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10 Best IoT Cloud hiring providers

What are the Best IoT Cloud Platforms in 2024?

Estimated read time: 9 minutes
Sam Palmer

Sam Palmer

WriterSoftware Developer

Are you looking for the 10 best IoT cloud platforms this year? That’s the question we intend to answer here.

Are you planning to develop an IoT app? You are likely contending with one or more of the IoT software development challenges, as we write this. Well, IoT cloud platforms can significantly ease your life!

They provide connectivity, security, scalability, ease of integration, and better IoT device management. These IoT cloud platforms also help you to improve the usability of your IoT app. Read more about this in “7 Challenges of IoT Software Development”.

10 Best IoT Cloud Platforms and Their Comparison

To find out the best IoT cloud platforms, we will now reveal our comprehensive IoT cloud platform providers list.

1. Amazon Web Services IoT Platform

Amazon dominates the consumer cloud market. They were the first to really turn cloud computing into a commodity way back in 2004. 

Since then they’ve put a lot of effort into innovation and building features, and probably have the most comprehensive set of tools available.

It’s an extremely scalable platform, claiming to be able to support billions of devices and trillions of interactions between them.

Pricing is based on messages sent and received by AWS IoT. Each IoT interaction can be thought of as a message between a device and a server. 

Amazon charges per million messages sent or received between the endpoints. There are no minimum fees, and you won’t get charged for messages to the following AWS services:

  • Amazon S3
  • Amazon DynamoDB
  • AWS Lambda
  • Amazon Kinesis
  • Amazon SNS
  • Amazon SQS

They also have a software development kit (SDK) for app development to help developers build and run applications on AWS.

While Amazon probably has the most comprehensive service of all the IoT platform providers, it can also be quite expensive. 

2. Microsoft Azure IoT Hub

Microsoft is taking its Internet of Things cloud services very seriously. They have cloud storage, machine learning, and IoT services, and have even developed their own operating system for IoT devices. This means they intend to become a complete IoT solutions provider.

The pricing is done in 4 tiers based on how much IoT data your devices will generate. Below 8,000 messages per unit per day is free. It does get complicated when you start to integrate with other Microsoft services, but they have a great pricing calculator to help you out.

Like Amazon, Google, Oracle, and IBM, Microsoft also has some other cool services you can use on their cloud platforms. These include things like machine learning data analytics so you can build some really next-level applications.

Check out our article about choosing an artificial intelligence development company for more info.

3. IBM Watson IoT Cloud Platform

IBM is another IT giant trying to set itself up as an Internet of Things platform authority. They try to make their cloud services as accessible as possible to beginners with easy apps and interfaces. 

You can try out their sample apps to get a feel for how it all works. You can also store your data for a specified period, to get historical information from your connected devices.

The pricing works on three main metrics:

  1. Data Exchanged
  2. Data Analyzed
  3. Edge Data Analyzed

You’ll get 100 MB of each for free every month, so you can try it out and see if their cloud IoT solution works for your business.

IBM Watson also offers some cool security features based on machine learning and data science for business process automation purposes. I wrote about some of them.

4. Google IoT Cloud Platform

Search giant Google is also taking the Internet of Things very seriously. They claim that the “Google Cloud IoT Platform is the best place to build IoT initiatives, taking advantage of Google’s heritage of web-scale processing, analytics, and machine intelligence”.

Their focus is on making things easy and fast for your business, where instant real-time data processing is expected. They also offer “Google grade” security. Moreover, using this platform lets you take advantage of Google’s private global fiber network.

Pricing on Google Cloud is done on a per-minute basis. It is usually cheaper than Amazon Web Services and even has a price comparison tool to show you how much you’ll save. But doesn’t have the same extensive tools and documentation.

Like Microsoft, Google also has its own IoT operating system (based on Android).

5. Oracle IoT

Oracle is a platform as a service (PaaS) provider that seems to be focusing on managing manufacturing and logistics workloads. They want to help you get your business products faster to market.

Oracle provides real-time IoT data analysis and endpoint data management to help businesses make critical decisions. Device visualization for easy device data analytics is another pro to using the Oracle IoT cloud platform.

Pricing for Oracle IoT is calculated per device. There is a set number of messages per device, per month, with an additional cost if you go over this number.

6. Salesforce IoT

Salesforce specializes in customer relations management. The Salesforce IoT cloud platform is powered by Thunder, which is focused on high-speed, real-time decision-making in the cloud. 

The idea is to create more meaningful customer interactions. Their easy point-and-click UI is designed to connect you with your customers effectively.

Pricing is at either a set price of about $4000 per month or on a quote basis.

7. Bosch

Bosch is a German-based IT company, that has recently launched its own cloud IoT services to compete with the likes of Amazon. They focus on security and efficiency. Their IoT platform is flexible and is based on open-source IoT standards.

The CEO Volkmar Denner says “As of today, we offer all the ace cards for the connected world from a single source. The Bosch IoT Cloud is the final piece of the puzzle that completes our software expertise. We are now a full-service provider for connectivity and the Internet of Things”.

Pricing is done progressively, so the more you use, the more you pay.

8. Cisco IoT Cloud Connect

Cisco is a global leader in IT services, helping companies “seize the opportunities of tomorrow”. They strongly believe that the opportunities of tomorrow lie in the cloud, and have developed a new ‘mobility-cloud-based software suite’.

Their goal is to strengthen your relationship with your customers. What’s more, they actually say their focus is to help you “find new ways to make money”. With all the jargon surrounding cloud computing, it’s nice to hear a company speaking in plain English.

Cisco IoT Cloud Connect provides robust features like industry-level cloud solutions, advanced security, edge computing, centralized data management, etc.

Popular use cases for Cisco IoT Cloud Connect include home security, healthcare, predictive maintenance, payment solutions, etc.

9. General Electrics Predix

General Electric has decided to get into the platform-as-a-service game. They are focused on the industrial market by offering connectivity and analytics at scale for mainstream sectors like aviation.

Pricing is done on a pay-as-you-go basis. They don’t have simple pricing tables like the larger companies.

They also have a cool interactive demo that you can try out.

10. SAP

The SAP homepage reads like a buzzword dictionary for the last couple of years. Here is the title of a press release: “SAP Cloud Platform extends its capabilities for IoT, Big Data, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence”.

If you can translate sentences like that, it basically means they are offering the latest tech to earn your business more money!

Some prominent features of the SAP IoT cloud platform include,

  • Building AI apps using IoT data,
  • Reliable message processing,
  • Secure data management,
  • easy integration of IoT protocols with legacy systems, etc. 

Pricing is easy to understand, with 3 tiers for

  • Developers,
  • Medium Businesses,
  • and Enterprises.

Which Cloud IoT Platform Should You Go With?

This is a tough question. There is no best IoT cloud platform, and ultimately it will depend on the specific needs of your business. 

At the moment Amazon is the most established in this field with more than 200 fully-featured cloud services APIs available through data centers placed globally. However, it could be an expensive option for small startups to medium-sized businesses.

If you just want to test out some ideas, go with a provider that offers a free tier. You’ll be able to get a feel for how it works, the pros and cons, and what features you might need in the future.

If you still aren’t sure, contact a development team that has experience in building the type of systems you need and in implementing AI and data engineering solutions

They will know the ins and outs of every platform, and will easily be able to recommend the perfect IoT cloud platform to take your business to the next level.

Wondering how you can onboard the right developers? Help is at hand! Our guide “How to find a good software developer” can help you to find competent developers for your IoT development project.

Need Help with IoT Solutions?

Businesses are increasingly depending on cloud infrastructures given the flexibility they add to the business operations. You and your technical team get free from hosting, managing, and maintaining hardware and software components.

If you are planning to invest in any type of cloud services from PaaS, SaaS, IaaS, etc., and still looking for cloud engineers to help you opt for the most suitable IoT cloud platform without disrupting your existing system, DevTeam.Space can help you.

You can get in touch via this form stating your cloud computing requirements. One of our technical managers will get back to further answer your questions and connect you with expert software developers, experienced in cloud computing solutions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an IoT cloud platform?

IoT is a system of interconnected computing devices. An IoT cloud platform allows a network of devices to be operated through a cloud-based network. 

Is it costly to invest in an IoT platform?

There are many cloud IoT platforms available today due to their increasing popularity among businesses. Big data availability and the requirement of high computing power to process it efficiently are making cloud infrastructure popular. Most cloud service providers offer various plans. You can start from smaller packages and gradually increase your cloud resources.

What are some good IoT cloud platforms?

A good IoT cloud platform helps to optimize business operations, reduces unexpected downtime, gathers performance data, provides on-demand scalability, etc. Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure IoT Hub are two examples of numerous available services, tools, and templates. 


Alexey

Alexey Semeney

Founder of DevTeam.Space

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Alexey is the founder of DevTeam.Space. He is among the Top 26 mentors of FI’s ‘Global Startup Mentor Awards’ and is a Band Of Angels Technology Expert.

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