Amazon S3 vs Google Cloud Storage Nearline vs IBM SoftLayer 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 #9 with an average rating of 7.5. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 13.6% mindshare in PCSS, compared to Google’s 8.7% 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

2,849 Views
2,792 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Read 10 Google Cloud Storage Nearline reviews

1,588 Views
1,572 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM SoftLayer

Read 2 IBM SoftLayer reviews

224 Views
125 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon S3

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

IBM SoftLayer

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage Nearline, and IBM SoftLayer 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 868,304 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 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 Google Cloud Storage Nearline is 8.7%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SoftLayer is 0.5%, up from 0.2% 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	13.6%
Google Cloud Storage Nearline	8.7%
IBM SoftLayer	0.5%
Other	77.2%

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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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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reviewer1032702

Global Principal Cloud Architect at NTT DATA

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.

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

"Cloud infrastructure is the most valuable feature."

"The solution is easy to use for anyone with minimal technical knowledge."

"Amazon S3 is very stable, and I have never had any performance issues."

"The best thing about S3 is the security."

"We have cold storage here, and I think that's useful. When it comes to commercialization, it's cheaper to put data that you won't be using into the data storage. You only use a little bit of the data needed each day for your transition, so you pay less."

"The stability is very good."

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

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

More Amazon S3 pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Nearline is highly stable."

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

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline pros

"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

"Amazon S3 could improve by having more frequent updates."

"Amazon S3 could improve by being more secure."

"Sometimes we have to concentrate networks to a certain location, like the EU, for example. Therefore, if we set S3 in the EU region from the Middle East or Africa, the latency is an issue and we find it hard to connect to that S3."

"Amazon S3's unit of measure for expansion should be smaller."

"Amazon S3 could improve the limitation on how much data can be stored."

"You do need to get training on the setup process."

"The solution requires you to buy and use Amazon services."

"The upload speed for data and documents is sometimes slow."

More Amazon S3 cons

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

"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 pricing is quite high."

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

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

"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."

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

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline cons

"For us, the versioning was an issue."

"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For pricing, I would give it a six or seven out of ten."

"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 price is okay."

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

"With S3 Standard, there is not a charge for deletion of objects."

"The cost of Amazon S3 could be better. As the number of data increases, you'll pay more for Amazon S3. It's around $200, which is okay, but my company uses it less often."

"The cost varies based on the type of subscription you chose."

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

More Amazon S3 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."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

No data available

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

No data available

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 manage...

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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 ...

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 a...

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 ...

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

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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 10% of the time

Oracle Cloud Object Storage vs Amazon S3

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Azure Object Storage vs Amazon S3

Compared 4% of the time

More Amazon S3 Competitors

Amazon S3 Glacier vs Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Compared 93% of the time

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline Competitors

Oracle Cloud Software Appliance vs IBM SoftLayer

Compared 54% of the time

Amazon AWS vs IBM SoftLayer

Compared 46% of the time

More IBM SoftLayer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3

September 2025

Download Amazon S3 product report

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

September 2025

Download Google Cloud Storage Nearline product report

Buyer's Guide

Public Cloud Storage Services

September 2025

Download IBM SoftLayer product report

Also Known As

S3, Simple Storage Service

No data available

CloudLayer

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

SoftLayer provides cloud infrastructure as a service from a growing number of data centers and network points of presence around the world. Our customers range from Web startups to global enterprises.

Products and services include bare metal and virtual servers, networking, turnkey big data solutions, private cloud solutions, and more. Our unique advantages include the industry's first Network-Within-a-Network topology for true out-of-band access, and an easy-to-use customer portal and robust API for full remote-access of all product and service management options.

IBM

Sample Customers

Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic

Information Not Available

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

Buyer's Guide

Public Cloud Storage Services

September 2025

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