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When to Use Foundry

🏭 What Is Microsoft Foundry? 7 min 60 BASE XP

Decision Framework

Not every AI project needs the full Foundry platform. Here's how to decide:

ScenarioUse Foundry?Alternative
Building a production AI app with multiple modelsYes—
Quick prototype with OpenAI APIMaybeDirect Azure OpenAI Service
Enterprise AI with governance requirementsYes—
Simple chatbot with no custom dataNoAzure OpenAI + your app
Multi-agent orchestrationYes—
RAG over company documentsYes—
Single-purpose Vision/Speech API callNoDirect Cognitive Services API
Fine-tuning models with evaluationYes—
💡 Key Insight: The platform itself is free to explore. You only pay for the underlying Azure resources consumed (model inference, compute, storage, search). There is no separate "Foundry license fee."

Foundry vs Raw Azure Services

Think of Foundry as the orchestration layer over Azure's AI services. You could build the same solutions using individual Azure services (OpenAI, AI Search, etc.) directly, but Foundry provides:

  • Unified SDK — one azure-ai-projects package instead of 5+ SDKs
  • Single endpoint — one project endpoint for all capabilities
  • Built-in evaluation — quality and safety metrics out of the box
  • Agent management — production-grade agent lifecycle
  • Centralized governance — one place for RBAC, networking, compliance
FOUNDRY VERIFICATION
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Is there a separate license fee for using Microsoft Foundry?
Yes, it requires a Foundry license
No — the platform is free; you pay for underlying Azure resources consumed
Yes, it's included in Microsoft 365
Only for enterprise customers
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When to Use Foundry | What Is Microsoft Foundry? — Azure Foundry Academy