Decision tree for Azure compute services

Azure offers a number of ways to host your application code. The term compute refers to the hosting model for the computing resources that your application runs on. The following flowchart will help you to choose a compute service for your application. The flowchart guides you through a set of key decision criteria to reach a recommendation.

Treat this flowchart as a starting point. Every application has unique requirements, so use the recommendation as a starting point. Then perform a more detailed evaluation, looking at aspects such as:

• Feature set
• Service limits
• Cost
• SLA
• Regional availability
• Developer ecosystem and team skills
• Compute comparison tables

If your application consists of multiple workloads, evaluate each workload separately. A complete solution may incorporate two or more compute services.

For more information about your options for hosting containers in Azure, see Azure Containers.

Flowchart

Definitions

• "Lift and shift" is a strategy for migrating a workload to the cloud without redesigning the application or making code changes. Also called rehosting. For more information, see Azure migration center.

• Cloud optimized is a strategy for migrating to the cloud by refactoring an application to take advantage of cloud-native features and capabilities.

Next steps

For additional criteria to consider, see Criteria for choosing an Azure compute service.