IBM Cloud vs Shakti Cloud Comparison

Why choose IBM Cloud

• Has a free plan (Shakti Cloud does not)
• Higher Analytics score (6/10 vs 4/10)
• Higher Customization score (8/10 vs 7/10)

Why choose Shakti Cloud

• Higher Ease of Use score (5/10 vs 4/10)
• Better fit for government (8/10 vs 6/10)
• Better fit for startups (6/10 vs 4/10)

IBM Cloud

Pros

• The One Rate Object Storage plan bundles egress and API calls into one charge starting at 10 USD per TB per month.
• Tight integration with Red Hat OpenShift, and IBM manages the Kubernetes master, version updates and the host OS.
• Unusual compute options, including bare metal and IBM Power Virtual Server, suit legacy enterprise workloads.
• Large promotional credits are available, including 1,000 USD for bare metal or VPC and 2,500 USD for Power Virtual Server.
• Reviewers consistently cite security and compliance as strengths.

Cons

• A Gartner reviewer criticised the portal's response time, and others describe the platform as complex for new administrators.
• Public feedback cites friction with billing, procurement and account administration.
• Some reviewers report support that is slow or fragmented across IBM's large organization.
• Most service prices come from the catalog estimator rather than a public price list.
• Its market position and third-party ecosystem are smaller than those of AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.

Shakti Cloud

Pros

• It publishes INR prices for VMs, bare metal and clusters, so Indian buyers avoid exchange-rate risk and can estimate costs without a sales call.
• Data centres in Navi Mumbai and Greater Noida keep data in India for DPDP Act compliance.
• It covers the full range from hourly single-GPU VMs to 256-plus-GPU H100 clusters over InfiniBand, as one of NVIDIA's Cloud Partners.
• Unlimited ingress and egress are included on VMs, and data transfer is included on bare metal and clusters.
• It bundles NVIDIA AI Enterprise and NIM, plus OpenAI-compatible serverless endpoints for hosted open models.

Cons

• The on-demand H100 VM, at 356 rupees per hour, costs more than Cyfuture AI (329) and JarvisLabs (about 330), according to a comparison article.
• It is limited to GPU and AI workloads. It has no general web hosting, managed databases, object storage pricing or CDN.
• InfiniBand and the Kubernetes control plane cost extra, and term discounts are not published.
• Independent user reviews are scarce, and sources disagree on whether access is self-serve or quote-based.