Building a SaaS product has become a great business model. The SaaS industry is poised to be a multi-billion dollar industry this year. Startups need to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to help them get their ideas out to the market. The SaaS startups can validate their ideas with the MVP and get feedback from their customers. This feedback will help the startups move forward in the right direction with features that their customers want. Even established companies build MVPs to test their new product ideas.
An MVP should have three facets. They are
- An MVP should have a unique value that makes the customers want to use and then eventually purchase the product.
- An MVP should demonstrate the product's benefits to engage the early adopters.
- An MVP should help the organization get feedback from the customers to assist in future roadmaps.
Of the choices we have in the cloud, we have two leading providers - AWS and Azure. Let us now discuss which platform would be the best for your MVP.
Table of Contents
- What is AWS?
- Benefits of AWS
- Drawbacks of AWS
- Why would AWS fit for an MVP?
- What is Microsoft Azure?
- Benefits of Azure
- Drawbacks of Azure
- Why would Azure fit for an MVP?
- Conclusion
What is AWS?
In 2002, Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS). It drives the world's supply of cloud services for companies of all sizes, giving IT infrastructure arrangements as per demand. Many companies such as Netflix, Expedia, Spotify, Hulu, and Ubisoft relieve on AWS to manage their system workload to run. AWS offers more than 100 pay-as-you-go services. AWS has the largest and most energetic community with millions of dynamic customers.
Benefits of AWS
- AWS offers a broad and growing range of cloud offerings and services.
- Excellent support for business intelligence and data analysis.
- Customizable computer service that allows you to select programming platforms/frameworks/languages, etc.
- Available for open-source development, and many programs from major software vendors are available on the AWS platform.
- Offers flexibility in integrating third-party instruments.
- Data centers available worldwide.
- AWS has a virtual private cloud.
Drawbacks of AWS
- Less open to third parties or private cloud providers.
- Too many service options available, making it difficult for customers to make the right choice based on their business needs.
- Requires technical training, so AWS does not provide customer service and can be used only for enterprise-level support.
- The fee structure is challenging to understand.
Why would AWS fit for an MVP?
As discussed earlier, one of the essential aspects of building an MVP is to build a base product that can be tried and tested by potential users. The feedback given by them will help in improving the product over time. AWS helps in the following ways as a platform of choice.
It helps in being more Agile
The AWS ecosystem has good tools that help in the development of MVPs. The development tools such as AWS Code Pipeline and Analytics tools such as Amazon Kinetics help you develop MVPs.
DevOps Become Better
DevOps takes the product faster to the market. Multiple tools that help in quicker delivery based on customer feedback are essential. The tools to process various code builds such as AWS CodeBuild, and the tool to help you quickly develop and deploy new code such as AWS CodeStar helps in MVP development.
Faster Time to the Market
You will be able to deploy features into the MVP much faster. The addition of features will be on customer feedback. APIs from Gateway and Lambada help you to add locations and also runs without servers.
No Need to Buy Servers
AWS, as discussed above, runs on serverless architecture. The architecture will help you save on cost and time. The payment can be as little as the EC2 servers. You can even schedule the turn-on and turn-off times for the non-production servers.
Easy Learning
AWS is easy to learn. The team can come with limited or no knowledge of the AWS platform. The platform is built so that any developer with basic programming skills can learn and begin using the platform within a few days.
What is Microsoft Azure?
Microsoft Cloud, commonly referred to as Azure, is a public, private, and hybrid cloud computing platform provided by Microsoft and introduced in the mid-2000s. It offers various cloud services to support you with data storage, analysis, virtual data processing, software development, deployment of pre-built applications, and deployment on a global network. You can also use various tools and frameworks to achieve your business goals. If you are modern in cloud computing, you may want to choose a cloud computing platform that is an easy way to get started with cloud computing. It is essential to be aware of the various benefits of the cloud offered by cloud providers. Cloud computing is the stage of choice in the modern world of modern software development. AWS, Azure, Google, IBM, Alibaba, and Oracle are the cloud computing platforms available. Among them, AWS and Azure have the largest market share.
Benefits of Azure
- Azure is based on the Windows platform. Therefore, once you are familiar with Windows, it is effortless to learn and use.
- Provide comprehensive services for rapid implementation and prepare the environment for production.
- Assist with migration to the Azure cloud.
- Azure is open to hybrid cloud platforms.
- It is integrated with the Visual Studio development environment.
- Supports a one-time login function and secure logic function.
- Azure has a virtual network cloud.
Drawbacks of Azure
- Limited functionality for services compared to AWS.
- According to some customers, there are deficiencies in disaster recovery management.
- Less flexible for non-Windows-based platforms.
Why would Azure fit for an MVP?
Let us now look at how Azure helps in the following ways as a platform of choice.
Support for Startups
Microsoft has a good support ecosystem for startups. Startups are offered Azure and GitHub as part of the acceleration to help them build MVPs faster.
Flexible Pricing
You would not have to pay for hardware, software, and maintenance setup costs. You will only have to pay for the services you use during the dev and testing phases.
Ease of Deployment
The team need not spend much of the time on server deployment and maintenance. The team can deploy any virtual machine or a web app with a few clicks. The updates can also be launched instantaneously.
Range of Technologies
Azure supports numerous coding languages like Node.js, Java, ASP.Net, Python, PHP, and databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL, to name a few. This flexibility allows you to hire a team easily and not necessarily confine you to specific coding languages.
Flexible Pricing Options
Azure gives a flexible pricing option to startups to move their MVP on the cloud. The pricing options make the startups pay only for what they use, and there are no monthly or annual pricing models.
Conclusion
The Cloud computing platforms are equipped with advanced features, new integrations, new products, flexible pricing structures. It is a bit hard to choose between the two. AWS and Azure have the largest market share and are constantly updated. Azure is outstanding in hybrid cloud computing and Microsoft's technology stack, while AWS offers greater adaptability to the open-source technology ecosystem and additional highlights. The choice will be on the business needs of your organization. So, choose accordingly.