.
  • Red Hat has delivered new features in 2024 that directly address its top customer issues, including support for deployments on virtual machines that facilitate cloud migration, AI assistants that facilitate operations, and advanced security features.
  • Red Hat has forged strong partnerships with four hyperscalers to jointly engineer and operate OpenShift on those clouds. Red Hat also curates a broad platform ecosystem and marketplace of independent software vendors, systems integrators and industry partners that resell OpenShift.

  Cons:

  • Red Hat's managed service offerings are not as well-integrated with the hyperscalers' cloud-native services as the hyperscalers' own PaaS offerings. For instance, ROSA's integration with AWS cloud services is not as strong as that of AWS Lambda, AWS App Runner and AWS Elastic Beanstalk.
  • While Red Hat consistently delivers incremental improvements to the platform related to operations, performance and developer experience, it has not delivered any recent significant feature innovations that could disrupt the cloud-native applications market. The main innovations are around containerization workload runtime.
  • Red Hat offers uptime SLAs and supports platform zero downtime updates, but it does not offer end-user latency guarantees. Red Hat will not negotiate higher SLA guarantees.


• Render - Niche Player
  

  Pros:

  • Render's Blueprint solution acts as the single source of truth for configuring an interconnected set of services, databases and environment groups. Whenever an update takes place in Blueprint, Render automatically redeploys any affected services to apply the new configuration.
  • Render understands the market landscape for small and midsize businesses. It has built a product that is well-integrated to deliver cloud applications and an online experience, with its deployment from GitHub option, autoscaling and high-availability Postgres services.
  • Render has delivered new features in 2024 that directly address top customer issues. These include high availability and point-in-time recovery for Postgres data store, and platform engineering support via API-first Render integration.

  Cons:

  • Render lacks, or has limited implementations of, some common features and capabilities. These include native integration with developer tools such as Visual Studio Code, identity and access management features, and integration with underlying hyperscaler services.
  • Render has not generated widespread awareness of its platform among enterprise software engineering leaders and purchasing teams. It faces the significant challenge of educating prospective customers about its offering's unique benefits in a market dominated by megavendors.
  • Render will need to grow its market share, expand into new regions and offer additional capabilities to remain viable. Prospective customers should monitor Render's financial performance and growth.


• Salesforce (Heroku) - Leader
  

  Pros:

  • In our customer survey, customers highlighted the simplicity of deploying and scaling applications, requiring few steps. Heroku provides scalable and secure managed environments tailored for modern, cloud-native applications, powered by Heroku Dynos for container-based compute and application life cycle management. Additionally, Heroku's support for traditional web architectures simplifies the transition of legacy applications to the cloud, enabling effortless lift-and-shift migrations without the need for complex infrastructure management.
  • Heroku's intuitive tooling makes it easy for developers and platform teams to quickly grasp and start using the platform. Heroku offers a wealth of resources, including documentation, tutorials, training programs and certifications.
  • In 2024, while still maintaining a horizontal strategy across industries, Heroku built its sales organization to align with Salesforce's vertical markets (for example, healthcare and financial services). This sales organization includes specialists aligned with regulated industries, where Heroku products like Shield and Private Spaces are most applicable.

  Cons:

  • Heroku has been slow to add innovative features to its platform, mainly focusing on stability and incremental improvement. Despite Heroku's reputation for innovation — such as inventing buildpacks and the 12-factor app — it has not announced or released any features in 2024 that will disrupt the market. However, it has a strong roadmap for 2025.
  • Heroku has been slow to deliver leading-edge capabilities. It still runs on a proprietary container management system — Heroku Dynos — and doesn't support serverless functions. Heroku only joined the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in July 2024 and is just now implementing the new Kubernetes platform, with the goal to release it in 1Q25.
  • Heroku's messaging about its platform is highly technical and targets software engineers, who often lack purchasing authority. This differs from the rest of the wider Salesforce portfolio, which is geared toward line-of-business/functional department leaders. Heroku's messaging appeals to a different buying center than the rest of Salesforce's offerings.


• Vercel - Visionary
  

  Pros:

  • Vercel supports an exceptionally broad set of web frameworks. Its framework-defined infrastructure approach supports complex front-end deployments and enhances developer experience and productivity. Vercel enables customers to automate, optimize and scale their front-end applications.
  • Vercel recognizes the need for modern web solutions, as many businesses maintain on-premises legacy back-end systems. By offering extended web composition and integration capabilities with existing back-end infrastructure, including a library of templates for common patterns and use cases, Vercel allows organizations to decouple their front ends without fully replacing legacy systems, enabling faster and more scalable development.
  • Vercel supports packages and templates for building and managing AI applications. These include open-source AI software development kits for AI-powered front-end applications, and an AI abstraction layer for AI-powered applications. Vercel has a strong product roadmap and is planning to invest in native support of micro front ends and federated front-end architecture.

  Cons:

  • Although Vercel provides back-end capabilities like serverless functions with support for back-end frameworks like Next.js, its platform is primarily designed for front-end-adjacent, back-end workloads like server-side rendering. For more complex back-end needs, Vercel customers rely on their existing back-ends or must separately source back-end compute and integrate these components.
  • Vercel primarily targets customers in the U.S, Canada, the U.K., Germany and France, although it is expanding its presence in Asia/Pacific and Australia. Prospective customers should verify if Vercel can effectively serve organizations in their region.
  • In our customer survey, Vercel customers expressed a desire for enhanced cost management solutions to better control and manage their expenses. They indicated a need for a more granular way to attribute costs to projects and teams.

Reference

• Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Cloud Application Platforms, 4 November 2024, ID G00808076

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