Amazon S3 Glacier vs Microsoft Azure File Storage comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the Public Cloud Storage Services category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.7, while Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 17.4% mindshare in PCSS, compared to Microsoft’s 12.0% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Amazon S3 Glacier

Read 39 Amazon S3 Glacier reviews

4,392 Views
3,736 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Read 47 Microsoft Azure File Storage reviews

3,607 Views
2,952 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Amazon S3 Glacier

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 1, 2024

Amazon S3 Glacier and Microsoft Azure File Storage compete in the cloud storage category. Microsoft Azure File Storage has the upper hand in features, which justifies its pricing.

Features: Amazon S3 Glacier is known for long-term storage, durability, and cost-effectiveness for large-scale archival needs. Microsoft Azure File Storage is recognized for seamless integration with existing systems, improved performance in accessing files, and managed file shares in the cloud.

Room for Improvement: Amazon S3 Glacier should enhance retrieval times, optimize user interface, and provide better support for large datasets. Microsoft Azure File Storage could improve synchronization capabilities, expand cross-platform functionality, and offer more comprehensive training resources.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon S3 Glacier offers straightforward deployment but has mixed customer support reviews. Microsoft Azure File Storage integrates seamlessly within the Azure ecosystem, alongside receiving positive feedback for responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon S3 Glacier is cost-effective for large-scale archival needs with satisfactory ROI. Microsoft Azure File Storage features competitive pricing with potentially higher ROI due to its robust features and service quality.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage

January 2025

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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

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 Glacier is 17.4%, up from 15.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure File Storage is 12.0%, down from 12.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Public Cloud Storage Services

Featured Reviews

Deepak Nagar

Manager, Strategic Alliances at Softcell Technologies Limited

A scalable, flexible, and user-friendly solution that is easy to maintain and handle

The solution's initial setup is straightforward and not complex. In the initial legacy, we used to put our servers in our data centers, look for storage, and give a path to that storage. In Amazon S3 Glacier, you can directly put your credentials for the portal login and upload your data.

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PrashanthR

Lead Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The reliability of storage is the main benefit."

"The data archive feature is valuable."

"We save money with the product."

"The biggest advantage of the product is that AWS always copies the tool internally."

"AWS does support the ability for user controlled movement of data between regions for business continuance (BC), high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR)."

"The pricing is low, and it's dedicated to archiving is valuable to us."

"I find Amazon S3 Glacier valuable for storing various documents like purchase orders, standard documents, and drawings."

"Amazon S3 Glacier is a very cheap storage, where we store infrequently used data."

More Amazon S3 Glacier pros

"The most significant aspect of Microsoft Azure File Storage is its life cycle functionality, which enables us to transfer files to various storage options, such as hot storage, full storage, and archive. This feature is crucial since we can apply a life cycle method to files that have not been in use for an extended period, and then move them to a cheaper cold storage option to save costs. Since the newest files are stored in the hot storage, it met our specific requirements. Consequently, older files can be transferred to archive and cold storage."

"File storage is complemented by OCR with Azure Cognitive Service."

"Implementing Microsoft Azure has meant that we are using the same solution as our customers who use Azure Public Cloud. This allows us to integrate our application, as well as provide the solution to them."

"File storage is complemented by OCR with Azure Cognitive Service."

"The best part is the accessibility to all the files."

"The interface is very good."

"The solution is easy to use."

"The immutable storage features are valuable."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pros

Cons

"The pricing is a bit expensive. There is room for improvement in costs."

"The product’s pricing must be improved."

"I am unsure if the product provides good integration capabilities. From an improvement perspective, I want the tool to provide easier integration features."

"The solution’s deployment process is complex and could be improved."

"The learning curve is very high."

"Amazon S3 Glacier's data retrieval time is slow compared to other AWS storage services and should be improved."

"Billing issues can be a nightmare. It's tough reaching the right person to get them sorted out."

"A couple of times, we faced outage issues that caused us problems."

More Amazon S3 Glacier cons

"There is room for improvement in helping customers understand and integrate Azure File Storage into their operations."

"The pricing could be improved. They need to make the costs more transparent so users know what they will be charged and why ahead of time."

"They should make the solution more user-friendly."

"Microsoft Azure File Storage should improve its pricing."

"It should allow better methods for handling large files."

"They can improve the ability to assign permissions to different groups or users."

"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."

"The solution should support all the legacy storage systems."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price point at which the product is available is pretty good."

"The pricing must be improved."

"The product is very cheap."

"The solution is cost-effective."

"Amazon S3 Glacier is very cheap, but the cost becomes a concern when you have a very large amount of data."

"Amazon S3 Glacier has a good pricing point, and you pay for what's being used."

"Amazon S3 Glacier is expensive."

"Amazon S3 Glacier is a little expensive solution."

More Amazon S3 Glacier pricing and cost advice

"The product must improve its price."

"We have Microsoft Azure File Storage's enterprise license."

"I think the pricing of the product can be reduced."

"The pricing could be more flexible."

"I give the pricing of the solution a seven out of ten."

"There are fewer hidden costs involved compared to other solutions, and when our customer is already a Microsoft partner, they typically have access to more affordable fees."

"One of the major benefits for AWS is that they have a very large customer representative base where clients can be picked from, they offer large discounts and credit. We were not able to receive the same kind of offers from Microsoft Azure File Storage. We tried to approach Azure while hiring for our disaster recovery discussion, but we didn't receive anything from Azure."

"The licensing cost for Microsoft Azure File Storage comes with an agreement from Microsoft."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pricing and cost advice

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838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

34%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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...

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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 ...

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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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure File Storage?

The product is a reliable cloud solution.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Cloud Storage Nearline vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 54% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 15% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 8% of the time

Wasabi vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Cloud Archive Storage vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 5% of the time

More Amazon S3 Glacier Competitors

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 47% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 18% of the time

Wasabi vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 15% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 7% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Azure File Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 Glacier

February 2025

Download Amazon S3 Glacier product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure File Storage

February 2025

Download Microsoft Azure File Storage product report

Also Known As

Amazon Glacier

MS Azure File Storage

Overview

Amazon Glacier is a secure, durable, and extremely low-cost cloud storage service for data archiving and long-term backup. Customers can reliably store large or small amounts of data for as little as $0.007 per gigabyte per month, a significant savings compared to on-premises solutions. To keep costs low, Amazon Glacier is optimized for infrequently accessed data where a retrieval time of several hours is suitable.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Fully managed file shares that use the standard SMB 3.0 protocol

Key scenarios:

Share data across on-premises and cloud servers
Migrate file share-based applications to the cloud with no code changes
Integrate modern applications with File storage
Simplify hosting for high availability workload data

Microsoft

Sample Customers

King Cpunty, Illumina, Backupify, Nearmap.com, Scribd, Baylor College of Medicine, SoundCloud

Talon, Camden

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage

January 2025

Free Report: Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage

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