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Azure OpenAI Service vs Vertex AI

A feature-by-feature comparison of Azure OpenAI Service and Vertex AI across 7 capability categories.

First tool

Try Azure OpenAI Service (opens in a new tab)

Second tool

Try Vertex AI (opens in a new tab)

Modalities — Tie

Modalities: Azure OpenAI Service compared with Vertex AI
Feature	Azure OpenAI Service	Vertex AI
Text Input	Yes, requires plus plan. Chat Completions and Responses APIs on deployed OpenAI models.	Yes, requires plus plan. Gemini and other models via Generate Content API and Agent Studio.
Image Upload / Vision	Yes, requires plus plan. GPT-4o and later chat models on Azure accept text and images.	Yes, requires plus plan. Gemini multimodal accepts images in the API and console.
Image Generation	Yes, requires plus plan. Azure OpenAI lists image generation models in the Foundry catalog.	Yes, requires plus plan. Imagen models in Model Garden and Vertex AI Studio.
Voice Mode	Partial. GPT-4o audio models support speech-in/speech-out; that is an API capability, not a consumer voice app.	Partial. Speech APIs exist. Not a consumer voice-chat loop like Gemini app.
Video Understanding	Unknown. Video understanding vs Sora video generation was not separated in the catalog page we read.	Yes, requires plus plan. Gemini video understanding in Agent Studio and the API.
Video Generation	Yes, requires plus plan. Azure OpenAI catalog includes Sora and a video generation model.	Yes, requires plus plan. Vertex AI serves Veo and other video generation models.
File Upload (PDF, DOCX)	Yes, requires plus plan. Files API and Assistants/vector store accept uploaded customer data.	Yes, requires plus plan. RAG with Cloud Storage and document ingestion in Agent Builder.
Code Execution	Unknown. Code interpreter on Azure OpenAI was not verified on the catalog page.	Partial. Colab Enterprise and notebooks for code. Not a chat Python sandbox.
Audio Input	Yes, requires plus plan. Audio models cover speech-to-text and GPT-4o audio input.	Partial. Speech-to-text models available. Vertex is a platform, not a voice assistant.
Canvas / Artifact Editor	No. Not a ChatGPT Canvas product. Playgrounds are for testing API calls.	No. Studio is a dev console, not a consumer canvas.
Screen Sharing / Computer Use	Partial. computer-use-preview is listed for the Responses API computer-use tool. That is not a consumer screen-share chat.	No. No computer-use desktop product.

Memory & Context — Tie

Memory & Context: Azure OpenAI Service compared with Vertex AI
Feature	Azure OpenAI Service	Vertex AI
Persistent Memory	Partial. Responses API and Assistants threads persist message history when you enable those features; models are otherwise stateless.	Partial. RAG corpora and agent session config. Distinct from consumer Gemini memory.
Large Context Window	Yes, requires plus plan. Depends on the deployed model; gpt-chat-latest lists a 400k context window.	Unknown. Depends on the Gemini/model version deployed.
Custom Instructions	Partial. System prompts are API parameters, not a ChatGPT-style global custom-instructions UI.	Yes, requires plus plan. System instructions in Agent Studio and API prompts.
Conversation History	Partial. Optional Responses API / Assistants threads store history in your resource; chat completions are otherwise stateless.	Partial. Session state in agents. API calls are otherwise stateless.

Integrations — Vertex AI Wins

Integrations: Azure OpenAI Service compared with Vertex AI
Feature	Azure OpenAI Service	Vertex AI
Web Search / Browsing	Unknown. Grounding/search on Azure OpenAI was not checked. Distinct from Copilot.	Partial. Grounding with Google Search in Gemini API. Enterprise Agent Platform feature set.
Plugins / Extensions	Partial. Functions and tools are documented; there is no ChatGPT plugin store.	Yes, requires plus plan. Extensions, tools, and Model Garden integrations.
API Access	Yes, requires plus plan. REST API for deployed models in your Azure resource. Usage billing.	Yes, requires plus plan. Vertex AI REST/gRPC SDK. $300 credits for new accounts.
Zapier Integration	Unknown. No first-party Zapier listing was checked.	Unknown. No first-party Zapier listing was checked.
Custom GPTs / Bots	Partial. Assistants / Agents APIs let you build assistants; there is no public Custom GPT store.	Yes, requires plus plan. Agent Builder and Agent Studio deploy custom agents.
Real-time Collaboration	Unknown. Team sharing in Azure AI was not checked.	Partial. IAM-shared console and notebooks. Not multiplayer chat.
Live Social Data Integration	No. No live social firehose.	No. No live social firehose product.
Live Citation Mapping	Unknown. Grounding citations on Azure were not checked.	Partial. Grounding with Search returns citations. RAG returns source chunks.

Developer — Tie

Developer: Azure OpenAI Service compared with Vertex AI
Feature	Azure OpenAI Service	Vertex AI
Function Calling	Yes, requires plus plan. Functions, tools, and parallel tool calling are listed on Azure OpenAI chat models.	Yes, requires plus plan. Function calling in Gemini and agent tool use.
Streaming Responses	Yes, requires plus plan. Chat Completions and Responses APIs stream tokens; the service is documented as processing prompts via those APIs.	Yes, requires plus plan. Streaming generateContent responses.
Fine-Tuning	Yes, requires plus plan. Customers can upload training data to create a fine-tuned model exclusive to their resource.	Yes, requires plus plan. Supervised fine-tuning and tuning jobs in Vertex AI.
Embeddings API	Yes, requires plus plan. Embedding models convert text to vectors in the Azure OpenAI catalog.	Yes, requires plus plan. Text embeddings and Vector Search.
Structured Output (JSON)	Yes, requires plus plan. Structured outputs are listed on gpt-chat-latest and other Azure OpenAI chat models.	Yes, requires plus plan. JSON schema / response schema in Gemini API.
Reasoning / Thinking Mode	Yes, requires plus plan. o-series and later chat models list reasoning; some models expose a configurable reasoning effort.	Partial. Thinking/reasoning models in Gemini 2.x family. Platform-level, not a single toggle.
Local Execution	No. Cloud-hosted in your Azure region.	No. Cloud GCP inference. Distinct from Antigravity local dev.
Open Weights	No. Hosts OpenAI proprietary models, not open-weight releases.	Partial. Model Garden hosts open models (Gemma, Llama) plus Google proprietary models.
Multi-Agent Orchestration	Partial. GPT-5.6 series lists multi-agent orchestration as preview on Azure.	Yes, requires plus plan. Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform supports multi-agent flows.

Platforms — Tie

Platforms: Azure OpenAI Service compared with Vertex AI
Feature	Azure OpenAI Service	Vertex AI
Web App	Yes, requires plus plan. Azure AI Foundry / portal for deploying and testing models.	Yes, requires plus plan. Google Cloud console and Vertex AI Studio.
iOS App	No. No consumer iOS app. Distinct from Copilot mobile.	No. No consumer iOS app. Distinct from Gemini mobile.
Android App	No. No consumer Android app.	No. No consumer Android app.
Desktop App	No. Portal and API. No branded consumer chat desktop app.	No. Browser console, not a desktop chat app.
Chrome Extension	No. Not a browser extension. Do not conflate with Copilot.	No. No Chrome extension.

Privacy — Azure OpenAI Service Wins

Privacy: Azure OpenAI Service compared with Vertex AI
Feature	Azure OpenAI Service	Vertex AI
GDPR Compliant	Yes, requires plus plan. Azure OpenAI is an Azure service under the Microsoft Products and Services DPA; Trust Center documents GDPR for Azure.	Partial. Google Cloud compliance offerings. Specific Vertex DPA not re-read.
Opt Out of Data Training	Yes, requires plus plan. Prompts, completions, embeddings, and training data are not used to train foundation models without customer permission.	Partial. Enterprise terms restrict training on customer data. Consumer Gemini policies differ.
Enterprise Privacy Mode	Yes, requires enterprise plan. Private VNet, customer-managed keys, and Microsoft enterprise agreements.	Yes, requires enterprise plan. VPC-SC, CMEK, and Gemini Enterprise privacy controls.

Workspaces — Azure OpenAI Service Wins

Workspaces: Azure OpenAI Service compared with Vertex AI
Feature	Azure OpenAI Service	Vertex AI
Projects / Folders	Yes, requires plus plan. Microsoft Foundry organizes work into projects and resources in the Azure tenant.	Unknown. Overlapping columns disagreed (yes vs partial); left unverified rather than copying a no.