Compare Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack HCI, and Azure Stack Edge

  • 7 minutes

While Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack HCI, and Azure Stack Edge have their distinct use cases, it might be sometimes difficult to determine which of them is optimal in a given scenario.

Diagram shows the differences between global Azure, Azure Stack Hub, and Azure Stack HCI capabilities.

Use the same application model, self-service portals, and APIs with Azure Resource Manager to deliver cloud-based capabilities whether your business uses global Azure or on-premises resources.

This unit summarizes the differences between global Azure, Azure Stack Hub, and Azure Stack HCI capabilities. It provides common scenario recommendations to help you make the best choice for delivering Microsoft cloud-based services for your organization.

Diagram shows Azure Stack portfolio.

Azure Stack portfolio

The three products of the Azure Stack portfolio help you address the following needs:

  • Azure Stack Hub: Run your own private, autonomous, cloud-native applications in the cloud—connected or disconnected on-premises environment.

  • Azure Stack HCI: Consolidate and modernize virtualized workloads by using on-premises hyperconverged infrastructure and integrate them with Azure.

  • Azure Stack Edge: Get immediate insights into your on-premises data with an Azure-managed, edge computing appliance by using hardware-accelerated machine learning.

    Diagram of the Azure ecosystem overview.

To compare the three products, review the following table:

Characteristic

Azure Stack Hub

Azure Stack HCI

Azure Stack Edge

Number of nodes

4-16

2-16

1

Hardware

OEM

OEM

Microsoft

Support disconnected scenarios.

Yes

No

No

Modernize aging storage.

No

Yes

No

Cloud billing for on-premises data workloads

Yes

Yes

Yes

Provide Azure Consistent IaaS and PaaS.

Yes

No

No

Build modern apps across cloud and on-premises using Azure services.

Yes

No

No

Small-footprint branch office scenarios

No

Yes

Yes

Ruggedized form-factors in harsh or remote environments

No

No

Yes

Support for repurposed hardware

No

Yes. Customers have the option of reusing their existing hardware if provides the required capabilities, as defined by the Azure Stack HCI catalog.

No

Trusted enterprise virtualization

No

Yes

No

High availability for virtual machines

Yes

Yes

No

Built-in disaster recovery capabilities

No

Yes

No

Local Azure Resource Manager control plane

Yes

No

No

Built-in multi-tenancy and tenant isolation

Yes

No

No

Form-factor choice

Yes

Yes

Yes

Pre-configured private cloud

Yes

No

No

Azure virtual machines supported through IaaS

Yes

No

No

Support for Kubernetes

Yes

Yes

Yes

GPU support

Yes

Yes

Yes

FPGA support

No

No

Yes

Azure-managed appliance

No

No

Yes