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Amazon S3 vs Azure NetApp Files 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
4.9
Users report positive ROI from Amazon S3 due to cost savings, scalability, data integrity, and advanced analytics benefits.
Sentiment score
7.4
Azure NetApp Files boosts performance, eases deployment, reduces downtime, and optimizes costs, despite higher initial expenses than on-premises.
Moving infrequently accessed data to cheaper classes like Glacier is beneficial for long-term storage at a lower cost.
Amazon S3 has a reasonable price as you pay a flat price to use it.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Amazon S3 support is knowledgeable and helpful, but users desire faster response times; documentation reduces support necessity.
Sentiment score
7.4
Azure NetApp Files receives mixed feedback on support, praised for integration and ease, but some users seek more specialized assistance.
I rate the technical support from Amazon for S3 a ten out of ten.
An engineer is assigned based on the severity of the issue.
The technical support for Amazon S3 is rated ten out of ten.
They have top-notch people.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Amazon S3 is praised for its scalability, flexibility, and security, ideal for enterprise-level applications despite cost considerations.
Sentiment score
7.6
Azure NetApp Files is scalable, flexible, and cost-effective for large setups, but pricing concerns exist for smaller setups.
Data placed in an S3 bucket is replicated across availability zones in a region, ensuring scalability and availability.
The level of scalability allows storage to automatically scale on demand, without the need for manual intervention.
Amazon S3's automatic scaling has benefited me, as I don't need to plan storage requirements.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Amazon S3 is highly stable and reliable with excellent performance, minimal maintenance, and slight security and upload speed concerns.
Sentiment score
8.4
Azure NetApp Files is rated highly for stability due to its reliability and consistency under increased workloads and migrations.
There is zero latency or downtime.
Transitioning between S3 storage classes, like moving data from the standard class to Glacier or Glacier Deep Archive, has been challenging.
Amazon S3 is highly stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Users want a more intuitive Amazon S3 interface, enhanced speed, security features, simplified pricing, and better service integration.
Azure NetApp Files needs improved features, cost efficiency, easier deployment, regional integration, and strengthened security to meet user demands.
An improvement could be associating the naming with personal accounts, allowing more familiar or desired names without conflicting with global conventions.
The practice of protecting data could be more streamlined or mandatory.
I would like to see an increase in the data upload limit, similar to DynamoDB, where there is no data limit.
I would like for them to have more compression so that it can avoid using more storage.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon S3's pay-as-you-go model offers cost-effectiveness, though advanced features may increase expenses compared to competitors.
Azure NetApp Files pricing is premium yet justified by features like management, scalability, and flexible licensing options.
I've used the free tier and haven't been charged yet.
S3 offers multiple classes, allowing you to move data to cheaper classes for cost savings.
It is somewhat justified due to the benefits, but there is room for reconsideration.
It is expensive, especially with NetApp Ultra Storage.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon S3 is favored for its security, scalability, unlimited storage, and integration with AWS, ideal for diverse data needs.
Azure NetApp Files enhances performance, scalability, and management with integrated features for backup, recovery, and seamless Azure integration.
Its stability and scalability are also impressive, as it allows for increased storage space according to demand.
I appreciate its capability to create static websites and integrate with services like CloudFront, EC2, and DynamoDB.
Security measures like encryption, access controls, and the block public access feature are also important.
The most valuable feature is that the sixty-terabyte database snapshot can be done in less than two to three minutes.
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon S3
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Azure NetApp Files
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (8th), Cloud Storage (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 is 13.6%, up from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure NetApp Files is 7.7%, up from 6.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon S313.6%
Azure NetApp Files7.7%
Other78.7%
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

Roberto Costa - PeerSpot reviewer
Have used multiple features effectively and find the pricing reasonable
What I appreciate most about Amazon S3 is the tiering of the objects; with the tiering, we can determine if an object won't be accessed frequently and send it to cold storage or a Glacier storage unit, which greatly lowers AWS costs. The inventory feature, called S3 Inventory, is a cool feature as well. The object access point is another notable feature. Amazon S3 has many useful features; I can simply host my website, which has to be a static web page, but even so, it's beneficial to put my code inside of Amazon S3 as a static website that people worldwide can access. I have worked with many petabytes of data stored in Amazon S3, and I have never had any performance issues, stability issues, or anything similar.
AjayKumar13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast, reliable, and helps meet our SLAs
The most valuable feature is that the sixty-terabyte database snapshot can be done in less than two to three minutes. It is faster. It is quicker. It is reliable. You don't need to take the snapshot. Snapshots are compressed. It doesn't take storage from the back end. It takes three minutes to do sixty terabytes of the database. You don't have to go to the tape and store it outside, which takes hours and hours. It also uses a lot less of the storage. It's very easy to restore or copy the snapshots to other locations for disaster recovery. There are a lot of benefits. In terms of the snapshot's rapid restore capability, we were testing the load of performance testing, and we needed to rebuild the DR site. If I need to rebuild the DR for a standby database, it takes sixty terabytes to copy onto the another site, which will take at least a day. Now, the snapshot is easy. We just copy the snapshots, and then we do the cross-region application. The snapshots came along with that, and that's where we were able to build the DR site within a few hours rather than days. All together, instead of a four-day process, instead of a day.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise38
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon S3?
We can easily connect to the AWS resources.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon S3?
AWS pricing for Amazon S3 starts at a higher cost, particularly in the standard class. However, with lifecycle management policies, costs can be optimized over time. On a scale from one to ten, I w...
What needs improvement with Amazon S3?
Areas of improvement should focus more on the services of Outposts rather than the Amazon S3 portion. AWS should sell Outposts in the Philippines because currently, only a few companies are using i...
How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?
Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...
What do you like most about Azure NetApp Files?
The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring ...
 

Also Known As

S3, Simple Storage Service
NetApp ANF, ANF
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic
SAP, Restaurant Magic
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 vs. Azure NetApp Files and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.