This article on the various tools available to perform tasks in Azure comes to us from Premier Developer consultant Crystal Tenn.

There are a lot of tools out there for managing your Azure subscriptions! We have the Portal web page, Visual Studio integration (with the Azure SDK), PowerShell commands, and the Azure CLI. Sometimes it’s hard to know which one to use. In all honesty, sometimes the answer is that you choose the one you like the most and use a mixture of other tools for specific tasks because the other tools make it much simpler to accomplish what you are trying to do. As someone who came from a development background and no PowerShell, I tend to rely most on the Azure CLI and a mixture of the other tools depending on the task.

As a general rule of thumb, I recommend that the first time you create a new type of Azure service that you use the Portal so you get a nice view of what is going on and what kinds of options are available for you to specify. I also like to use the Azure Portal for creating SQL databases, Tagging, Scaling, and getting a good overview/management of my resource groups and resources. I would say it’s easiest to deploy an App Service individually using Visual Studio. Creating VMs, Storage, Batch, Containers, and Orchestration are easiest using the Azure CLI, and you can specify options based on the online documentation and adding in parameters as needed.

To get a quicker setup, you may want to stick with command line and use the Azure CLI or PowerShell. Choosing between the two may depend on your background. If you have a strong PowerShell background and you are only using Windows (or Linux and can install PowerShell on it), I would recommend sticking with PowerShell. If you have not used PowerShell before then I recommend learning the Azure CLI. If you want an entirely cross-platform tooling that will work exactly the same on Mac, Linux, and Windows, use the Azure CLI. In general, the Azure CLI tends to be shorter, easier to remember commands, and it is much easier to pick up this language than PowerShell. The PowerShell commands can get quite lengthy.

As a note, both PowerShell and Azure CLI have older versions, so be careful when looking at resources online like guides or documentation. If your Azure CLI command starts with az you are using the current 2.0 version, if it starts with azure you are using the older 1.0 Xplat version. PowerShell commands come in Resource Manager and Service Manager editions. If the command starts with AzureRm you are using the current Resource Manager version, and if it starts with just Azure and has no Rm then you are using the older version that works with the older classic Portal.

Below, I have shared compatible common Azure CLI 2.0 commands that accomplish the same as PowerShell commands (in case you know one method and wanted to see the equivalent command in the other language). Note these are samples of command lines– so you need to know how to use command line to change names, locations, add parameters, and customize them for your system.

Login and Subscription Commands:

List Locations, Resources, Version of CLI, and Help Commands:

Creating a Resource Group, VM, Storage Commands:

Managing VMs Commands: