Microsoft Azure vs Parse: What are the differences?

What is Microsoft Azure? Integrated cloud services and infrastructure to support computing, database, analytics, mobile, and web scenarios. Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform that enables you to quickly build, deploy and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters. You can build applications using any language, tool or framework. And you can integrate your public cloud applications with your existing IT environment.

What is Parse? The complete mobile app platform. With Parse, you can add a scalable and powerful backend in minutes and launch a full-featured app in record time without ever worrying about server management. We offer push notifications, social integration, data storage, and the ability to add rich custom logic to your app’s backend with Cloud Code.

Microsoft Azure can be classified as a tool in the "Cloud Hosting" category, while Parse is grouped under "Mobile Backend".

Some of the features offered by Microsoft Azure are:

• Use your OS, language, database, tool
• Global datacenter footprint
• Enterprise Grade with up to a 99.95% monthly SLA

On the other hand, Parse provides the following key features:

• Store basic data types, locations, photos
• Update over the air
• Data browser lets you manage, search, and update content without writing a single line of code

"Scales well and quite easy", "Can use .Net or open source tools" and "Startup friendly" are the key factors why developers consider Microsoft Azure; whereas "Easy setup", "Free hosting" and "Well-documented" are the primary reasons why Parse is favored.

According to the StackShare community, Microsoft Azure has a broader approval, being mentioned in 489 company stacks & 463 developers stacks; compared to Parse, which is listed in 92 company stacks and 44 developer stacks.