Azure Virtual Machines vs Azure App Service – Which One Is Right For You?

Have you ever wondered during your cloud migration journey whether Azure Virtual Machines or Azure App service would best suit your workload requirements? This article delves into a comprehensive analysis of the pros and cons associated with Azure Virtual Machines and Azure App Service. By exploring the significant distinctions, drawbacks, and advantages of these services, you'll be equipped to make an informed choice regarding the optimal hosting solution for your application. For a quick overview of their fundamental disparities, you can also refer to the Azure Virtual Machine vs. Web App comparison cheat sheet.

Azure Virtual Machines

Advantages of Azure Virtual Machines:

1. Manageability: You possess complete authority over the underlying operating system, allowing for tailored configurations and the capability to execute customized software.
2. Flexibility: Azure VMs provide the flexibility of virtualization without the need to acquire and manage physical hardware. This allows you to run applications, regardless of their programming language, framework, or technology stack, with ease.
3. Familiarity: For those transitioning from an on-premises environment to Azure and are new to the platform, understanding the intricacies of Azure Virtual Machines is generally more straightforward when compared to alternative hosting solutions.

When to use Azure Virtual Machines:

1. Disaster recovery: You can readily safeguard your on-premises servers, ensuring they automatically transition to Azure in case of failure, and then revert back when your on-premises data center is operational again.
2. Development of applications: When testing a new application, you have the flexibility to swiftly set up virtual machines and implement your code. You can also automate the process of shutting down your development servers to cut down on expenses and remove them once they are no longer required.
3. Hybrid setup: If you run out of hardware in your on-premises data center, you can extend your network to Azure. You can deploy existing applications to Azure virtual machines to give you more flexibility regarding sizing. It is faster and cheaper to deploy than running them in an on-premises data center.

Disadvantages of Azure Virtual Machines:

1. Manageability: While we've highlighted the manageability of virtual machines as an advantage, some individuals may view it as a drawback due to the increased need for hands-on management. It's essential to bear in mind that virtual machines entail responsibilities such as OS maintenance, updates, and software upkeep, which can be manageable for a small number of VMs but become cumbersome when dealing with a larger fleet of them.
2. Potentially higher costs: Instead of dedicating your efforts primarily to constructing and sustaining your application, you must consistently factor in the manageability of your VMs. This can lead to increased expenses as you require infrastructure engineers to focus on VM maintenance.

Azure App Service

Advantages of Azure App Service:

1. Simplified management: Microsoft Azure takes care of the underlying infrastructure allowing you to focus on your application.
2. Immediate deployment: App Service offers fast deployment and continuous integration with tools like Git, GitHub, and Azure DevOps.
3. Cost efficiency: A single App Service plan can contain multiple applications as long as the plan has enough resources to handle the increasing load.

Disadvantages of Azure App Service

1. Control: If you need specific controls over your infrastructure, then Azure VMs is your best choice. You only have a few options with Azure App service.?
2. Compatibility: App Service only offers specific languages. If you have a language not supported by App Service, VMs is your choice.
3. Potentially higher costs: If you need to upgrade a portion of your App tier, such as storage, you must upgrade to the next plan tier. This may result in higher costs and underutilized resources.?

In general, use Azure App Service if:

1. You’re totally fine with having less control over your infrastructure and settings.
2. You want to focus on developing your application and let Microsoft handle the infrastructure.
3. Azure App Service supports your application.
4. Your compute and storage requirement is a good match for the different App Service tiers.
5. You want to host multiple applications in a single App Service plan easily.

* This newsletter was sourced from this Tutorials Dojo article.