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Amazon S3 Glacier vs IBM SoftLayer 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon S3 Glacier
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM SoftLayer
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
22nd
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 Glacier is 16.4%, up from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SoftLayer is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

ArunDhwaj - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer1032702 - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"The pricing is low, and it's dedicated to archiving is valuable to us."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is scalable, flexible, easy to maintain and handle."
"It is the most feature-rich platform."
"It is a very comprehensive tool."
"The most valuable feature of Glacier is its storage capability and cost benefit."
"Data retrieval, security, compliance, and storage archiving are the most valuable features of Amazon S3 Glacier."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is a very cheap storage, where we store infrequently used data."
"The product automatically replicates objects from a S3 bucket in one region to another bucket in a different region."
"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

"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."
"Their pricing structure is always a big topic. It's so difficult to understand."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"The cost can be lower."
"The product’s pricing must be improved."
"I would like to see the retrieval time reduced."
"The solution's cloud storage is very expensive, and users may not be able to afford cloud storage."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is a cheaper tool if you're running it on-prem, but it is expensive if deployed on the cloud."
"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."
"For us, the versioning was an issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon S3 Glacier is expensive."
"The pricing must be improved."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is much cheaper than competing products."
"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."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"Customers prefer Amazon S3 Glacier because it is a cheap and pay-as-you-go solution."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is not an expensive solution, and it has a pay-as-you-go pricing model."
"Amazon S3 Glacier is a cost-effective solution for archiving."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Amazon's S3 Glacier, whi...
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 designated bucket. In terms of value, I would say that the tool gets the job done ...
What needs improvement with Amazon S3 Glacier?
The cost of retrieval in Glacier is quite high. It would be excellent if Amazon could work on reducing retrieval costs. Another improvement is making Glacier available in all regions.
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Also Known As

Amazon Glacier
CloudLayer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

King Cpunty, Illumina, Backupify, Nearmap.com, Scribd, Baylor College of Medicine, SoundCloud
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 Glacier vs. IBM SoftLayer and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.