Amazon Machine Images (AMIs)high

• Managed via EC2 APIs, not Glance.
• Region-specific with cross-region copy.
• Marketplace AMIs may charge hourly fees.
• Includes block device mapping in AMI.

Azure Compute Gallery image definitions and versionshigh

• Organized in galleries with image definitions and versioned images (Microsoft.Compute/galleries/images/versions), more structured than flat Glance images.
• Supports global replication to regions with replicas (up to 100), ZRS storage, unlike OpenStack's store-only model.
• Sharing via RBAC, community galleries, or direct share; requires gallery setup vs simple OpenStack image sharing.
• New features like Trusted Launch only in Gallery, legacy managed images deprecated.

Images (Distributions, 1-Click Apps, Snapshots, Backups, Custom Images)high

• DigitalOcean classifies images into specific types (snapshots, backups, applications/1-Click, distributions, custom) rather than OpenStack Glance’s more generalized image model with visibility/properties/metadata.
• Custom images are imported by providing a URL to a supported disk format (raw, qcow2, vhdx, vdi, vmdk) and have a documented max decompressed size (100 GB), which differs from typical OpenStack flows where images are uploaded directly to Glance and size limits are operator-defined.
• DigitalOcean image operations are through /v2/images in their API, not Glance (and images also include DigitalOcean-specific fields like kind values base/snapshot/backup/custom/admin).
• DigitalOcean's "applications" images (1-Click Apps/Marketplace style) are a first-class image type, whereas OpenStack commonly treats such preconfigured stacks as separate concerns (OpenTofu modules, Heat templates, app catalogs) rather than an image 'type'.

OS imageshigh

• Public images shareable across projects (e.g. debian-cloud); OpenStack typically tenant-private.
• Image families point to latest version; no OpenStack equivalent.
• Custom images stored in Cloud Storage with licensing fees for premium OS.

Imageshigh

• Includes system images (OS), user images (snapshots/backups).
• API /v1/images; create via server action create_image (type=snapshot/backup).
• Billed per GB/month; backups cost 20% of server price.
• No direct image upload; custom via ISO attach or rebuild.