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Amazon S3 Glacier pros and cons

Vendor: Amazon Web Services (AWS)

4.3 out of 5

42 reviews
91% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Amazon S3 Glacier offers cost-effectiveness and stability, making it ideal for data archiving with strong security and seamless AWS integration for versatility. Its scalability supports growing storage needs. However, retrieval times are slower, the pricing is complex, and technical support is lacking. Issues with GDPR compliance and occasional outages impact reliability. Despite these drawbacks, Amazon S3 Glacier remains a robust choice for secure data archiving, though improvements are needed in support and compliance.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Amazon S3 Glacier is praised for its low cost and is significantly cheaper than other storage options for infrequently accessed data.

The service integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, adding value to organizations using multiple AWS solutions.

Its stability and scalability are highly rated, with users noting it as reliable with excellent storage management capabilities.

Amazon S3 Glacier provides robust security features and is ideal for secure data archiving and storage management.

The platform is noted for its straightforward deployment process and ease of use, making it accessible even with minimal AWS certification.

CONS

Response times for data retrieval from Amazon S3 Glacier could be faster, currently taking between four to seven hours.

The pricing of Amazon S3 Glacier is considered to be high, especially for data retrieval.

Amazon S3 Glacier's technical support has room for improvement and response times have slowed.

Data discovery and cloud security enhancements are needed for Amazon S3 Glacier.

GDPR compliance, especially concerning data protection and retention, needs improvement in Amazon S3 Glacier.

Amazon S3 Glacier Pros review quotes

SA

Shaban AL-Ahmad

CEO at ITSAGILITY DMCC

Mar 5, 2021

I like the price. If you compare Glacier to others, the prices in terms of what you store beyond retention are much lower.

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Solution architect at a integrator with 51-200 employees

Jul 7, 2021

We like that the price is cheaper.

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JoshuaEfienokwu

Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 12, 2022

The data archive feature is valuable.

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Amazon S3 Glacier

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GI

Gabriel Inya-Agha

Chief Executive Officer at Quickening Group

Apr 7, 2023

The solution is stable.

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AP

Owner at Rischio Compliance

May 4, 2023

The tool is simple to use and not very expensive.

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DevOps Engineer

Jun 1, 2023

We use the solution for migration.

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LC

Senior Engineer at Pilot Travel Centers Llc

Jun 9, 2023

We save money with the product.

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Senior Solutions Architect and Cloud Security Consultant at Cgi Deutschland KG

Aug 14, 2023

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.

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Mbaye Babacar Gueye

Owner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Sep 1, 2023

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

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Data Analyst and Developer at Bridge Labs

Sep 29, 2023

The product automatically replicates objects from a S3 bucket in one region to another bucket in a different region.

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Amazon S3 Glacier Cons review quotes

SA

Shaban AL-Ahmad

CEO at ITSAGILITY DMCC

Mar 5, 2021

The response times could be faster. When you are with Amazon and use Glacier, you expect a response time between four to seven hours to retrieve the data.

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Solution architect at a integrator with 51-200 employees

Jul 7, 2021

I would like to see the retrieval time reduced.

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JoshuaEfienokwu

Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 12, 2022

They can improve data discovery.

Read full review

Amazon S3 Glacier

Free Report: Amazon S3 Glacier Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Amazon S3 Glacier. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.

879,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.

GI

Gabriel Inya-Agha

Chief Executive Officer at Quickening Group

Apr 7, 2023

The technical support has room for improvement.

Read full review

AP

Owner at Rischio Compliance

May 4, 2023

The product needs to improve cloud security.

Read full review

DevOps Engineer

Jun 1, 2023

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

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LC

Senior Engineer at Pilot Travel Centers Llc

Jun 9, 2023

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

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Senior Solutions Architect and Cloud Security Consultant at Cgi Deutschland KG

Aug 14, 2023

Technical support needs improvement. Previously, even though we had premium and enterprise support, the response time would be quicker if we ran into issues, but now it is slowed down. The analytical dashboard feature, like the CloudOps dashboard, should be included in the next release of the Amazon S3 Glacier.

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Mbaye Babacar Gueye

Owner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Sep 1, 2023

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.

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Data Analyst and Developer at Bridge Labs

Sep 29, 2023

They should increase the data limit for the free version or reduce the price.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 38)

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