Azure Foundry New vs Azure Foundry Classic

Question

Hello,

What is the difference between Azure Foundry New and Foundry Classic? What is the recommended platform for future development?

Is Foundry Classic set to retire soon?

Regards,

Meena

Answer 1

Hello Meenakshi Sankar,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A and Thank you for reaching out.

I understand that you’re evaluating the Classic vs. New experience in Azure Foundry. Below is a consolidated explanation covering portal differences, capabilities, recommendations, and lifecycle status.

Azure Foundry Classic vs. Azure Foundry (New)

1.Portal & Project Structure

Foundry Classic Portal

Labeled as “Microsoft Foundry (classic)” in the portal.

Supports:

• Hub-based projects (existing ML hubs, Azure OpenAI resources, etc.)
• Foundry projects

Allows switching to the New experience via the header toggle.

Requires manual management of backend Azure resources when building solutions:

• Storage accounts
• Key Vault
• Separate ML endpoints

Follows a more traditional Azure resource-centric setup.

Classic reflects the original architecture and project model.

Foundry (New) Portal

Focused purely on Foundry-native projects (no hub concept).

Does not expose additional infrastructure primitives.

Provides a streamlined, unified UX for:

• Agents
• Models
• Tools

Only Foundry-native projects appear in this experience.

It abstracts much of the infrastructure wiring and simplifies development workflows.

Capability Differences

Foundry New introduces more modern platform capabilities, including:

Multi-agent orchestration

Private and public tool catalogs

Enhanced memory handling

Integrated knowledge base workflows

Real-time observability and tracing

Centralized asset management

Faster load times and simplified navigation

Classic remains functional but has a more static and infrastructure-heavy setup compared to the New experience.

Recommended Platform for Future Development

Microsoft’s strategic investments are focused on Foundry (New).

New features are introduced there first.

SDKs and APIs are aligned with the New experience.

It is designed for forward-looking, enterprise-scale AI development.

For any greenfield or future projects, Foundry (New) is the recommended platform.

Retirement Timeline for Foundry Classic

There is no officially announced deprecation date for Foundry Classic.

Existing workloads can continue running without immediate impact.

However, feature development is centered on the New experience.

While Classic is still supported, it is not the strategic direction moving forward. Planning new projects on Foundry (New) ensures access to ongoing enhancements.

Foundry Classic: Original hub-based architecture; supported but legacy direction.

Foundry (New): Modern, streamlined, feature-rich platform; recommended for new development.

Retirement: No announced timeline, but innovation focus is on the New experience.

Please refer this

• What is Microsoft Foundry? (covers Classic vs New at a glance) https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/foundry/what-is-foundry?wt.mc_id=knowledgesearch_inproduct_azure-cxp-community-insider
• Choose an Azure resource type for Foundry (classic) https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/foundry-classic/concepts/resource-types?wt.mc_id=knowledgesearch_inproduct_azure-cxp-community-insider
• Migrate from hub-based to Foundry projects (classic) https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/foundry-classic/how-to/migrate-project?wt.mc_id=knowledgesearch_inproduct_azure-cxp-community-insider

I Hope this helps. Do let me know if you have any further queries.

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