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Amazon S3 Glacier vs Microsoft Azure File 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
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure File Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 Glacier is 17.7%, up from 15.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure File Storage is 10.8%, down from 13.3% 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.
PrashanthR - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamlessly streamlines document processing with advanced file storage and OCR integration
We need to store data over there. We process documents through Kofax Time is a major benefit, as well as ease of processing. With configuration, it happens quite easily, and we can finish tasks early. File storage is complemented by OCR with Azure Cognitive Service. This enhances the processing…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I find Amazon S3 Glacier valuable for storing various documents like purchase orders, standard documents, and drawings."
"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."
"I like the price. If you compare Glacier to others, the prices in terms of what you store beyond retention are much lower."
"The pricing is low, and it's dedicated to archiving is valuable to us."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is a stable and scalable solution."
"Data retrieval, security, compliance, and storage archiving are the most valuable features of Amazon S3 Glacier."
"Its auto-scaling capabilities allow us to add data continuously without needing to pre-provision storage."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is an easy-to-use solution."
"My client had zero data loss while using the solution for backups and file security."
"Very user-friendly and intuitive."
"Its most valuable features are speed and security."
"Its simplicity of use is most valuable. It's easy to start working with it and understand it. It's easier to transfer files between different users. I'm able to move files from my device to my manager's device without any issues or without facing any problems in between."
"I recommend Microsoft Azure File Storage for medium and above-sized companies."
"The solution is easy to use."
"It is very easy to use SSTP and some traditional code to move the data into a database because we can easily use the permissions and we don't have any integration or conversion issues."
"It's a scalable solution."
 

Cons

"The product takes more time to secure data when the bandwidth is low."
"However, improvement is needed in pricing and support systems."
"They can improve data discovery."
"Amazon S3 Glacier could be more secure."
"The tool could be made cheaper."
"The solution's pricing is too expensive and could be improved."
"There is room for improvement in handling GDPR compliance better. GDPR is about personal data protection and retention. It would be great if S3 Glacier could handle compliance items related to this, especially with upcoming legislation like the California law, which restricts data storage time and allows users to request data deletion."
"Although Amazon S3 Glacier is cheap, its data retrieval cost is very high compared to other solutions."
"The solution should support all the legacy storage systems."
"The provider needs to collect more information about the products."
"The product name keeps changing. It can be confusing when product names change frequently, especially with Microsoft. Sometimes, if you refer to a product by a certain name last year, it might have a different name six months later."
"Licensing costs are expensive."
"Maybe Microsoft can make it more economical because it is a costly affair."
"There is room for improvement in helping customers understand and integrate Azure File Storage into their operations."
"The initial setup is complex. Unless you have done it a few times it, it is going to be hard."
"One thing that Azure File Storage could help us with is some kind of impact assessment. When we talk to some of our larger customers who have between 500 and 1,000 applications, we normally do an assessment of all these applications and then tell them which ones are ready to be lifted and shifted, and which ones need to re-architected. It would really help if Azure File Storage could come up with a better way to give estimations of the total investment required, including all costs incurred during the migration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon S3 Glacier is a cost-effective solution for archiving."
"Amazon S3 Glacier has a good pricing point, and you pay for what's being used."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is very cheap, but the cost becomes a concern when you have a very large amount of data."
"The product is very cheap."
"The tool is too expensive."
"Amazon S3 Glacier has good pricing."
"The price point at which the product is available is pretty good."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is not an expensive solution, and it has a pay-as-you-go pricing model."
"The product must improve its price."
"The licensing cost for Microsoft Azure File Storage comes with an agreement from Microsoft."
"I think the pricing of the product can be reduced."
"The pricing is usually dependent on your storage requirements. Overall, I believe Microsoft Azure File Storage's price is reasonable."
"The product's pricing need improvement."
"We have Microsoft Azure File Storage's enterprise license."
"For one terabyte of data, we are spending about 150 Euro every month."
"One needs to pay according to the storage they plan to use in the solution. The payments are to be made yearly. It is usually monthly, but we opted for yearly subscriptions in our company."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
33%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
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?
The cost of retrieval in Glacier is quite high. It would be excellent if Amazon could work on reducing retrieval costs. Another improvement is making Glacier available in all regions.
Which file storage system is better - Amazon EFS (elastic file storage) or Azure File Storage?
Amazon EFS is easy to set up: you can use the AWS management console, API, or command-line. Amazon EFS can grow to petabytes and deliver consistent low latencies and high levels of throughput. This...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure File Storage?
The price is almost the same as the competition. I would rate it three or three and a half out of ten on the pricing scale.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Glacier
MS Azure File Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

King Cpunty, Illumina, Backupify, Nearmap.com, Scribd, Baylor College of Medicine, SoundCloud
Talon, Camden
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.