[seanalex]

Note: I've never used AWS.

Currently, I use Azure for my projects. Primary reasons are due to being a C# developer professionally, and it just made sense to use it. In Visual Studio, it is very easy to publish projects directly to Azure without ever actually logging into the Azure dashboard.

I can't comment on price comparisons, which are much different. But I'd say give Azure a try for free initially to demo it and see if it fits what you need.

One thing of note that I feel is not mentioned often when discussing these two options. If you are planning on using Azure's storage options, there will be a sort of "vendor-lock-in" involved with the code-base. I have great experiences with it, but both Azure and AWS have different approaches to how they handle storage options including the NoSQL choices such as Azure Table Storage.

Additionally, I have used Nodejs on Azure. I truly enjoyed it when using Azure Table Storage for my database. Overall publishing to Azure was pretty simple and required minimal setup effort. Let me know if you have any questions!

[C1D]

>Additionally, I have used Nodejs on Azure. I truly enjoyed it when using Azure Table Storage for my database. Overall publishing to Azure was pretty simple and required minimal setup effort. Let me know if you have any questions! That basically answers my node.js question, I actually thought node would run better on AWS for some reason also does Azure do Linux?

[Avalaxy]

Yes, Azure is both PaaS (Windows machines that require no configuration) and IaaS (you can install whatever you want, including Linux).

[PinkSapphire]

Azure does have a Linux VM option. Do correct me if I am wrong.

[junto]

Correct Azure VMs. You can install one of the standard VMs, or download one of thousands of community created images, or create your own.

http://vmdepot.msopentech.com/List/Index