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Amazon S3 Glacier vs Microsoft Azure Block Storage 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
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Block Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 Glacier is 17.6%, up from 15.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is 0.9%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

Alan Bloor - PeerSpot reviewer
A powerful hosting service with an extensive code interface
Their pricing structure is always a big topic. It's so difficult to understand. I had a personal account once, and I was so scared to type in my credit card because I wasn't sure how much I would be charged. At home, I might turn on the VM to test something, and I might be on there for three minutes wondering how much it could cost. The solution might tell you there are so many hours of free usage and a free VM, but it's still scary because you don't know how much it will cost, even if you go over one second. The price structure needs massive simplifying and made crystal clear so people know what they're paying.
MatsHagberg Olsson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers secure data management with affordable tools and minimal hassle
The most valuable feature is that it's very affordable in comparison to competitors. The absolute best feature is the Azure Storage Explorer tool. The tool allows me to download to my device, control access, and manage data with ease. Additionally, the joint use of Azure portal further facilitates management depending on my location.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product automatically replicates objects from a S3 bucket in one region to another bucket in a different region."
"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."
"AWS Lambda is the most valuable part of the solution because it gives you a code interface for everything."
"The deployment process was straightforward."
"I like the price. If you compare Glacier to others, the prices in terms of what you store beyond retention are much lower."
"We like that the price is cheaper."
"The solution’s storage management is good and dynamic. The product is highly stable. The solution is highly scalable. The customer service and support is good. The initial setup is straightforward. I recommend the solution."
"It is a very comprehensive tool."
"We use the solution to develop SaaS platforms on Azure. We utilize various Microsoft components like block storage and databases for this purpose."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is the security and the management of user access from on-premise to the cloud."
"The solution's most valuable feature revolves around the security-wise functionalities of the tool our company gets from using SAS keys."
"The data lake is invaluable. We also use Microsoft SQL in terms of structuring the data and getting into a position where it could be useful to support reporting. We Databricks for data science. We incorporated Databricks with that as well."
"It can be deployed independently and supports every kind of deployment."
"I am quite happy with it. I would definitely recommend Azure Block Storage to other users."
"I like the product’s versioning and file share features. The file share feature is most useful when we are connecting on-premises services. Azure file share helps to migrate small data amounts from on-premises to the cloud."
"Storing and then retrieving data are the most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Block Storage."
 

Cons

"I would like to see the retrieval time reduced."
"They can improve data discovery."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is a cheaper tool if you're running it on-prem, but it is expensive if deployed on the cloud."
"A couple of times, we faced outage issues that caused us problems."
"Although Amazon S3 Glacier is cheap, its data retrieval cost is very high compared to other solutions."
"I would like to see improvements in the transfer rate as it takes quite a long time to retrieve data from Glacier compared to standard S3 storage."
"The solution's cost optimization could be improved."
"The product needs to improve cloud security."
"There needs to be an improvement in overcoming certain limitations, such as adaptability to non-cloud environments."
"The scalability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Licensing costs are pretty high."
"One thing that needs improvement is authentication. They need to improve the integrated Azure Active Directory for the enterprise level. For single sign-on, we can try any authentication or portal for Block Azure Function AKS. For example, if you're an administrator or user contributor, you will generate a token, then your internal middleware connects to any Azure Cloud service. You need to generate different credentials for each service. We cannot use the same token."
"The product is not as stable as we would like it to be."
"Maybe considerations on security regulations and hardware vendor information might be useful."
"The initial setup isn’t straightforward, whether on-premise or on the cloud. It involves considerable planning and dependencies, unlike conventional systems where a straightforward CIFS connection might suffice."
"I find the user interface of newer versions, particularly, the flows, not user-friendly. The UI of Azure’s initial version was very comfortable. I didn’t have to remember floor menus. I knew where I had to go to see the logs or grab configuration parameters."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon S3 Glacier is not an expensive solution, and it has a pay-as-you-go pricing model."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is much cheaper than competing products."
"There is no license, you pay for what you use."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is a little expensive solution."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is a cost-effective solution for archiving."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"I've operated with Amazon S3 Glacier in two modes. Firstly, there's the trial mode, where I experimented with the platform, learned its functionalities, and applied it to my work. Secondly, there's the corporate account mode, where my team handles the operations, and I receive billing reports."
"Amazon S3 Glacier has a good pricing point, and you pay for what's being used."
"Microsoft Azure Block Storage is an expensive solution and I pay monthly."
"Microsoft Azure Block Storage is not an expensive tool. I'm subscribed to the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors program, so Microsoft gives me between $120 to $150 credit each month."
"The solution requires an input-output operations fee as well as pay per gigabyte of storage."
"We pay around $300 to $400 a month for some scenarios where consumption is limited. However, going forward, we're seeing the likelihood of the cost coming to around $2,000 as consumption rises."
"In terms of pricing, Azure is quite cheaper than AWS. However, I have recently read that Oracle Cloud Generation 2 storage is quite cheaper than Azure. I haven't used it yet. We need to look at a customer's requirements, and, based on that, we can suggest the storage. You can save at least 20% with Azure as compared to AWS, which is quite costly."
"The cost is very low. The cost is something like $0.01 to $0.50 per gig. It's pay per use. We have a yearly license."
"The price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage could be less expensive."
"The storage part costs us $223. That's on a monthly basis for 20TB of data storage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
34%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
6%
University
5%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 would like to see improvements in the transfer rate as it takes quite a long time to retrieve data from Glacier compared to standard S3 storage. Additionally, improvements in configuration manage...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
We use the solution to develop SaaS platforms on Azure. We utilize various Microsoft components like block storage and databases for this purpose.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
Microsoft Azure Block Storage needs to improve its migration and reporting processes.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Glacier
MS Azure Block Storage
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

King Cpunty, Illumina, Backupify, Nearmap.com, Scribd, Baylor College of Medicine, SoundCloud
Mazda, BlinkBox, Rakuten Showtime, Xbox One, Serko, ChronoDrive
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure Block Storage and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
830,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.