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Amazon S3 Glacier vs Google Cloud Storage Nearline comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon S3 Glacier
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Google Cloud Storage Nearline
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 Glacier is 11.1%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is 8.0%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon S3 Glacier11.1%
Google Cloud Storage Nearline8.0%
Other80.9%
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

PF
Project Engineer at Astellas Pharma US
Archiving data has reduced storage costs and provides reliable long‑term retention
We have not really come across any downsides for us. It is possible that the retrieval of data may be expensive, which could be an issue, but we have not experienced that in fairness. Integration with our policies would be beneficial. We have policies for our systems where we delete data after a certain number of years, and having integration with Amazon S3 Glacier would be good. Having a guarantee that Amazon S3 Glacier would persist for the amount of time that we require in our archives would be valuable. In other words, Amazon would need to commit to support for the period we need. We could be talking about 20 years or longer. We cannot always move to the next version because we need to maintain old systems and legacy systems in order to maintain archives. A guarantee around support would be a good thing to have.
Seamless integration with cloud services improves workflows but documentation needs enhancement
One area that needs improvement is the documentation, which I find to be disorganized and not user-friendly. The lack of comprehensive walkthrough guides for specific use cases makes it difficult to follow. To enhance the experience, more detailed examples, guides, and tutorials from start to finish would be beneficial. Additionally, the cost compared to other providers like Amazon could be regarded as a downside.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Amazon S3 Glacier is easy to use. The platform is straightforward, and the interfaces are user-friendly and responsive. Even with a limited budget, you can train someone without an AWS certification to use it. With on-the-job training, you can ensure they understand what needs to be done to use the service."
"I like the price. If you compare Glacier to others, the prices in terms of what you store beyond retention are much lower."
"We use the solution for migration."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The pricing is low, and it's dedicated to archiving is valuable to us."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is very simple and very easy to implement, with extensive AWS documentation and a free tier that lets you test a minimum solution in their environment before putting it into production or making a big purchase."
"The biggest advantage of the product is that AWS always copies the tool internally."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The data structure and the types of data that are supported are very good."
"I find the flexibility in storing documents or data and the ease of retrieval valuable with this solution."
"Nearline is highly stable."
"It can isolate files and stop them from corrupting other files."
"The stability is excellent; I can't think of a better service that's provided in South America, and the infrastructure overall is very stable and reliable."
"Google is always introducing new features and tends to have a new release every month."
"It provides the necessary support and flexibility to manage data storage effectively, especially during times of variable data flow."
"The best part of Nearline storage is the ability to take backups at optimal costs and its availability across multiple regions."
 

Cons

"However, when you want to retrieve the data, it is a little bit time consuming because it specifies to retrieve the data it is going to take time, so you must make sure you log store the data which you will be accessing or which you will need very frequently."
"The solution's cost optimization could be improved."
"A couple of times, we faced outage issues that caused us problems."
"The product could be improved in terms of the customer support team's response times."
"The user experience must be improved."
"The response times could be faster. When you are with Amazon and use Glacier, you expect a response time between four to seven hours to retrieve the data."
"The tool could be made cheaper."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is a cheaper tool if you're running it on-prem, but it is expensive if deployed on the cloud."
"The pricing is quite high."
"One area that needs improvement is the documentation, which I find to be disorganized and not user-friendly."
"They need a better, more visual, user interface for folders and files."
"Nearline security could be better. The solution could integrate better with SEIM tools."
"The interface for managing file storage in the buckets could be improved."
"They should provide more options or flexibility in terms of pricing."
"The solution needs to offer better System Information and Event Management (SEIM). I'd like to discover how we could implement something like that within Google's cloud."
"The pricing could be improved. It's completely non-competitive at this time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no license, you pay for what you use."
"We pay a monthly licensing fee for Amazon S3 Glacier."
"The tool is too expensive."
"Amazon S3 Glacier has good pricing."
"The pricing must be improved."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is expensive."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is not an expensive solution, and it has a pay-as-you-go pricing model."
"The product is cheap."
"Right now, for the number of servers and the storage that I have, I would say I'm charged between $125 and $150 per month."
"Google Cloud Storage Nearline is very inexpensive. It costs us less than $50 a month to store our files. We use approximately 10 terabytes. Overall, I would rate the product a five out of five for affordability."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Amazon's S3 Glacier or EBS (Elastic Block Store)?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon's S3 Glacier or Elastic Block Store data storage software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Amazon's S3 Glacier, whi...
What needs improvement with Amazon S3 Glacier?
We have not really come across any downsides for us. It is possible that the retrieval of data may be expensive, which could be an issue, but we have not experienced that in fairness. Integration w...
What is your primary use case for Amazon S3 Glacier?
We were using Amazon S3 Glacier, and I have experience with this solution. We had an S3 bucket that we were using about a year ago. We just started using Amazon S3 Glacier, and overall, I have been...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Storage Nearline?
My experience with the licensing and cost of Google Cloud Storage Nearline has been positive.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Storage Nearline?
Documentation is an area for improvement in Google Cloud Storage Nearline. Documentation might cause some issues during deployment in future updates of Google Cloud Storage Nearline. Other than tha...
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Storage Nearline?
I have integrated Google Cloud Storage Nearline with BigQuery for analytics.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Glacier
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

King Cpunty, Illumina, Backupify, Nearmap.com, Scribd, Baylor College of Medicine, SoundCloud
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Google Cloud Storage Nearline and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
918,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.