I am using Amazon S3 for storing all the organization data, which comes from a data pipeline.
Associate Member Of Technical Staff at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Useful life cycle policies, highly stable, and simple setup
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of Amazon S3 are the accuracy and the life cycle policies, which help when moving from Amazon S3 to Amazon Glacier."
- "Amazon S3 could improve some of the features, such as indexing, or we should have more information about all the data stored in a single place. This way we can see what data resides where instead of going in different buckets, file locations manually, or searching. An index would be nice, allowing us to directly go to a location to use the date."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Amazon S3 are the accuracy and the life cycle policies, which helps when moving from Amazon S3 to Amazon Glacier.
What needs improvement?
Amazon S3 could improve some of the features, such as indexing, or we should have more information about all the data stored in a single place. This way we can see what data resides where instead of going in different buckets, file locations manually, or searching. An index would be nice, allowing us to directly go to a location to use the date.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Amazon S3 within the last 12 months.
Buyer's Guide
Amazon S3
February 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Amazon S3. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Amazon S3 is 99.99 percent stable. The solution is highly stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of Amazon S3 is good. If we want more storage we only need to pay extra.
All the workloads of the whole company go to Amazon S3. As our workloads increase, the data increases, and we will use more storage in Amazon S3.
How are customer service and support?
I have not used the support from Amazon S3.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have not used another solution similar to Amazon S3.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Amazon S3 is not complex. We are only using it for a storage layer and there were not any complexities.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost of Amazon S3 is good. The pricing model is based on the usage of the solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others, it is one of the most used storage solutions.
I rate Amazon S3 a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Senior Database Administrator at Overonix Technologies
Easily connects with the cloud, hardware, or other services to move data
Pros and Cons
- "The solution easily connects with the cloud, hardware, or other services to move data."
- "The solution requires you to buy and use Amazon services."
What is our primary use case?
Our company uses the solution for backups, data pumps, files, and logs. Our projects connect to the solution rather than individual users connecting to it.
What is most valuable?
The solution is within the Amazon architecture so it easily connects with the cloud, hardware, or other services to move data. We do not need to connect to direct services to download data.
What needs improvement?
The solution requires you to buy and use Amazon services.
The solution could be more auto functional.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is good so I rate it a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable. It is easy to add gigabytes or more users and is more a question of budget.
How are customer service and support?
I have not needed technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is very easy. Every junior Dev Ops can set up the solution and use data storage.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented the solution in-house.
There is no deployment because it is a data storage solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is very inexpensive at 50 cents per gigabyte, per month.
Some packages or discounts are available. Big companies can use the solution for free.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
You can use the solution for projects that are within the Amazon architecture.
You cannot use the solution if you have your own services or data centers because it is dependent on the Amazon architecture.
If you have a service such as Azure in Amazon, then you can use the stream but not the solution directly.
What other advice do I have?
The solution is great for data and cloud storage.
I recommend the solution and rate it an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Amazon S3
February 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Amazon S3. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Team Lead at Mahindra Comviva
An easily accessible, fast and effective solution with good performance
Pros and Cons
- "Amazon S3 is easily accessible, fast and effective. Its performance is good."
- "The tool needs to improve its flexibility in support."
What is our primary use case?
I use the tool for my product deployment.
What is most valuable?
Amazon S3 is easily accessible, fast and effective. Its performance is good.
What needs improvement?
The tool needs to improve its flexibility in support.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the product for a couple of months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Amazon S3 is stable and reliable. Its resource utilization is also good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate the product's scalability an eight point five out of ten. My company has more than 200 users.
How was the initial setup?
Amazon S3's deployment takes some time. However, once you learn it, it's not complex.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The tool's licensing costs are yearly. I rate it a six to seven out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the overall product a seven out of ten. Setting it up takes some time at the beginning, but it's reliable and stable once it's all set up.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Solutions Architect at AfroCentric Health
Cold storage helps you save money by storing unused data
Pros and Cons
- "We have cold storage here, and I think that's useful. When it comes to commercialization, it's cheaper to put data that you won't be using into the data storage. You only use a little bit of the data needed each day for your transition, so you pay less."
- "We have cold storage here, and I think that's useful. When it comes to commercialization, it's cheaper to put data that you won't be using into the data storage. You only use a little bit of the data needed each day for your transition, so you pay less."
What is our primary use case?
Currently, I am a cloud solution architect. I consult with developers and set up the architecture needed to deploy a solution. If a solution needs to be deployed within AWS, we sit down with the client and discuss the services that are most appropriate for that solution and design the architecture, which is given to the review board for approval. The AWS services we consume are dependent on the solution. Users from various departments will use the solution, depending on what's being deployed there.
What is most valuable?
We have cold storage here, and I think that's useful. When it comes to commercialization, it's cheaper to put data that you won't be using into the data storage. You only use a little bit of the data needed each day for your transition, so you pay less.
What needs improvement?
There could be more flexibility in configuration to allow more ways to connect to outside the PPC.
For how long have I used the solution?
I started using S3 at my previous company, so I have been using it for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
S3 is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Amazon S3 is highly scalable.
How are customer service and support?
I rate AWS support 10 out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
Setting up S3 is straightforward. At first, it was difficult because I didn't know how to use the solution. Now it takes less than five minutes to deploy S3.
A solution architect needs to create a plan for what needs to be deployed, and the developer will deploy the solution. Most of the engagement happens before the deployment when the architect and the developer come to an agreement about the approach. One person procures the services, and others will test them and put them into the live environment.
What about the implementation team?
We deployed the solution with the help of a consultant, who helped us implement some of the heavier stuff in the data lake. However, we did the basic stuff in-house because we've got the VPC to do it ourselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing cost is not bad. However, you need an understanding of the solution you're deploying and the services running. You will save money by shutting down some of the services when they're not in use.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Amazon S3 nine out of 10. It's an excellent product. I'm also working with it for my personal use. I'm putting my documents and pictures into the S3 bucket.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
CTO at Huber
Effective compatibility, reliable, and simple setup
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of Amazon S3 are compatibility and reliability."
- "Amazon S3 could improve by providing some type of storage notification."
What is our primary use case?
We are using Amazon S3 for image and video files.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Amazon S3 are compatibility and reliability.
What needs improvement?
Amazon S3 could improve by providing some type of storage notification.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon S3 for approximately 18 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Amazon S3 is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of Amazon S3 is good.
We have approximately 500 people using the solution and plan to increase usage.
How are customer service and support?
I have used the support from Amazon S3. The speed of the support could be faster.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Amazon S3 is straightforward. The time it took for implementation took approximately one week,
What about the implementation team?
We used an integrator for the implementation of Amazon S3.
We have approximately three administrators that do the deployment and maintenance of the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of Amazon S3 is competitive with other solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate Amazon S3 a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
System Administrator at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Secure, scalable, and easy to manage and understand
Pros and Cons
- "It is easy to manage and easy to understand."
- "We need the mapping to Windows. That feature is needed in S3. That feature is in the Azure cloud where we can map it like a drive. We can map the cloud storage to the effort driving our Windows PC. But Amazon is not providing that feature for the S3 solution."
What is our primary use case?
I am managing the S3 storage solution from Amazon. From Microsoft, I'm managing the Azure administration. I handle that. As a part of that, I need to create the virtual machines, a point to site to VPN and Azure AD, AD synchronization with Windows server, a database server, mail server, and web server. I administrate all that.
We use Amazon S3 for storing files and documents on the cloud. I fill out the user whenever the files they use are downloaded. That is fully automated. After a few days, it can delete it. I've done the policy for the automated deletion.
Amazon S3 is great. We are using it for storage solutions.
How has it helped my organization?
Due to using S3, our data documents are safe and easy to access. It is better to keep them in the cloud as opposed to in our internal drive. You can access them from anywhere. Especially during the pandemic period, we are able to access remotely, as well. So it's good.
What is most valuable?
We are using the basic S3 bucket. It is easy to manage and easy to understand.
What needs improvement?
We need the mapping to Windows. That feature is needed in S3. That feature is in the Azure cloud where we can map it like a drive. We can map the cloud storage to the effort driving our Windows PC. But Amazon is not providing that feature for the S3 solution.
In the next release I would like to see mapping on the Windows machine. In Windows, there are drives right in volumes. We need to map these Amazon S3 storage to the Windows. That usually is available in the Azure. I would like to have that in the Amazon as well.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Amazon S3 for just six months as of now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In terms of stability, it is good and has no issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We can scale Amazon S3 for storage. We can increase or scale up and we can scale down. It's easy to manage.
I'm happy where I'm at right now. If we need more storage, we will implement. We'll scale it up.
How are customer service and support?
As of now, I haven't needed to contact support. It is really easy to manage. Even for the small issues, we can just Google the issues and find the solution. For complex issues, we may need to contact them, but as of now, I haven't needed to. I haven't faced any issues like that, so I didn't contact support. We have found that there is enough online documentation regarding S3.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We switched because of the security and scalability. It is highly secure because nobody can access it. Before we had solutions using an FTP and SFTP. That protocol is different and we are now using the S3. We need a shared key and an access secret key to access the particular storage. Without that, we cannot access. We cannot do anything. So security is more important. That's why we switched to Amazon S3.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is simple and easy to manage.
It's not actually a deployment. It is a simple step. Within five minutes, we can deploy it.
Our implementation strategy for the solution is based on the user's document files and how much GB they want and how they want to access that particular story's solution. Based on that scenario, I create the S3 bucket on the cloud for the particular users - whoever wants to access that particular S3. I created that particular IM user, the user access for that particular storage. I make an access policy to that particular storage.
What was our ROI?
Our ROI is good based on our usage. We have multiple users who are accessing this S3 storage.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's a monthly pricing.
We are happy with the pricing.
What other advice do I have?
Amazon S3 is a great solution.
My advice is to have an implementation strategy based on the user usage.
On a scale of one to ten, I would give Amazon S3 an eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Chief technical officer at Solvezy Technology Kenya Limited
Serves as repository for storing objects such as images and file with lifecycle policies
What is our primary use case?
We use Amazon S3 primarily as a repository for storing objects such as images and files. It serves as a storage solution where we can efficiently save and manage the data we collect.
What is most valuable?
Lifecycle policies in Amazon S3 is an important feature because they help manage transitions effectively. We can monitor how frequently objects are accessed and transition them to more cost-effective storage tiers. Additionally, the security architecture, including access control policies, is crucial for protecting our data. These three features—lifecycle management, cost-effective storage transitions, and robust security
What needs improvement?
From a pricing perspective, there’s still room for improvement, especially for smaller or startup entities that are very cost-conscious. If Amazon could repackage their S3 products to be more affordable and appealing for these smaller users, it could attract more customers, particularly at the lower end of the market.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
You can easily add more space as needed, and you can leverage the available metrics to set up alerts for when utilization reaches certain thresholds. It is highly scalable.
Our internal staff population exceeds one hundred. However, the number of clients accessing the application has surpassed ten thousand and continues to grow.
How are customer service and support?
There are occasional support issues where parts of the application might misbehave, often after scheduled upgrades. When this happens, we need to raise a support ticket. However, the team has been very agile in addressing these issues and quickly resolving them.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. I have a DevOps team that handles the setup and management tasks. By the time I joined, a lot of the S3 configurations were already in place. For the few instances where we needed to set up S3, it involved just a few clicks. As the Chief Technical Officer, I focus on architecting solutions and providing guidance, while the DevOps team implements them. Overall, the process has been seamless.
What other advice do I have?
For disaster recovery, we're just starting to implement our strategy. Amazon fulfills its part of the shared responsibility model by providing highly available infrastructure, including data redundancy and regional instance deployment. Their infrastructure is designed to support high availability, which aligns with their disaster recovery stipulations. We’re still in the process of testing our own disaster recovery plans, including running full-scale disaster scenarios to ensure we meet our recovery time objectives (MTTR) and recovery point objectives (MTTD). Although we haven't experienced any outages or data loss since starting operations, we are content with Amazon's disaster recovery infrastructure and will continue to build and test our own processes at our own pace.
Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Aug 19, 2024
Flag as inappropriateCTO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Beneficial automation, useful CLI, and simple implementation
Pros and Cons
- "Amazon S3 is easy to use and it is beneficial to use the CLI to make the backups. Since I use the CLI I do not have to do it on a web portal which is a big advantage because everything can be automatized. Automation can be done very well in Amazon S3."
- "The solution could improve by having a simpler way to have the detail size of a file in the CLI to be read or understood easier. Today, it's a little raw in the way the details are presented. You have to make some scripts and some modifications to be able to see the information properly of the size of a given bucket or the size of a file."
What is our primary use case?
I use Amazon S3 mainly for daily backups of our database.
How has it helped my organization?
Amazon S3 has helped our organization because the daily backups can be done automatically with automation. We do not have to spend time on it and I am confident with Amazon S3 in its ability to recover our data.
What is most valuable?
Amazon S3 is easy to use and it is beneficial to use the CLI to make the backups. Since I use the CLI I do not have to do it on a web portal which is a big advantage because everything can be automatized. Automation can be done very well in Amazon S3.
What needs improvement?
The solution could improve by having a simpler way to have the detail size of a file in the CLI to be read or understood easier. Today, it's a little raw in the way the details are presented. You have to make some scripts and some modifications to be able to see the information properly of the size of a given bucket or the size of a file.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon S3 for a long time. I used the latest version because the CLI is normally updated.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the Amazon S3 is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of Amazon S3 is great.
We are a small company and we have approximately five developers that use Amazon S3. We use the solution on a daily basis for hourly backups.
How are customer service and support?
I have used the support from Amazon S3 a long time ago, I have not needed much help. When I did have contact with them there were times it took a while for a response.
I would rate the technical support of Amazon S3 a three out of five.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
The main difference from other solutions I have used is Amazon is the leader, and it has a very large number of zones and capacity, while others can be smaller and can have different options. Not all the options that are available in Amazon S3 are offered by other competitors, but for the main features, most of them are working fine. I have been evaluating two different solutions, one from a French cloud-based company called Scaleway, and the other is peer-to-peer storage.
How was the initial setup?
The installation was simple. Creating a new bucket and deploying it is very straightforward. To make the script deploy a new bucket takes approximately one hour.
I would rate the initial setup of Amazon S3 a four out of five.
What about the implementation team?
We did the implementation ourselves and we have two developers that do the maintenance of the solution.
What was our ROI?
The return on investment has been very good because the backups of our database are critical for our business to operate.
I would rate the return on investment of Amazon S3 a four out of five.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of the Amazon S3 is reasonable. There are not any licensing costs, they have a pay-as-you-use model.
When backups are more than 6 months old, I would recommend keeping less of them and storing the remaining ones in Glacier (long-term, cheaper storage).
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I have evaluated other options.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others is to separate the buckets project, not to put everything in the same bucket, and be sure to implement IAM rules to avoid problems between users and not to lose any backups. The implementation process is important.
I rate Amazon S3 an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Google
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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