As compared to what? Azure is Paas and, for what it is, seems to be a reasonable value. Of course there are ways to do things cheaper and/or more secure but often I find those comparisons are apples and oranges. And often the comparisons are complex and very situation specific (e.g. one is not automatically better or worse in terms of security or cost). I personally am glad to see node added to the Azure toolbox.
It's a completely odd decision for someone to make. "I'm going to run this bleeding edge, open-source app framework, but I can't figure out EC2 and Windows makes me feel safe at night."
When you ask someone, "Why Node?", it seems like a complete mismatch with Azure.
Node is pretty bare-metal, and you can figure that out, but hosting on EC2 Linux is too hard for you? Node is bleeding edge, but you want an "enterprise-ready" server OS? Node is free to use, but you want the additional costs of paying Windows server licenses over time? You can get approval to run Node apps, but you're only approved to run on Windows in production? I'm not seeing what would make someone say "this Node app should run on Microsoft".
I agree with a lot of that. Most people who choose Node are going to feel more at home with EC2. However it's not so far fetched to think that one might choose to pair Node and Azure. They each solve very different problems.
