Amazon S3 Glacier vs Microsoft Azure File Storage comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the Public Cloud Storage Services category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.0, while Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.2. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 16.8% mindshare in PCSS, compared to Microsoft’s 10.0% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Amazon S3 Glacier

Read 40 Amazon S3 Glacier reviews

3,591 Views
3,040 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Read 48 Microsoft Azure File Storage reviews

2,796 Views
1,579 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Amazon S3 Glacier

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 1, 2024

Amazon S3 Glacier and Microsoft Azure File Storage compete in the cloud storage category. Microsoft Azure File Storage has the upper hand in features, which justifies its pricing.

Features: Amazon S3 Glacier is known for long-term storage, durability, and cost-effectiveness for large-scale archival needs. Microsoft Azure File Storage is recognized for seamless integration with existing systems, improved performance in accessing files, and managed file shares in the cloud.

Room for Improvement: Amazon S3 Glacier should enhance retrieval times, optimize user interface, and provide better support for large datasets. Microsoft Azure File Storage could improve synchronization capabilities, expand cross-platform functionality, and offer more comprehensive training resources.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon S3 Glacier offers straightforward deployment but has mixed customer support reviews. Microsoft Azure File Storage integrates seamlessly within the Azure ecosystem, alongside receiving positive feedback for responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon S3 Glacier is cost-effective for large-scale archival needs with satisfactory ROI. Microsoft Azure File Storage features competitive pricing with potentially higher ROI due to its robust features and service quality.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage

June 2025

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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

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 Glacier is 16.8%, up from 15.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure File Storage is 10.0%, down from 13.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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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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 solution is secure."

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

"The most valuable feature of Glacier is its storage capability and cost benefit."

"Amazon S3 Glacier is a highly scalable and available solution."

"We save money with the product."

"Data retrieval, security, compliance, and storage archiving are the most valuable features of Amazon S3 Glacier."

"The solution is stable."

"Amazon S3 Glacier offers robust security features and practically infinite storage, where we can store all kinds of media swiftly."

More Amazon S3 Glacier pros

"Very user-friendly and intuitive."

"It helps us with geo-redundancy."

"The product can integrate with all platforms. My team also does data visualization, and Power BI can directly connect with those nodes. We can very conveniently connect with multiple tools for our database. The benefit here is that by utilizing the same storage application, my application is linked with their application through the same server. This setup provides real analytics and data for a holistic purpose, which is advantageous."

"Integration with the entire Azure platform."

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

"General user familiarity with Office 365 products make adopting this solution easy to adopt in production."

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

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

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pros

Cons

"Amazon S3 Glacier is a cheaper tool if you're running it on-prem, but it is expensive if deployed on the cloud."

"Their pricing structure is always a big topic. It's so difficult to understand."

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

"They can improve data discovery."

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

"The solution’s deployment process is complex and could be improved."

"However, improvement is needed in pricing and support systems."

"The cost of retrieval in Glacier is quite high."

More Amazon S3 Glacier cons

"It should allow better methods for handling large files."

"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 upload speed has room for improvement."

"It would be good if they added some features that make the solution easier to access for everyone."

"Licensing costs are expensive."

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

"Microsoft Azure File Storage should improve its pricing."

"There is room for improvement in helping customers understand and integrate Azure File Storage into their operations."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 pricing must be improved."

"The product is very cheap."

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

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

"The tool is too expensive."

"Amazon S3 Glacier has a good pricing point, and you pay for what's being used."

"Customers prefer Amazon S3 Glacier because it is a cheap and pay-as-you-go solution."

More Amazon S3 Glacier pricing and cost advice

"The licensing cost for Microsoft Azure File Storage comes with an agreement from Microsoft."

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

"The product's pricing need improvement."

"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."

"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."

"We have Microsoft Azure File Storage's enterprise license."

"There are fewer hidden costs involved compared to other solutions, and when our customer is already a Microsoft partner, they typically have access to more affordable fees."

"Microsoft Azure File Storage is expensive."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pricing and cost advice

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856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

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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 designated bucket. In terms of value, I would say that the tool gets the job done ...

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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.

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 petabytes and deliver consistent low latencies and high levels of throughput. This...

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 Nearline vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 56% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 12% of the time

Wasabi vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Cloud Archive Storage vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 5% of the time

More Amazon S3 Glacier Competitors

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

Compared 46% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 21% of the time

Wasabi vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 7% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Azure File Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 Glacier

June 2025

Download Amazon S3 Glacier product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure File Storage

May 2025

Download Microsoft Azure File Storage product report

Also Known As

Amazon Glacier

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)

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

Talon, Camden

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage

June 2025

Free Report: Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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