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Amazon S3 Glacier vs Google Cloud Storage Nearline comparison

 

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
8th
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 June 2026, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 Glacier is 9.9%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is 6.1%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon S3 Glacier9.9%
Google Cloud Storage Nearline6.1%
Other84.0%
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

"The cost is high, which I think is one of the best features of the product."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is a highly scalable and available solution."
"It is the most feature-rich platform."
"The product is easy to use."
"The value of Amazon S3 Glacier for us is the lower cost. We put files there and tend not to touch them afterward."
"The data archive feature is valuable."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is a highly stable solution."
"Hopefully this helps to fill in some gaps giving more information addressing questions, along with generating new ones to prepare for your journey with clouds."
"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."
"The most valuable aspect of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is its integration with the wider Google Cloud ecosystem."
"There are no issues with the integration of Google Cloud Storage Nearline with other Google services."
"Google is always introducing new features and tends to have a new release every month."
"It can isolate files and stop them from corrupting other files."
"We didn't face any downtime last year using the solution."
"The most valuable aspect of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is its integration with the wider Google Cloud ecosystem."
"The best part of Nearline storage is the ability to take backups at optimal costs and its availability across multiple regions."
 

Cons

"They should increase the data limit for the free version or reduce the price."
"Amazon S3 Glacier's data retrieval time is slow compared to other AWS storage services and should be improved."
"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."
"They can improve data discovery."
"A couple of times, we faced outage issues that caused us problems."
"Amazon S3 Glacier could be more secure."
"However, improvement is needed in pricing and support systems."
"Although Amazon S3 Glacier is cheap, its data retrieval cost is very high compared to other solutions."
"They should provide more options or flexibility in terms of pricing."
"The pricing could be improved. It's completely non-competitive at this time."
"Nearline security could be better. The solution could integrate better with SEIM tools."
"The UI could be a little bit more effective."
"Documentation is an area for improvement in Google Cloud Storage Nearline."
"They need a better, more visual, user interface for folders and files."
"The solution needs to offer better System Information and Event Management (SEIM)."
"The interface for managing file storage in the buckets could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is too expensive."
"Customers prefer Amazon S3 Glacier because it is a cheap and pay-as-you-go solution."
"We don't pay for licenses. We pay based on consumption data, considering how much data is stored."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is much cheaper than competing products."
"There is no license, you pay for what you use."
"Amazon S3 Glacier has good pricing."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is not an expensive solution, and it has a pay-as-you-go pricing model."
"Amazon S3 Glacier has a good pricing point, and you pay for what's being used."
"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
8%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
University
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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: April 2026.
896,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.