No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Amazon S3 vs IBM SoftLayer comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM SoftLayer
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
19th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 is 14.0%, up from 13.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SoftLayer is 2.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon S314.0%
IBM SoftLayer2.0%
Other84.0%
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

Donny Trijatmiko - PeerSpot reviewer
Dev Ops Engineer at MyRobin.ID
Effective storage management has supported reliable file archiving and secure data access
I have found Amazon S3 very useful and it has helped me considerably. I appreciate that Amazon S3 can provide a state lock when using Terraform, and it is widely used for storing objects. I assess Amazon S3's encryption options positively, as I always enable encryption. It is beneficial because it provides default encryption from server-side encryption at the bucket level. In my data management strategy using Amazon S3, I store data that I can return to an earlier state by using versioning on the bucket. For my company, the impact of Amazon S3's availability and durability statistics is very good because, to my knowledge, it experiences fewer outages.
reviewer1032702 - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Principal Cloud Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Stable with excellent speed and agility
The most valuable aspect of the solution is simply to have the ability to host in a cloud form and out of the data center - the IBM big iron solution. It's the speed and the agility that really sell SoftLayer. The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer. The ability to extract act from your current location, load into your future location, with limited change, and then be able to take the transfer actions slowly and methodically after you're in your new location is the part that really makes this awesome. The stability and scalability are quite good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Speed, size, and security are the most valuable features."
"The most valuable features are VNet, virtual machines, and Elastic Kubernetes Service."
"The most valuable feature is the sharing capabilities."
"It's reliable and stable."
"We've had no issues with stability."
"I rate the technical support from Amazon for S3 a ten out of ten."
"The best thing about S3 is the security."
"The support from Amazon S3 has been knowledgable and responsive."
"The solution is highly stable."
"The ability to extract from your current location, load into your future location with limited change, and then be able to take the transfer actions slowly and methodically after you're in your new location is the part that really makes this awesome."
"The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer."
"The stability is the solution's most valuable aspect for our organization."
 

Cons

"There could be more flexibility in configuration to allow more ways to connect to outside the PPC."
"Amazon S3 could improve the load balancers. They are very basic compared to other solutions in the industry, such as F5. It has to be able to be analyzed up to a certain level."
"There are some scalability limitations."
"The down side is the web app should be aware of all the features that S3 provides in order to leverage its full potential."
"It would be good if Amazon S3 had an API to get screenshots or video streaming continuously."
"Amazon S3 could improve by having more frequent updates."
"There is a five terabyte limitation size, and in today's world with the data size doubling all the time, anything extra would be helpful."
"We would like some improvement in the cost of storage via this solution, as it currently has a very high price point."
"For us, the versioning was an issue."
"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost varies based on the type of subscription you chose."
"The price of Amazon S3 depends on various variables. However, the price overall is fair."
"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is reasonably priced."
"The cost of Amazon S3 is good. The pricing model is based on the usage of the solution."
"The tool is not too expensive considering the various pros."
"The pricing can be improved."
"I have seen the pricing on AWS, but I believe it's a discount price for organizations."
"The cost is based on the amount of storage required and if we exceed the data transfer rate across regions."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Public Cloud Storage Services solutions are best for your needs.
921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise39
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon S3?
Since using Amazon S3, storage costs have reduced by around 35% to 40% through lifecycle tiering, data availability improved to 99.9% which minimizes downtime, ETL processing time decreased by appr...
What needs improvement with Amazon S3?
I would appreciate Amazon expanding the available documentation to keep it as modern and up-to-date as possible.
What is your primary use case for Amazon S3?
I use Amazon S3 for storing images, uploading files like PDFs or PNGs, and other documents and images. I use Amazon S3's lifecycle management features for changing storage classes when the data nee...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

S3, Simple Storage Service
CloudLayer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic
Whogohost Ltd., Skypicker, Infinity Computers and Communications Company, Grace Co. Ltd., Keyword, Uvionics Tech, Tennis Australia, immixGroup, Salesbox, Cxense ASA, Avnet Inc., Komsomolskaya Pravda, Seekr
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 vs. IBM SoftLayer and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.