IoT Cloud Platforms Comparison: Kaa vs AWS vs Google Cloud
Overview
IoT cloud platforms are modern solutions that connect devices, applications, and data within the cohesive cloud-based ecosystem. They are also known as IoT platforms-as-a-service (PaaS), meaning that you can build your own applications and services using their built-in IoT features. Usually, an IoT application involves connecting and managing your devices via the cloud, collecting device data, remote control, data analytics and visualization, managing application versions and user access rights.
Compared to other enterprise cloud platforms on the market, Kaa enables companies to get started with IoT much faster and with less effort. Because it provides all key IoT features within an intuitive user interface, Kaa reduces the time and skill required to connect your devices and visualize data. Creating a PoC for your IoT solution may be accomplished even by non-technical people with Kaa.
| Kaa IoT Cloud | AWS | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Per device | Per device + traffic + storage + external services | Per device + traffic + storage + external services |
| Free plan | Yes, up to 5 devices, unlimited time, no credit card is required | 12-month, $300 free trial, a credit card is required | $300 trial money, a credit card is required |
| Getting started time | A few hours | Up to a few days | A few hours |
| Required IoT expertise | Basic, no console usage required | Expert, need to use a console | Expert, need to use a console |
| Setup | Basic | Expert | Expert |
| Customization | Allows deploying your own services + customizable UI + cloud providers integration using Kafka | No | No |
| Open APIs | All | All | All |
| End-to-end IoT use case | Yes | No | No |
| Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Key advantages | All features are in one place, customizable UI, self-hosted deployment available | Great SLA, huge cloud ecosystem | Great SLA, huge cloud ecosystem |
Comparison Summary
- Kaa, AWS, and Google Сloud can be all used to successfully set up typical IoT solutions but the key difference here is that Kaa is more IoT-oriented while AWS and Google are more ecosystem-oriented cloud platforms.
- For this reason, the Kaa IoT Cloud requires the least technical expertise from the user while offering an easy setup and a visual UI for all common tasks. AWS and Google Cloud feature more complex workflows with a greater number of steps to accomplish similar tasks, require using a console for setup, and take it longer to make yourself familiar with the platform (especially AWS).
- Also, Kaa is designed to provide all the required IoT capabilities in one place and under a single UI as well as address an end-to-end IoT flow by default, from data collection to visualization. As different from that, AWS and Google require you to set up a full-fledged ecosystem of services to tackle your specific use case and be really good at DevOps if you need several.
- Once again, as an IoT-oriented cloud platform, Kaa allows for very flexible customizations up to the point where the user or developer creates a unique flavor of Kaa that matches their functional needs, desirable UI/UX, and design stylebook. Due to its flexible deployment, Kaa can even be used as a designated IoT platform within AWS or Google Cloud ecosystems!
- For AWS and Google, however, customization is definitely not a strong suite as they practically offer none at all. But you can still rely on their huge ecosystems of modules and applications to create a variety of IoT solutions for your most common needs. Speaking of pricing, Kaa has a simpler and more transparent cost calculator by charging portionally to the number of connected devices. You’ll need to factor in a few more variables when considering your expenses with AWS or Google, though. Kaa is also more cost-efficient when comparing similar IoT setups from all three vendors.
- Finally, Kaa offers an unlimited free trial with no credit card required!
- You can also see a step-by-step technical comparison in our blog, where we set up similar IoT solutions in each of these cloud platforms.
About the Kaa IoT cloud
Based on the latest release of the Kaa IoT Platform, the Kaa IoT Cloud has been designed to make it simpler and easier than ever before to connect your devices, select the metrics these devices send, and to receive and visualize your device data. The goal is to reduce the time, learning curve and dependency on technical specialists to connect your devices and start collecting data and configure your IoT solutions. One of the main improvements of our new IoT platform is the ease of setting up your solution, which has eliminated the requirement to manually input commands in a console to connect and configure your devices. With Kaa, device setup and data visualization can be performed exclusively within the user interface. The Kaa web UI also provides a large selection of widgets to visualize data, which can be dragged and dropped into the dashboard, and further customized through drop-down menus. These widgets provide a variety of options, such as graphs, gauges and maps. The combination of these features enables practically any organization or user to rapidly connect devices and configure their own IoT solution without depending on DevOps teams or possessing strong technical knowledge