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 8.2. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 17.6% mindshare in PCSS, compared to Microsoft’s 12.5% 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 38 Amazon S3 Glacier reviews

4,566 Views
3,909 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Read 47 Microsoft Azure File Storage reviews

3,748 Views
3,103 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Amazon S3 Glacier

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

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

Download the complete report

Helped 831,158 peers since 2012

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 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 File Storage is 12.5%, down from 13.0% 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.

Read full review

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…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main advantage of Glacier is its low cost. It is incredibly cheaper than other storage options, especially for objects you don't access frequently. Glacier would add value if you have a staging area for objects you only need to access occasionally. Since we have data in terabytes between S3 buckets, we can significantly reduce our storage and cost footprint by using Glacier."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"The solution is secure."

"We use the solution for migration."

"The product is easy to use."

"It is the most feature-rich platform."

"The solution is great for storing data you don't usually need access to. It's also well-integrated with Amazon S3."

"We like that the price is cheaper."

More Amazon S3 Glacier pros

"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."

"It was easy to set up."

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

"The product can integrate with all platforms. My team also does data visualization, and Power BI can directly connect with those nodes. We can very conveniently connect with multiple tools for our database. The benefit here is that by utilizing the same storage application, my application is linked with their application through the same server. This setup provides real analytics and data for a holistic purpose, which is advantageous."

"It was quick to synchronize back from Azure to the on-premise server."

"The immutable storage features are valuable."

"The most valuable aspect of Azure File Storage is that all the features are available in one place."

"The solution is easy to use."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pros

Cons

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

"The cost can be lower."

"The technical support has room for improvement."

"I would like to see the retrieval time reduced."

"The product takes more time to secure data when the bandwidth is low."

"The product is difficult to use."

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

"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."

More Amazon S3 Glacier cons

"It’s a challenge to find the right support person."

"Considering the enterprise licensing required for the solution, the cost of the solution is an area where the product needs improvement."

"Some chunking logics need to be better to address issues with processing bigger files. It should allow better methods for handling large files."

"Microsoft Azure File Storage is not that easy to use."

"Sometimes it takes very long to refresh the information."

"It's not very intuitive."

"It would be helpful if we could remove data that we don't frequently access to reduce the cost of the storage."

"The solution is not user-friendly."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon S3 Glacier is expensive."

"There is no license, you pay for what you use."

"The product is very cheap."

"Amazon S3 Glacier has good pricing."

"Amazon S3 Glacier is a cost-effective solution for archiving."

"Amazon S3 Glacier is much cheaper than competing products."

"The solution is cost-effective."

"Amazon S3 Glacier is a little expensive solution."

More Amazon S3 Glacier pricing and cost advice

"We pay for both yearly and monthly licenses. The yearly one is cheaper than the monthly one."

"Microsoft Azure File Storage is expensive."

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

"The pricing could be more flexible."

"The price of the solution is reasonable. The pricing model is based on usage."

"The solution is a bit pricey compared to AWS and Google."

"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."

"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being the most expensive. It's not cheap."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Public Cloud Storage Services solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

35%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

University

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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 52% 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 6% 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 16% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 7% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Azure File Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 Glacier

January 2025

Download Amazon S3 Glacier product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure File Storage

January 2025

Download Microsoft Azure File Storage product report

Also Known As

Amazon Glacier

MS Azure File Storage

Learn More

Video not available

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Microsoft

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.

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

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

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage report.

See our list of best Public Cloud Storage Services vendors.

We monitor all Public Cloud Storage Services reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.