Cloud Market Landscape (Q2 2026)
According to Synergy Research Group (published 2026-07-30), global cloud infrastructure services market share in Q2 2026 was AWS 28%, Microsoft 20%, and Google 15%. Year over year, AWS lost 2 points, Google gained 2 points, and Microsoft was flat. These are analyst estimates that change every quarter, so treat them as a rough gauge of ecosystem size, not a selection criterion. All three clouds are mature, but their strengths differ.
Core Service Comparison
| Service | AWS | Azure | GCP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Containers | EKS | AKS | GKE |
| Serverless | Lambda | Functions | Cloud Run functions |
| Object storage | S3 | Blob Storage | Cloud Storage |
| Data warehouse | Redshift | Synapse | BigQuery |
| AI/ML | SageMaker | Azure ML | Vertex AI |
Where AWS Excels
- Global infrastructure: 39 Regions, 124 Availability Zones (official page, checked 2026-10-04)
- Service breadth: 200+ services
- Startup ecosystem: AWS Activate, a rich community
Best for: startups, global services, serverless, microservices
Where Azure Excels
- Microsoft ecosystem: Native integration with Active Directory, Office 365, and Teams
- Hybrid cloud: Unified on-premises management with Azure Arc
- Enterprise compliance: GDPR and K-ISMS certifications in place
Best for: Windows-based legacy systems, Microsoft 365 integration, finance and public-sector enterprises
Where GCP Excels
BigQuery: Processes petabyte-scale queries in seconds. Cost-efficient with serverless billing.
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GROUP BY 1, 2- Kubernetes: GKE, built by the creators of K8s (Google). Autopilot mode automates node management.
- AI/ML: Access to Google DeepMind, Vertex AI, and TPUs.
Best for: big data analytics, ML/AI, heavy Kubernetes users
Cost Comparison
Unit prices on all three clouds change often by Region, instance generation, and commitment model, so this article does not quote fixed amounts. Look up the same spec (for example, 4 vCPU/16 GB in a Seoul Region) with the official pricing APIs or calculators in the verification section below. Enterprise discount agreements also make actual bills differ from list prices.
The cloud is a tool. Choose based on business requirements, not trends.
Multicloud or Single Cloud?
Thinking “wouldn’t using all three be best?” is risky. Multicloud reduces vendor lock-in and can improve availability, but operational complexity, staffing skills, and network costs multiply.
- Single cloud recommended: When the team is small and time-to-market comes first. Deep use of managed services reduces operational burden.
- Multicloud recommended: When regulations require isolating certain workloads, or a single-vendor outage would be business-critical. You still need portability via common abstractions (Kubernetes, Terraform).
Korea Region and Regulatory Checkpoints
Picking based on global market share alone will trip you up on domestic requirements.
| Item | Checkpoint |
|---|---|
| Region | AWS Seoul, Azure Korea Central, GCP Seoul — latency and data sovereignty |
| Public sector | Whether the service holds CSAP (Cloud Security Assurance Program) certification |
| Finance | Compliance with Electronic Financial Supervisory Regulations and network-separation requirements |
| Compliance | K-ISMS-P, consent for cross-border personal data transfer |
Cost Traps — The Real Expenses Are Elsewhere
More than compute unit prices, egress (outbound transfer) fees and managed-service premiums inflate the bill. If your service moves a lot of data, design so processing stays inside the same cloud, and apply commitment discounts (Savings Plans/CUD) only after usage patterns stabilize.
Final Selection Guide by Workload
Compressed into one page, the comparison looks like this. Follow the row that matches your first constraint.
| First constraint / need | Recommendation | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 / AD-centric organization | Azure | License benefits (AHB) and unified identity dominate TCO |
| Data analytics / ML pipeline is core | GCP | BigQuery-centric design has the lowest ops burden |
| Many service types and hiring pool matter | AWS | Broadest references and talent market |
| Finance, public sector, and other regulated Korean industries | All three have Korea regions — first compare regulatory certifications (CSAP, etc.) | Certification scope differs by service |
| Sensitive to egress (transfer) cost | Solve in architecture — prefer CDN and in-region processing | Egress is a trap on every cloud |
Watch switching costs: Managed DBs, serverless, and dedicated ML services are hard to migrate. Deciding the scope of managed services based on “can we move in three years?” is more useful than the multicloud debate.
Why Cost Estimates Miss After You Choose, and How to Verify
First bills often differ a lot from expectations. It is usually not wrong unit prices but items left out of the estimate.
Causes
- Only compute was counted; data transfer (internet egress, cross-AZ traffic), NAT gateway processing, and log ingestion/retention were omitted
- Estimates used US region prices and ignored regional differences
- Managed DB storage, backups, and IOPS weren't counted separately from instance cost
Verification: query official price sources
# AWS: on-demand price for m7i.large in Seoul (Pricing API uses the us-east-1 endpoint)
aws pricing get-products --region us-east-1 --service-code AmazonEC2 \
--filters Type=TERM_MATCH,Field=instanceType,Value=m7i.large \
Type=TERM_MATCH,Field=location,Value="Asia Pacific (Seoul)" \
Type=TERM_MATCH,Field=operatingSystem,Value=Linux \
Type=TERM_MATCH,Field=tenancy,Value=Shared \
Type=TERM_MATCH,Field=preInstalledSw,Value=NA \
Type=TERM_MATCH,Field=capacitystatus,Value=Used --max-results 1
# Azure: Retail Prices API, no authentication
curl -s "https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices?\$filter=armRegionName eq 'koreacentral' and armSkuName eq 'Standard_D2s_v5'"For GCP, check the same items in the official Pricing Calculator or the Cloud Billing Catalog API.
Fix
- Run a pilot workload for two to four weeks and compare billing data (AWS Cost Explorer, Azure Cost Management, GCP billing export) per service against the estimate.
- Adjust architecture for the biggest gaps (usually transfer and logs): same-AZ placement, VPC endpoints, shorter log retention.
Prevention
- Enforce cost tags (service, environment, owning team) at deploy time and set monthly budget alerts.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q. So which one is the best? There is no “best cloud.” Azure tends to win for Microsoft ecosystems and enterprises, GCP for data/ML-centric work, and AWS for service breadth and ecosystem—but the deciding factors are team capability and business requirements.
Q. Lock-in scares me. How do I reduce it? Keep compute in containers (K8s), infrastructure in Terraform, and data in standard formats (Parquet, etc.) and migration costs drop significantly. The trade-off is giving up some convenience of managed services.
Editor's Note — From the Field
“Which is best?” is usually the wrong question. In practice, cloud choice was driven not by market share or price sheets but by the skills the team already had. .NET/AD-based teams adapted quickly to Azure; analytics-centric teams picked GCP because of BigQuery alone. Before comparing benchmark tables, answer: “Where can our team start debugging tomorrow?”
Sources · checked 2026-10-04
- Synergy Research Group, Q2 Cloud Market Passes $143 Billion (2026-07-30) — Q2 2026 market share (AWS 28%, Microsoft 20%, Google 15%)
- Synergy Research Group, Q2 Cloud Market Nears $100 Billion — Q2 2025 market share (AWS 30%, Microsoft 20%, Google 13%), the baseline for the year-over-year change
- AWS Global Infrastructure — 39 Regions, 124 Availability Zones
- Google Cloud, Cloud Run functions overview — current name of Cloud Functions
- Google Cloud Architecture Framework
Market share figures are analyst estimates, and Region counts and service names change, so re-check these pages before deciding.
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