Amazon S3 Glacier vs Google Cloud Storage Nearline vs Microsoft Azure File Storage comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google are both solutions in the Public Cloud Storage Services category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.9, while Google is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.7. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 13.8% mindshare in PCSS, compared to Google’s 8.2% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Google users who would recommend it.

Amazon S3 Glacier

Read 42 Amazon S3 Glacier reviews

3,096 Views
2,848 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Read 10 Google Cloud Storage Nearline reviews

1,528 Views
1,513 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Read 51 Microsoft Azure File Storage reviews

4,712 Views
2,073 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Amazon S3 Glacier

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon S3 Glacier, Google Cloud Storage Nearline, and Microsoft Azure File Storage based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Microsoft and others in Public Cloud Storage Services.

To learn more, read our detailed Public Cloud Storage Services Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Public Cloud Storage Services

September 2025

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Helped 868,759 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:

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 Glacier is 13.8%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is 8.2%, up from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure File Storage is 9.6%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Public Cloud Storage Services Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Amazon S3 Glacier	13.8%
Microsoft Azure File Storage	9.6%
Google Cloud Storage Nearline	8.2%
Other	68.4%

Public Cloud Storage Services

Featured Reviews

ArunDhwaj

Technical Owner at Harman International

Versatile data storage improves security and supports increasing data volumes

Amazon S3 Glacier offers robust security features and practically infinite storage, where we can store all kinds of media swiftly. It supports various data types, including semi-structured and raw formats. These features facilitate log management and data dumping since the service is versatile enough to handle large volumes of data and provide necessary security.

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Victor Oladejo

Data Engineer at Electronics Collections Group

A reliable solution for long-term data storage with room for improvement regarding its cost efficiency

The suggestion for improvement primarily revolves around cost efficiency. Currently, Google Cloud Storage Nearline charges a minimum of thirty days for data access. I propose a more flexible approach. Instead of a fixed thirty-day minimum charge, there could be a programmatic adjustment based on data access patterns. For instance, if Google Cloud notices that certain data is no longer frequently accessed, they could automatically adjust the billing. When data isn't actively used, the charges for access to that data should decrease. This approach would ensure that users are billed fairly for the actual access they require, especially when data access patterns vary over time.

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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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The deployment process was straightforward."

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

"Amazon S3 Glacier is a very cheap storage, where we store infrequently used data."

"Amazon S3 Glacier can integrate seamlessly with other AWS services."

"Amazon S3 Glacier is an easy-to-use solution."

"The reliability of storage is the main benefit."

"AWS Lambda is the most valuable part of the solution because it gives you a code interface for everything."

"It is a very comprehensive tool."

More Amazon S3 Glacier pros

"The most valuable aspect of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is its integration with the wider Google Cloud ecosystem."

"Nearline is highly stable."

"It can isolate files and stop them from corrupting other files."

"Google is always introducing new features and tends to have a new release every month."

"The most valuable aspect of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is its integration with the wider Google Cloud ecosystem."

"The capacity and space on offer are excellent."

"It provides the necessary support and flexibility to manage data storage effectively, especially during times of variable data flow."

"I find the flexibility in storing documents or data and the ease of retrieval valuable with this solution."

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline pros

"First of all, the solution is very secure. Secondly, the solution is very fast. It is reliable and available all the time."

"The product is a reliable cloud solution."

"My client had zero data loss while using the solution for backups and file security."

"The profile management option is another valuable feature that allows us to manage the profiles and secure them."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure File Storage is the cloud file storage capability."

"It is a good service for file storage."

"It is very easy to use SSTP and some traditional code to move the data into a database because we can easily use the permissions and we don't have any integration or conversion issues."

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

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pros

Cons

"The pricing is a bit expensive. There is room for improvement in costs."

"There is room for improvement in terms of support"

"The learning curve is very high."

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

"Pricing is my concern; this is the only concern so far."

"Amazon S3 Glacier's data retrieval time is slow compared to other AWS storage services and should be improved."

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

"The stability must be improved."

More Amazon S3 Glacier cons

"The solution needs to offer better System Information and Event Management (SEIM). I'd like to discover how we could implement something like that within Google's cloud."

"They need a better, more visual, user interface for folders and files."

"They should provide more options or flexibility in terms of pricing."

"From a storage standpoint, it would be beneficial if the retrieval cost could be optimized, as it is comparatively higher than storage costs in Nearline."

"The UI could be a little bit more effective."

"Nearline security could be better. The solution could integrate better with SEIM tools."

"One area that needs improvement is the documentation, which I find to be disorganized and not user-friendly."

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline cons

"The upload speed has room for improvement."

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

"Based on our use case, I think maybe that cost is actually more. That's the main challenge; when going to Microsoft, that cost tends to be greater."

"I would like to see more updates around File Storage."

"A lot of things could be better, especially when it comes to accessing File Storage for monitoring. Azure Copy is fine, but there could be additional integration and security features for those who want more privacy and control over access to Azure."

"The solution is not user-friendly."

"The tool needs to add more controls and enhance Power BI. For instance, I'm just suggesting the visualization layer. Power BI can increase visualization as much as possible, and the product can add more controls to the data flows."

"The pricing and technical support could be better."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon S3 Glacier is not an expensive solution, and it has a pay-as-you-go pricing model."

"We pay a monthly licensing fee for Amazon S3 Glacier."

"Amazon S3 Glacier is a little expensive solution."

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

"The solution is cost-effective."

"The product is cheap."

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

"I've operated with Amazon S3 Glacier in two modes. Firstly, there's the trial mode, where I experimented with the platform, learned its functionalities, and applied it to my work. Secondly, there's the corporate account mode, where my team handles the operations, and I receive billing reports."

More Amazon S3 Glacier pricing and cost advice

"Right now, for the number of servers and the storage that I have, I would say I'm charged between $125 and $150 per month."

"Google Cloud Storage Nearline is very inexpensive. It costs us less than $50 a month to store our files. We use approximately 10 terabytes. Overall, I would rate the product a five out of five for affordability."

"The product's pricing need improvement."

"The price of Microsoft Azure File Storage is expensive, we do not know exactly how the price is calculated."

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

"For one terabyte of data, we are spending about 150 Euro every month."

"The pricing is usually dependent on your storage requirements. Overall, I believe Microsoft Azure File Storage's price is reasonable."

"One of the major benefits for AWS is that they have a very large customer representative base where clients can be picked from, they offer large discounts and credit. We were not able to receive the same kind of offers from Microsoft Azure File Storage. We tried to approach Azure while hiring for our disaster recovery discussion, but we didn't receive anything from Azure."

"One needs to pay according to the storage they plan to use in the solution. The payments are to be made yearly. It is usually monthly, but we opted for yearly subscriptions in our company."

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

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Financial Services Firm

University

Computer Software Company

17%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	25
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	14

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	2

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	23

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 so...

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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 de...

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What needs improvement with Amazon S3 Glacier?

I am not sure about improvements; so far it has been good for me. The pricing is on the higher side. I have not menti...

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What do you like most about Google Cloud Storage Nearline?

The most valuable feature of Nearline is the access. It's helpful to move data that is generated once a month, such a...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Storage Nearline?

The storage and access cost of Nearline are considered optimal compared to other cloud storage solutions, although I ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Cloud Storage Nearline?

From a storage standpoint, it would be beneficial if the retrieval cost could be optimized, as it is comparatively hi...

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 pe...

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 pricing for Microsoft Azure File Storage is five out of ten, not so expensive and not so low.

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Cloud Storage vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 10% of the time

Wasabi vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Cloud Archive Storage vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 5% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 5% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 5% of the time

More Amazon S3 Glacier Competitors

Amazon S3 vs Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Compared 7% of the time

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline Competitors

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 66% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 11% of the time

Wasabi vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle Cloud Software Appliance vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Azure File Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 Glacier

September 2025

Download Amazon S3 Glacier product report

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

September 2025

Download Google Cloud Storage Nearline product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure File Storage

September 2025

Download Microsoft Azure File Storage product report

Also Known As

Amazon Glacier

No data available

MS Azure File Storage

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.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

A low-cost, highly-durable and highly available storage service for infrequently accessed data, data archiving, online backup and disaster recovery. Data is available instantly, not within hours or days. With sub-second average response times and 1 cent per GB/month pricing, Cloud Storage Nearline gives you terrific performance at a low cost.

Google

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

Microsoft

Sample Customers

King Cpunty, Illumina, Backupify, Nearmap.com, Scribd, Baylor College of Medicine, SoundCloud

Information Not Available

Talon, Camden

Buyer's Guide

Public Cloud Storage Services

September 2025

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