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Amazon S3 Glacier vs IBM SoftLayer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 1, 2024

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
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM SoftLayer
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
22nd
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 Glacier is 16.4%, up from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SoftLayer is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

ArunDhwaj - PeerSpot reviewer
Versatile data storage improves security and supports increasing data volumes
Amazon S3 Glacier offers robust security features and practically infinite storage, where we can store all kinds of media swiftly. It supports various data types, including semi-structured and raw formats. These features facilitate log management and data dumping since the service is versatile enough to handle large volumes of data and provide necessary security.
reviewer1032702 - PeerSpot reviewer
Stable with excellent speed and agility
The most valuable aspect of the solution is simply to have the ability to host in a cloud form and out of the data center - the IBM big iron solution. It's the speed and the agility that really sell SoftLayer. The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer. The ability to extract act from your current location, load into your future location, with limited change, and then be able to take the transfer actions slowly and methodically after you're in your new location is the part that really makes this awesome. The stability and scalability are quite good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The deployment process was straightforward."
"AWS Lambda is the most valuable part of the solution because it gives you a code interface for everything."
"Amazon S3 Glacier offers robust security features and practically infinite storage, where we can store all kinds of media swiftly."
"We get free credits from Amazon, and we like the overall stability. We haven't had to rely heavily on their customer success teams, which is a good sign."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is a very cheap storage, where we store infrequently used data."
"It is the most feature-rich platform."
"Its auto-scaling capabilities allow us to add data continuously without needing to pre-provision storage."
"I find Amazon S3 Glacier valuable for storing various documents like purchase orders, standard documents, and drawings."
"The stability is the solution's most valuable aspect for our organization."
"The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer."
 

Cons

"The user experience must be improved."
"The product takes more time to secure data when the bandwidth is low."
"I believe the usage reporting could be simplified, particularly for billing purposes. Overall, I find Amazon S3 Glacier's reporting system somewhat confusing compared to other hyperscalers in the market."
"Although Amazon S3 Glacier is cheap, its data retrieval cost is very high compared to other solutions."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is a cheaper tool if you're running it on-prem, but it is expensive if deployed on the cloud."
"The solution’s deployment process is complex and could be improved."
"Amazon S3 Glacier could be more secure."
"The solution's cost optimization could be improved."
"For us, the versioning was an issue."
"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Customers prefer Amazon S3 Glacier because it is a cheap and pay-as-you-go solution."
"The pricing must be improved."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"We pay a monthly licensing fee for Amazon S3 Glacier."
"The price point at which the product is available is pretty good."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is very cheap, but the cost becomes a concern when you have a very large amount of data."
"The product is cheap."
"The pricing is average and reasonable. It varies depending on the region."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Educational Organization
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 do you like most about Amazon S3 Glacier?
I like creating buckets where data can be segregated at a high level and then routing the appropriate data to each designated bucket. In terms of value, I would say that the tool gets the job done ...
What needs improvement with Amazon S3 Glacier?
I am not sure about improvements; so far it has been good for me. The pricing is on the higher side. I have not mentioned any features as the product is good. Pricing is my concern; this is the onl...
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Also Known As

Amazon Glacier
CloudLayer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

King Cpunty, Illumina, Backupify, Nearmap.com, Scribd, Baylor College of Medicine, SoundCloud
Whogohost Ltd., Skypicker, Infinity Computers and Communications Company, Grace Co. Ltd., Keyword, Uvionics Tech, Tennis Australia, immixGroup, Salesbox, Cxense ASA, Avnet Inc., Komsomolskaya Pravda, Seekr
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 Glacier vs. IBM SoftLayer and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.