# Microsoft Azure Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-azure/ 54 people recommended Microsoft Azure in Hacker News comments, 75 had mixed feelings and 576 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. People who said how long they have used it report a median of 8 years, among 10 people. It was recommended in 12 of 12 months, in 55 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Most people who give an opinion criticize it, finding its portal clumsy, its pricing complex and its account support frustrating; those who recommend it cite enterprise support, compliance and integration with Microsoft 365 and .NET. Summary written by Claude from the comments below. Claude agents reviewed it against the quotes on 2 Nov 2026. ## What people warn about - Clumsy portal and buggy basics (4 comments in the sample): "For basic "Create a VM, attach disks and networking, and use it as a computer."…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48817590)) "10 redirects to get to the portal, when creating an account/etc…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49169393)) "Then you get to implementation and realize its a buggy mess that barely does what you wanted to do in the first place…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47630096)) - Unhelpful billing and account support (4 comments in the sample): "If Microsoft's solution to a simple billing issue is, 'Create a new account and start over,'…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46127830)) "Put me through a never-ending loop of asking for a Government of India issued document that was already submitted. Human support was non-existent." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47622561)) "By going through that entire process, I now have a very compelling argument to go to the client with to recommend we switch vendors entirely." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46127904)) - Security flaws and weak auth (2 comments in the sample): "The callback you're redirecting the user to at the end of that flow is forgeable if an attacker knows an azure tenant ID of a…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50305967)) "AWS had roles forever, fully supported from web console or CLI. But when I request Azure service account, I am handed username and password." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47898958)) - Costly, complex pricing (2 comments in the sample): "public sector projects starting out with loads of Azure services and >$3000 montly bills for applications that could've easily run on a single VM" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47739234)) "The big 3 are costing you as if it's still 2009, and they don't change this because people have an irrational attachment to overpaying." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46818099)) ## Why people recommend it - Integrates with Microsoft 365, .NET (2 comments in the sample): "The business is 365 (which runs on Macs and is worlds better than Apple's office suite + Apple's hosted email is god awful) and Azure." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47505136)) "One thing Azure offers that other clouds don't is so many customers already in it consuming other Microsoft products." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47743488)) - Enterprise support and compliance (2 comments in the sample): "the CTO of a $1b company wold absolutely not fire someone for going Azure because at those scale it's very likely they have a set…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48367992)) "I have a lot of faith in it being able to drive enterprise workloads while staying compliant with whatever regulations exist under the sun" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46087085)) - Private hosting of AI models (2 comments in the sample): "we run our AI assistant with models from Azure, which works fine! (Although the models aren't always released with EU data residency" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48902904)) "Or just use Azure, AWS, etc. for Claude/ChatGPT inference, where the AI labs never even get your data in their data centers at all." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49689551)) ## Other cloud providers people recommend - [Amazon Web Services (AWS)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/amazon-web-services/): 136 recommend, 89 mixed, 464 criticize - [Google Cloud](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-cloud-platform/): 85 recommend, 57 mixed, 375 criticize - [Scaleway](https://hackerapproved.com/p/scaleway/): 60 recommend, 7 mixed, 25 criticize - [Oracle Cloud Free Tier](https://hackerapproved.com/p/oracle-cloud/): 37 recommend, 27 mixed, 92 criticize ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us) ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Microsoft Azure", https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-azure/ (54 recommend, 75 mixed, 576 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.