Amazon Web Services (AWS) vs Kyndryl Comparison

Why choose Amazon Web Services (AWS)

• Has a free plan (Kyndryl does not)
• Higher Cost score (5/10 vs 2/10)
• Higher Integration score (10/10 vs 7/10)
• Better fit for startups (8/10 vs 1/10)
• Better fit for small business (5/10 vs 1/10)

Why choose Kyndryl

• Higher Support score (7/10 vs 6/10)

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Pros

• The service catalogue is unusually broad, with over 200 services across 38 regions, so most infrastructure needs can be met on one platform.
• EC2 has a 99.99% region-level SLA with credits of up to 100%, and instances unavailable for more than six minutes in an hour are not billed for that hour.
• The free plan gives up to $200 in credits, and more than 30 always-free services let new teams experiment at low cost.
• Support scales from a $29 minimum up to dedicated Enterprise and Unified Operations tiers for mission-critical workloads.
• G2 rates it 4.4 across more than 17,000 reviews, and reviewers praise its scalability and global reach.

Cons

• Reviewers widely cite a steep learning curve across the console and services.
• Usage pricing is complex and can produce unexpected bills unless spend is monitored closely.
• Paid support is billed as a percentage of total AWS spend, so support costs rise with usage.
• A July 2025 billing console bug showed customers estimated charges in the billions, which hurt trust in its cost tooling.

Kyndryl

Pros

• It has deep mainframe and IBM Z or IBM i outsourcing experience, which Gartner Peer Insights reviewers single out.
• Reviewers praise its 24x7 network operations coverage and structured incident and change management.
• Its managed backup service is run and monitored by Kyndryl staff and covers on-site, off-site, and hybrid cloud setups across most servers, hypervisors, and databases.
• Its broad alliance list covers AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle, SAP, and VMware, which supports hybrid estates.
• Kyndryl Bridge adds AIOps-based alerting and automation across managed environments.

Cons

• There is no public pricing, and reviewers flag cost pressure on large engagements.
• Reviewers say onboarding and transitions often take longer than expected.
• Critics cite delayed CMDB delivery, limited reporting against the committed scope, and missing integrations with existing tools.
• SLAs and uptime commitments are negotiated per contract, and no standard public figures exist.
• It offers no self-service or on-demand hosting for smaller buyers.