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CloudKings

Cloud Kings Champions

Crowning the best cloud products in the world

The Cloud Kings 10 ranks the biggest cloud companies. Champions goes one level deeper: for each specific job a CIO, CTO or platform team has to get right, we crown the best cloud product for it, name a runner-up, and show exactly how we decided.

One crown per problem

Most “best software” lists rank the same famous names for everyone. Real buying decisions are narrower: a bank modernising its mainframe, a platform team running Kubernetes across three clouds, an Australian business that must keep its data onshore. The right answer depends on the job.

So every Cloud Kings Champions guide starts with one specific enterprise problem and asks a single question: which product solves it best, on the evidence? The winner earns the crown. The runner-up is named too, along with the situations where it is the better pick.

Champions is written for CIOs, CTOs, enterprise architects, platform engineers and the procurement teams who work with them: readers who need a defensible shortlist, the trade-offs behind it and the questions to put to vendors.

How a product earns the crown

  1. 01

    Pick one real problem

    Not “the best cloud tool”, but one job a technology leader has to get right, for a named buyer with real constraints.

  2. 02

    Set the rules before the contest

    We fix the criteria and their weights before scoring anyone, so the result cannot be bent towards a favourite.

  3. 03

    Gather the evidence

    Official documentation, published pricing and independent sources. Every important finding is recorded with its source.

  4. 04

    Score and crown

    Each contender is scored on every criterion with a written reason. The highest score takes the crown; second place is the runner-up.

  5. 05

    Show our working

    Each guide publishes the criteria, weights, scores, limitations and sources, and says when the runner-up is the better choice.

  6. 06

    Defend the title

    Crowns are not for life. When prices, features or the evidence change, we review the verdict and record why it changed.

The Champions

We aim to crown a new Champion every weekday.

  1. Evaluated

    Kubernetes observability platform for multi-cloud operations

    For platform teams running Kubernetes across EKS, AKS and GKE, Grafana Cloud is our champion: open standards, published unit prices and Australian hosting. Dynatrace is the runner-up for teams that want automated root-cause analysis and a self-managed option.

    Champion
    Grafana Cloud
    Runner-up
    Dynatrace

The rules of the crown

No paid crowns
No vendor can pay to be included, to win or to see a verdict before it is published.
Evidence over marketing
Vendor claims are attributed as vendor claims. What we could not verify, we say we could not verify.
Honest about method
Champions are judged from documentation, pricing and independent evidence. We do not claim to have run products ourselves.
No crown without a contest
If the evidence does not support a clear winner, we do not name one.

Looking for the companies rather than the products? See the Cloud Kings 10, our ranking of the largest publicly traded cloud companies.