Report:
Magic Quadrant for Cloud Application Platforms
How does Gartner define the Cloud Application Platforms market in 2024?
Gartner defines cloud application platforms as those that provide managed application runtime environments for applications and integrated capabilities to manage the life cycle of an application or application component. They typically enable distributed application deployments and support cloud-style operations — such as elasticity, multitenancy and self-service — without requiring infrastructure provisioning or container management. Cloud application platforms are designed to facilitate the deployment, runtime execution, and management of modern cloud-native or cloud-optimized applications (e.g., web-based apps, back-end services with/without APIs, etc.) without the need to manage any underlying compute infrastructure. They are designed to enhance developer productivity, accelerate development and deployment cycles, and increase operational effectiveness by making it easier to scale on demand.
Key Facts for Magic Quadrant for Cloud Application Platforms in 2024
- Publication Date: 4 November 2024
- Document ID: G00808076
- Coverage: Global
- Authors: Tigran Egiazarov, Mukul Saha, and 2 more
- Core Purpose: Cloud application platforms remove infrastructure management complexity, support dynamic scaling and enable product teams to deliver faster customer value. This research helps software engineering leaders to evaluate cloud application platform vendors and find the best fit for their organization.
Strategic Planning Assumptions
No strategic planning assumptions provided.
How was the Cloud Application Platforms market evolved in 2024?
- Cloud application platforms market exceeded $3 billion revenue in 2023
- Year-over-year growth rate of 14.4% in 2023
- Projected to exceed $5.4 billion revenue by 2028
- Five-year CAGR of 12.1% from 2023 through 2028
- Renewed surge of interest driven by cloud-native applications, Kubernetes complexity, and serverless architectures
- Market reflects consolidation of technologies across deployment, scalability, security and observability
- Leaders include Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, Red Hat, and Salesforce (Heroku)
- Challengers include Cloudflare
- Visionaries include Netlify and Vercel
- Niche Players include Huawei, Mia-Platform, Platform.sh, and Render
- Platforms provide managed application runtime environments without requiring infrastructure provisioning or container management
- Support for multiple application types including web applications, mobile backends, microservices, AI/ML models, and analytics applications
What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?
- Application runtime services (including language runtime support) for multiple application types including web applications, mobile backends, microservices, AI/ML models, and analytics applications without requiring infrastructure provisioning or container management.
- Automated deployment of cloud-native applications (e.g., integration with DevOps).
- Autoscaling (load balancing, scalability and running of multiple instances).
- Application monitoring and observability — support for monitoring and observability to improve service-level objectives; gathering production telemetry (logs, metrics, events, traces).
- Cloud-based managed service — vendor (service provider) handles the maintenance, monitoring, updates and troubleshooting of the cloud application platform. This includes support, security, backups and performance optimization. It allows users to only focus on the application that can be deployed on cloud application platforms.
What are the common features of top products in the Cloud Application Platforms space?
- Ability to deploy, manage, configure and operate containers at scale.
- Cost management capabilities for effective cost control and cost optimization.
- AI-assisted and AI-powered runtime environment. This includes intelligent configuration and orchestration of services, along with efficient resource distribution across workloads.
- IDE extensions and development tools to support software engineering teams in building applications for cloud application platforms.
- Serverless computing, which eliminates server management, automatically scales with application demand, and charges based on compute time used, enhancing efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
- Automatic updates and security patches to keep cloud application platforms up-to-date and secure without service disruption, reducing vulnerability risks and maintenance effort.
- Polyglot deployment supports multiple programming languages and frameworks.
- Ability to easily integrate with external services such as DBMS, event brokers and caches through standard APIs (e.g., ability to use Open Service Broker APIs).
- Disaster recovery, which ensures high availability by automatically switching to another compute region if the native host region goes down. This includes, but is not limited to, data backup and automatic failover, enhancing application reliability and continuity.
Scope Exclusions
- Pure infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings that require infrastructure provisioning
- Standalone container orchestration platforms that require manual container management
- Solutions that are not cloud-based managed services
- Platforms that do not support application life cycle management
- Solutions lacking elasticity, multitenancy, and self-service capabilities
- Platforms not enterprise-grade or lacking high availability and disaster recovery
- Custom development solutions for specific customers only
- Solutions not generally available as of 30 June 2024
Inclusion Criteria
Vendors must, among other requirements:
- Must meet the market definition of a cloud application platform
- All features must be generally available as of 30 June 2024
- Must sell solution directly to paying customers without requiring professional services engagement
- Must have phone, email and/or web customer support
- Must offer documentation and support in English
- Must provide cloud-based managed application runtime environments
- Must enable distributed application deployments with elasticity, multitenancy and self-service
- Must be enterprise-grade with high availability and disaster recovery
- Platform revenue of at least $30M with 100+ enterprise customers, OR $10M revenue with 50% CAGR, OR 100,000+ developer community
- Must have direct customers in three or more geographies
- Must rank among top 20 organizations in Customer Interest Indicator
Ability to Execute — Relative Weighting
- Product or Service - High
- Overall Viability - Medium
- Sales Execution/Pricing - High
- Market Responsiveness/Record - High
- Marketing Execution - Low
- Customer Experience - Medium
- Operations - Medium
Completeness of Vision — Relative Weighting
- Market Understanding - High
- Marketing Strategy - Medium
- Sales Strategy - Medium
- Offering (Product) Strategy - High
- Business Model - Medium
- Vertical/Industry Strategy - Low
- Innovation - High
- Geographic Strategy - Medium
FAQs
Q: What does this research cover?
A: This research covers cloud application platforms that provide managed application runtime environments for applications and integrated capabilities to manage the life cycle of applications or application components. It evaluates 13 vendors across two axes: Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. The research includes market definitions, vendor strengths and cautions, inclusion/exclusion criteria, evaluation criteria, and market context. It covers platforms that support distributed application deployments, cloud-style operations (elasticity, multitenancy, self-service), and various deployment options including serverless functions, containers, and native code.
Q: Who should use this research?
A: Software engineering leaders should use this research to evaluate cloud application platform vendors and find the best fit for their organization's needs. It helps organizations understand vendor capabilities in providing managed runtime environments that abstract infrastructure complexity, support dynamic scaling, and enable faster customer value delivery. Leaders can use the vendor assessments to identify platforms that align with their short-term needs and longer-term strategy. The research is particularly valuable for organizations seeking to streamline software development, enhance developer productivity, accelerate development and deployment cycles, and increase operational effectiveness. It should be used in conjunction with the companion Critical Capabilities for Cloud Application Platforms research to determine which products offer specific capabilities needed by the organization.
Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?
A: Mandatory features for cloud application platforms include: (1) Application runtime services with language support for multiple application types (web, mobile backends, microservices, AI/ML models) without requiring infrastructure provisioning or container management; (2) Automated deployment of cloud-native applications with DevOps integration; (3) Autoscaling capabilities including load balancing and running multiple instances; (4) Application monitoring and observability with production telemetry gathering (logs, metrics, events, traces); and (5) Cloud-based managed service where the vendor handles maintenance, monitoring, updates, troubleshooting, support, security, backups and performance optimization, allowing users to focus solely on application deployment.
Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?
A:
- Does not meet the market definition of a cloud application platform
- Features not generally available to all customers as of 30 June 2024
- Cannot sell solution directly without requiring professional services engagement
- Lacks adequate customer support channels (phone, email, web)
- Does not provide documentation and support in English
- Does not provide cloud-based managed application runtime environments
- Requires infrastructure provisioning or manual container management
- Not enterprise-grade or lacks high availability and disaster recovery
- Does not meet minimum revenue thresholds ($30M with 100+ enterprise customers, OR $10M with 50% CAGR, OR 100,000+ developers)
- Does not have direct customers in three or more geographies
- Does not rank in top 20 of Customer Interest Indicator
- Does not support cloud-style operations (elasticity, multitenancy, self-service)
- Missing mandatory features like automated deployment, autoscaling, monitoring/observability
Q: What differentiates Ability to Execute vs. Completeness of Vision?
A: Ability to Execute assesses the vendor's current market performance, operational capabilities, and delivery execution including product quality, sales effectiveness, customer experience, and operational excellence. It focuses on present-day execution and market presence. Completeness of Vision evaluates the vendor's strategic direction, market understanding, innovation capabilities, and future plans. It examines how well vendors understand market trends, their product roadmap, business strategy, and ability to anticipate and shape future market needs. Essentially, Ability to Execute measures 'what they do today' while Completeness of Vision measures 'where they're going tomorrow'.
Reference
- Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Cloud Application Platforms, 4 November 2024, ID G00808076
View Leaders
View Vendor Movements
