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Amazon S3 vs Azure NetApp Files 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.0
Amazon S3 provides financial benefits through cost-effective, scalable data storage, reducing staffing and overhead costs with its pricing model.
Sentiment score
7.2
Azure NetApp Files improved performance by 30%, reduced costs, increased efficiency, but some users found unclear ROI early on.
Moving infrequently accessed data to cheaper classes like Glacier is beneficial for long-term storage at a lower cost.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Amazon S3's customer service is generally positively reviewed for being responsive and knowledgeable, despite occasional response delays.
Sentiment score
7.3
Azure NetApp Files support is praised for responsiveness, though effectiveness varies, with some users relying on internal teams.
I rate the technical support from Amazon for S3 a ten out of ten.
The technical support for Amazon S3 is rated ten out of ten.
An engineer is assigned based on the severity of the issue.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Amazon S3 offers scalable, cost-effective storage with virtually unlimited capacity per bucket, though bucket limits might restrict some users.
Sentiment score
7.6
Azure NetApp Files is highly rated for scalability, flexibility, automation, and minimal maintenance, with some size and availability concerns.
The level of scalability allows storage to automatically scale on demand, without the need for manual intervention.
Data placed in an S3 bucket is replicated across availability zones in a region, ensuring scalability and availability.
Amazon S3 is easily scalable and performs better compared to other cloud storage solutions.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Amazon S3 offers reliable performance, minimal downtime, and high stability, though security vigilance is advised for data exposure.
Sentiment score
8.4
Users highly rate Azure NetApp Files for its stability and reliability, consistently handling increased loads without issues during migrations.
There is zero latency or downtime.
Transitioning between S3 storage classes, like moving data from the standard class to Glacier or Glacier Deep Archive, has been challenging.
Amazon S3 is highly stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon S3 users seek improved interface, security, file management, integration, faster access, and simplified pricing for better usability.
Azure NetApp Files needs innovation, better versioning, cost optimization, simpler deployment, better support, and enhanced disaster recovery and replication.
The practice of protecting data could be more streamlined or mandatory.
An improvement could be associating the naming with personal accounts, allowing more familiar or desired names without conflicting with global conventions.
I would like to see an increase in the data upload limit, similar to DynamoDB, where there is no data limit.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon S3 offers competitive and flexible pricing but can become costly with high data retrieval and additional services.
Azure NetApp Files offers flexible pricing with pay-as-you-go and subscription models, but may seem expensive for small deployments.
S3 offers multiple classes, allowing you to move data to cheaper classes for cost savings.
I've used the free tier and haven't been charged yet.
It is somewhat justified due to the benefits, but there is room for reconsideration.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon S3 provides scalable, secure, and cost-effective storage with high performance, data management features, and AWS integration.
Azure NetApp Files provides flexible, secure, high-performance storage with fast provisioning, scaling, snapshots, SQL backups, and high availability.
Its stability and scalability are also impressive, as it allows for increased storage space according to demand.
Security measures like encryption, access controls, and the block public access feature are also important.
I appreciate its capability to create static websites and integrate with services like CloudFront, EC2, and DynamoDB.
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon S3
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Azure NetApp Files
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (3rd), Cloud Storage (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 is 11.4%, down from 14.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure NetApp Files is 7.2%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

Vagner Martins - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced data security with seamless integration and static website capabilities
S3 is a great service offering numerous possibilities. It allows for storing objects and files of various types. I appreciate its capability to create static websites and integrate with services like CloudFront, EC2, and DynamoDB. Despite being focused on security, I leverage features such as cryptography and integration with CloudTrail.
We can expand our storage on-the-fly without the need to reprovision
Ease of provisioning: It's very easy to consume the product. We are not doing this manually. We are doing this programmatically, but it's very easy and seamless for us to consume it. It's like any other Azure component. It's very good and well-integrated into the ecosystem of Azure. There is tight integration. We didn't need to learn anything new. It feels like we know everything already, although under the hood, the product is something totally different. However, it seemed very easy for us. It's elastic, so it scales with our demands. We can start small, then with the addition of customer loads, we can expand on-the-fly without the need to reprovision something. The performance is quite good, so it's almost on par with the make of SSD storage. It provides a quick, scalable storage solution. We were looking for a supported solution. We didn't want to experiment. We didn't want to look for open source, though we did look into open source initially before we bumped into NetApp. We figured out that adding yet another unknown into our system was not going to bring us benefit. It would be another problem that we would need to tackle. So, we said, "Okay, let's look for a supported solution," and NetApp was one of them. Then, we turned to NetApp.
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842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
77%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Manufacturing Company
2%
Educational Organization
32%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon S3?
We can easily connect to the AWS resources.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon S3?
S3 is a pay-as-you-go service. I pay based on the data volume I am using.
What needs improvement with Amazon S3?
There is a limitation with the data upload size, such as the five terabytes restriction. I would like to see an increase in the data upload limit, similar to DynamoDB, where there is no data limit.
How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?
Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...
What do you like most about Azure NetApp Files?
The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure NetApp Files?
The solution's competitors like Oracle or Amazon are not cheap either. I think we're paying two million dollars for Azure NetApp Files. On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is exp...
 

Also Known As

S3, Simple Storage Service
NetApp ANF, ANF
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic
SAP, Restaurant Magic
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 vs. Azure NetApp Files and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.