Amazon S3 vs Google Cloud Storage Nearline comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google are both solutions in the Public Cloud Storage Services category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8, while Google is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.7. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 14.1% mindshare in PCSS, compared to Google’s 8.2% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Google users who would recommend it.

Amazon S3

Read 83 Amazon S3 reviews

2,775 Views
2,720 Comparison Views

98% 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

Amazon S3

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 1, 2024

Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage Nearline offer cloud storage solutions, each with unique strengths. Amazon S3 holds an advantage due to its extensive features and configuration options, although Google Cloud Storage Nearline is noted for its cost-effectiveness and customer support.

Features: Amazon S3 features data replication, lifecycle policies, and integration with AWS services. Google Cloud Storage Nearline offers low-latency access, lower retrieval costs for infrequent data, and seamless integration with Google Cloud services.

Room for Improvement: Amazon S3 could enhance cost predictability, simplify pricing structure, and improve user interface. Google Cloud Storage Nearline can improve documentation, offer more intuitive management tools, and enhance data migration options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon S3 is noted for straightforward deployment and comprehensive customer service, including reliable AWS support. Google Cloud Storage Nearline is also easy to deploy, with responsive support and useful resources.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon S3's setup costs are higher but offer significant long-term ROI due to robust features and reliability. Google Cloud Storage Nearline stands out for lower initial costs and favorable ROI for infrequently accessed data.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon S3 vs. Google Cloud Storage Nearline Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 vs. Google Cloud Storage Nearline

September 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

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

2nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 is 14.1%, up from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is 8.2%, up from 7.6% 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	14.1%
Google Cloud Storage Nearline	8.2%
Other	77.7%

Public Cloud Storage Services

Featured Reviews

Roberto Costa

Senior Data & AI Engineer at Imprint

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.

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AmitKumar36

Solution Architect at HCL Technologies

Flexible, seamless, and scalable document storage with AI and analytics integration, providing reliable support

The solution is very flexible in terms of scalability. It is an online service, so we can scale it anytime with some pre-planning. I rate the scalability a nine out of ten. As for the users using this solution in our organization, that varies according to what time of the day and what day it is, but it goes around 2,000 to 3,000 users. The maximum is about 3,000. On average, it stays somewhere between 2,000 and 1,800.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's reliable and stable."

"The most valuable features are unlimited storage, scalability, and performance."

"One of the benefits is being a global service, so it can be accessed from anywhere."

"The product's deployment phase is easy."

"The most valuable feature is the storage."

"The most valuable features of Amazon S3 are compatibility and reliability."

"It's good for starting up because you only pay for what you use."

"Easy to use, very intuitive, fast, and quite flexible."

More Amazon S3 pros

"The data structure and the types of data that are supported are very good."

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

"The capacity and space on offer are excellent."

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

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

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

"The best part of Nearline storage is the ability to take backups at optimal costs and its availability across multiple regions."

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

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline pros

Cons

"Amazon S3 could improve some of the features, such as indexing, or we should have more information about all the data stored in a single place. This way we can see what data resides where instead of going in different buckets, file locations manually, or searching. An index would be nice, allowing us to directly go to a location to use the date."

"The cost of the solution should be reduced."

"An encryption mechanism and storage optimization could be added."

"They should improve in the area of metadata curation."

"We would like some improvement in the cost of storage via this solution, as it currently has a very high price point."

"The down side is the web app should be aware of all the features that S3 provides in order to leverage its full potential."

"The support is better than other cloud providers but sometimes it takes a while to have a resolution to our issues."

"I would also like S3 to have the ability to do dynamic websites without the need to do reconfigurations outside of S3. You should be able to switch on dynamic websites in S3, and then it works. I shouldn't need to go elsewhere within Amazon Web Services to get a dynamic website to work."

More Amazon S3 cons

"The pricing is quite high."

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

"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."

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

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

"The suggestion for improvement primarily revolves around cost efficiency."

"The interface for managing file storage in the buckets could be improved."

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's worth the price considering its functionality."

"While storing data in Amazon S3 is relatively inexpensive, there are costs associated with retrieving or transferring data across continents."

"The price of Amazon S3 is competitive with other solutions."

"The licensing is pay as you go, and I'm happy with the pricing."

"I know it is very inexpensive compared to other solutions."

"I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten. Pricing depends on a particular class where you want save your objects. There are different classes when it comes to storage in S3."

"The cost is based on the amount of storage required and if we exceed the data transfer rate across regions."

"The price of Amazon S3 depends on various variables. However, the price overall is fair."

More Amazon S3 pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	38

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon S3?

We can easily connect to the AWS resources.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon S3?

That is a hard question; I cannot think of any improvements right now because all the necessary features are already included in Amazon S3. One aspect I would mention is the naming in Amazon S3. If...

See all answers

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 as salary information, to Nearline.

See all answers

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 lack a clear view of other cloud storage costs.

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 higher than storage costs in Nearline.

See all answers

Comparisons

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs Amazon S3

Compared 15% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Amazon S3

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Azure File Storage vs Amazon S3

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Cloud Object Storage vs Amazon S3

Compared 8% of the time

Wasabi vs Amazon S3

Compared 4% of the time

More Amazon S3 Competitors

Amazon S3 Glacier vs Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Compared 92% of the time

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3

October 2025

Download Amazon S3 product report

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

October 2025

Download Google Cloud Storage Nearline product report

Also Known As

S3, Simple Storage Service

No data available

Overview

Amazon Simple Storage Service is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.

Amazon S3 has a simple web services interface that you can use to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.

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

Sample Customers

Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 vs. Google Cloud Storage Nearline

September 2025

Free Report: Amazon S3 vs. Google Cloud Storage Nearline

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