Compute Solutions

Service	Suitable Scenarios	Distinctive Features	Specific Criteria
Azure Container Apps	Building serverless microservices based on containers	General-purpose containers, Kubernetes-style apps, event-driven architectures, long-running processes	No need for direct access to native Kubernetes APIs
Azure App Service	Fully managed hosting for web applications, including websites and web APIs	Optimized for web applications, integrated with other Azure services
Azure Container Instances	Lower-level "building block" option compared to Container Apps	No scale, load balancing, and certificates	Less "opinionated" building block
Azure Kubernetes Service	Fully managed Kubernetes option in Azure	Direct access to the Kubernetes API, runs any Kubernetes workload
Azure Functions	Running event-driven applications using the functions programming model	Short-lived functions deployed as either code or containers

Azure Container Apps vs. AKS: If you require access to the Kubernetes APIs and control plane, use AKS. If you want to build Kubernetes-style applications without needing direct access to all native Kubernetes APIs, Container Apps is preferable.
Azure Container Instances vs. Container Apps: ACI is a more basic building block without application-specific concepts like scale and load balancing, while Container Apps provides these features.
Azure Functions vs. Container Apps: Both are suitable for event-driven applications, but Functions is optimized for short-lived functions, while Container Apps is more general-purpose.

Comparison by feature

Feature	Container Apps	Container Instances	App Services	Kubernetes Service (AKS)	Functions
Scaling	Auto-scaling	Manual scaling only	Auto-scaling	Cluster Autoscaler (say no)	Consumption-based auto-scaling
State Management	Stateless	Stateless	Both stateless and stateful	Both stateless and stateful	Stateless
Resource Isolation	Shared	Dedicated	Shared/Dedicated	Dedicated	Shared
Cost	Pay-as-you-go	Pay-as-you-go	Fixed + Scale	Cluster costs + Node costs	Pay-as-you-go or fixed
Multi-Region Support	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes

Note: Functions is not a containerized solution.