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SIAX vs Azure: when a smaller cloud pays off
Azure is the cloud that fits best into a company that's already a Microsoft company. If your identities live in Entra ID, if your devices are managed through Intune, if you run Microsoft 365 and have licensing agreements — then Azure isn't just a hosting choice, it's the same administration model, the same login, and the same purchasing channel. Conditional access, privileged identity management, and seamless SSO against both internal and external systems are at a level we don't claim to match.
They also have what large procurement processes require: ISO 27001, SOC 1/2/3, sector-specific frameworks, ready-made evidence packages for security reviews, support agreements with response-time SLAs, and a partner network that can sign off on things. Add hybrid connectivity via Arc and ExpressRoute, Windows and SQL Server workloads with licensing benefits, and Azure OpenAI for AI services under the same contract.
What Azure isn't good at is being cheap and easy to oversee for a small team. A Linux web app with a PostgreSQL database costs many times more on Azure than with us, and the invoice is a product in its own right — usage line items, reserved instances, tagging, budget alerts, and a FinOps habit someone has to maintain. That trade-off is really what this comparison is about.
Where SIAX is stronger
- The cost level. An app plus managed PostgreSQL costs 188 kr/month with us. The equivalent on Azure typically lands in the range of 1,000–1,600 kr/month, depending on size, region, and currency. Prices change, but the order of magnitude holds.
- An invoice you can actually read. Fixed price per service, about ten line items, no usage model that requires budget alerts and cost analysis just to avoid surprises.
- No egress fee that explodes on you. Outbound traffic is included in the plan instead of becoming a line item that grows with your success.
- Open source all the way: PostgreSQL, S3-compatible storage, container hosting, Git, and CI. No proprietary service that has to be rewritten the day you want to move.
- A Swedish company, EU data centers, Nordic support in Swedish. No US parent-company jurisdiction to account for in your risk analysis.
Where Microsoft Azure is stronger
- The Entra ID and Microsoft 365 integration. Conditional access, group-based permissions, Intune-managed devices. If your identity already lives there, Azure is hard to beat on purely practical grounds.
- Certifications and procurement support. ISO 27001, SOC 1/2/3, sector frameworks, documented controls, and support agreements with guaranteed response times. We have no certifications at all.
- Windows workloads. Windows Server, SQL Server, .NET, Azure Virtual Desktop, and licensing benefits via Hybrid Benefit — home turf in a way no one else has.
- The breadth and reach: over 200 services, data centers in practically every part of the world, hybrid connectivity to your own server room via Arc and ExpressRoute.
Side by side
| SIAX | Microsoft Azure | |
|---|---|---|
| Price for a small production app | App Hosting 99 kr/month plus Managed Postgres 89 kr/month = 188 kr/month, fixed. | Basic-tier App Service plus Flexible Server typically lands around 1,000–1,600 kr/month. Varies by region and currency, and prices change. |
| Outbound traffic | Included in the plan. No line item that grows with traffic. | Roughly the first 100 GB per month free, then per GB. The cost often only shows up on the invoice after the fact. |
| Identity and SSO | OIDC and SAML against a self-hosted identity server. Works, but lacks Entra-class conditional access and device management. | Entra ID: conditional access, PIM, Intune, guest accounts. The deepest identity stack on the market. |
| Certifications | None. Neither ISO 27001, SOC 2, nor PCI-DSS. We offer GDPR compliance, a data processing agreement, EU residency, and open source as auditability. | ISO 27001, SOC 1/2/3, sector frameworks, and ready-made evidence packages for security reviews. |
| Service breadth | About ten services covering hosting, data, storage, email, git, and monitoring. Nothing more. | Over 200 services. Almost anything you could need exists as a managed service. |
| Windows and SQL Server | Windows VMs can be run, but that's not our core focus and we offer no licensing benefits. | Home turf: Hybrid Benefit, Azure Virtual Desktop, managed SQL Server, deep .NET integration. |
| Jurisdiction and data residency | Swedish company, EU data centers in Germany and Finland. All data in the EU without exception. | EU Data Boundary exists and works technically, but the parent company is subject to US law. That's a question for your lawyer, not for us. |
| Cost control | Fixed price per service. The invoice is predictable without tooling. | Usage-based model. Requires tagging, budget alerts, reservations, and ongoing monitoring to keep from spiraling. |
| Support | Swedish, direct contact, included in the price. | Basic support is included. Technical support with a response-time SLA costs extra, from around 100 USD/month. English in practice. |
Choose Microsoft Azure if…
Choose Azure if you already live in the Microsoft ecosystem. If you have Entra ID, Intune, and Microsoft 365, the administrative benefit of having everything in one place will outweigh the price difference in most cases. Choose Azure if you run Windows Server or SQL Server and can use existing licenses, if you need to connect the cloud to your own server room, or if you need a global footprint. And most importantly: if your procurement process, your insurer, or your customer's security review requires the vendor to hold ISO 27001 or SOC 2, then you should choose Azure. We have neither, and we're not going to imply otherwise. That we build on open source and keep all data in the EU is a different kind of argument — it's auditability, not an audit certificate.
Choose SIAX if…
Choose SIAX if you run Linux-based web apps, APIs, and PostgreSQL, are too small for a dedicated cloud architect, and want to know what next month costs. The typical customer here has five to fifty employees, two to twenty services in production, and discovered that their Azure bill was growing faster than their traffic. You get EU data residency with no Data Boundary caveats, a support channel in Swedish where the same person answers every time, and a platform made of components you could run yourselves if we disappeared. If you later need something Azure has that we lack, you can run both — this isn't an all-or-nothing decision.
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