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Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Amazon S3 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
3.7
Amazon EFS offers scalable, cost-effective storage with minimal maintenance, enhancing productivity and benefiting businesses through pay-as-you-go pricing.
Sentiment score
4.2
Amazon S3's cost-effectiveness and scalability lead to ROI through cost savings, improved operations, and enhanced data management capabilities.
Moving infrequently accessed data to cheaper classes like Glacier is beneficial for long-term storage at a lower cost.
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
I have seen a return on investment, and the ROI that we observed in our organization includes reducing manpower by 20% and achieving zero downtime for storage expansion, which improves overall productivity.
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Amazon S3 has a reasonable price as you pay a flat price to use it.
Senior Data & AI Engineer at Imprint
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.5
Customers find Amazon EFS support reliable, though resolution times may vary based on the complexity and support plan.
Sentiment score
6.7
Amazon S3's customer service is rated highly for responsiveness and expertise, though some users report delayed response times.
While the time to respond was good, the time to resolve was not optimal, as it took more than a week.
Regional Manager at Aspire Lifestyles
Amazon's support model is consistent across services.
AWS Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Training and support depend on the plan you have, with centralized support being very helpful in case issues arise.
Head of Engineering - Data and Machine Learning at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
I rate the technical support from Amazon for S3 a ten out of ten.
CTO at Atulya Abhinav Tech Private Limited
The customer support for Amazon S3 is very good; they are responsive and knowledgeable, providing quick resolutions, clear documentation, and proactive guidance during migrations or performance tuning.
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
An engineer is assigned based on the severity of the issue.
DevOps Engineer at Olla Systems Limited
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Amazon EFS offers scalable and cost-effective file storage, but users occasionally face challenges with scalability, latency, and connections.
Sentiment score
7.8
Amazon S3 offers efficient storage scalability, auto-scaling features, and unlimited data storage, making it a favored choice despite costs.
Its auto-scaling feature is a crucial point, providing high scalability that I would rate at ten out of ten.
Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group
Elastic File Systems allow me to scale up or down easily.
Data Engineer at Softtech Cloud Technologies
It is very cost-effective, and there's no need for initial charges.
Head of Engineering - Data and Machine Learning at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Data placed in an S3 bucket is replicated across availability zones in a region, ensuring scalability and availability.
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
The level of scalability allows storage to automatically scale on demand, without the need for manual intervention.
AWS Consultant at Virtual University
The scalability of Amazon S3 is excellent as it handles unlimited data and seamlessly supports growth without manual provisioning or performance degradation.
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Amazon EFS is generally stable, with users praising reliability, though some report minor issues mitigated by strong support.
Sentiment score
7.8
Amazon S3 is highly stable and reliable, offering 99.99% availability, supporting seamless business operations with minimal downtime.
Amazon EFS is extremely stable, as it is managed by AWS.
Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group
While I experienced an EFS mount dropping, it was related to server issues rather than EFS itself.
AWS Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
There is zero latency or downtime.
AWS Consultant at Virtual University
Transitioning between S3 storage classes, like moving data from the standard class to Glacier or Glacier Deep Archive, has been challenging.
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Amazon S3 is highly stable.
DevOps Engineer at Olla Systems Limited
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon EFS needs improved connectivity, Windows integration, cost transparency, and one-click setup for enhanced user experience and support.
Amazon S3 users seek improved UI, security, cost efficiency, faster speeds, better integration, and more customization and storage options.
Database-type workloads do not run properly on Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) because at the end of the day, it is a network file system and requests must travel from one place to another and then return.
Sr. Technical Account Manager at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Enabling AI-driven or automatic features would be beneficial for new or nontechnical users.
Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group
In my project, there are challenges related to AWS, such as ensuring proper security measures with IMS code and encryption.
Data Engineer at Softtech Cloud Technologies
An improvement could be associating the naming with personal accounts, allowing more familiar or desired names without conflicting with global conventions.
DevOps Engineer at Stellar Tech
The practice of protecting data could be more streamlined or mandatory.
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
I would like to see an increase in the data upload limit, similar to DynamoDB, where there is no data limit.
AWS Consultant at Virtual University
 

Setup Cost

Amazon EFS charges based on usage with higher costs compared to S3, making it less budget-friendly.
Amazon S3 is scalable and cost-effective, but data transfer fees and licensing can impact overall expenses for enterprises.
EFS could cost around $30 to $50 per month for similar usage.
Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group
Amazon EFS is more costly compared to other storage options available from AWS.
AWS Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Elastic File Systems can be expensive due to the nature of data transfer costs.
Data Engineer at Softtech Cloud Technologies
I've used the free tier and haven't been charged yet.
DevOps Engineer at Stellar Tech
S3 offers multiple classes, allowing you to move data to cheaper classes for cost savings.
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Since using Amazon S3, storage costs have reduced by around 35% to 40% through lifecycle tiering.
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Amazon EFS provides scalable, secure, and flexible storage with fast data access, auto-scaling, and seamless AWS integration for dynamic workloads.
Amazon S3 is praised for scalability, security, ease of use, AWS integration, and comprehensive data management features.
Its ease of integration with other AWS services enhances our infrastructure, while the shared storage access improves reliability and processing continuity for our applications.
AWS Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
They help me process data while maintaining low latency, which is crucial for efficient data processing.
Data Engineer at Softtech Cloud Technologies
The most valuable feature of Amazon EFS is its auto-scaling capability.
Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group
Its stability and scalability are also impressive, as it allows for increased storage space according to demand.
DevOps Engineer at Stellar Tech
I appreciate its capability to create static websites and integrate with services like CloudFront, EC2, and DynamoDB.
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Security measures like encryption, access controls, and the block public access feature are also important.
AWS Consultant at Virtual University
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EFS (Elastic File Sy...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (11th), File and Object Storage (14th)
Amazon S3
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Public Cloud Storage Services (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Cloud Services solutions, they serve different purposes. Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is designed for Cloud Storage and holds a mindshare of 3.2%, down 6.3% compared to last year.
Amazon S3, on the other hand, focuses on Public Cloud Storage Services, holds 15.8% mindshare, up 12.5% since last year.
Cloud Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)3.2%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise7.1%
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP5.0%
Other84.7%
Cloud Storage
Public Cloud Storage Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon S315.8%
Amazon S3 Glacier10.3%
Google Cloud Storage Nearline6.9%
Other67.0%
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Q&A Highlights

Jitendra Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Lead, Global Database Services at Johnson & Johnson
Mar 31, 2022
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2784675 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Technical Account Manager at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Serverless file storage has simplified multi-tenant Linux workloads and supports effortless growth
When I started working with Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), I faced a few issues. One issue was around the number of IOPS limitation. Initially, the number of IOPS that could be performed on the Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) file system was quite low. Later on, it has been increased, and now I believe it is at a level where only very specific workloads might not perform optimally, but otherwise everything should work smoothly. By the time I was there, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) was supporting NFS version 4.1, not 4.2. Currently, it is supported up to NFS 4.1. A notable limitation of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is that it does not support Windows. If your workload is running on a Linux operating system and you do not want to manage it or even understand NFS at all, you should still be able to use it fairly quickly. There are scenarios where Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) might not work effectively. For example, database-type workloads do not run properly on Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) because at the end of the day, it is a network file system and requests must travel from one place to another and then return. This process takes time, so if you are running a database-type workload, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) might not be the right approach, and you would need to look elsewhere.
reviewer2774889 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Has reduced storage costs and improved data management through automated lifecycle and seamless service integration
The best features that Amazon S3 offers are high durability and availability with virtually unlimited storage, lifecycle management for automated tiering and cost control, versioning to retain and recover data changes, and integration with services such as Glue, Athena, EMR, Lambda, along with strong security via IAM roles, bucket policies, and encryption. These features help by ensuring data is always available, securely stored, and easily accessible for pipelines. Lifecycle policies reduce manual cleanup, versioning safeguards against accidental deletions, and integrations allow us to directly run analytics or trigger workflows without moving data around. Amazon S3 event notifications help automate tasks such as triggering ETL jobs or Lambda functions on new data arrivals, and features such as cross-region replication ensure data redundancy and compliance, while fine-grained access control makes it easy to manage permissions across teams securely. My organization has seen improvements in data accessibility, reduced infrastructure costs, and simplified data management through Amazon S3. We now have a unified scalable storage layer that supports analytics, backups, and migrations seamlessly, leading to faster workflows and better decision-making.
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Answers from the Community

Jitendra Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Lead, Global Database Services at Johnson & Johnson
Mar 31, 2022
Mar 31, 2022
Hi @Vipin Garg, @Oscar Mejia ​, @Shaban AL-Ahmad ​, @Nibrask Alambilat Kaniyat , @Marcelo Lucas and @Krishna Rao , Do you possibly have any answers to assist @Jitendra Patel ​with this question?​
See 2 answers
AC
IT Consultant at Woohoogeeks
Mar 22, 2022
It depends on the storage capacity you are looking for and expected data growth. You would need to ascertain these numbers before looking at backup volumes, and potential costs.
EB
Director of Community at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)
Mar 31, 2022
Hi @Vipin Garg, @Oscar Mejia ​, @Shaban AL-Ahmad ​, @Nibrask Alambilat Kaniyat , @Marcelo Lucas  and @Krishna Rao , Do you possibly have any answers to assist @Jitendra Patel ​with this question?​
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise39
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?
We don't need to purchase it; we are just using it and paying Amazon as per the utilization. We make direct payments to Amazon based on our usage.
What needs improvement with Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?
When I started working with Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), I faced a few issues. One issue was around the number of IOPS limitation. Initially, the number of IOPS that could be performed on the ...
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
S3, Simple Storage Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend
Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic
Find out what your peers are saying about Dropbox, CTERA, Google and others in Cloud Storage. Updated: August 2026.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.