Amazon S3 vs Google Cloud Storage Nearline vs Microsoft Azure File Storage 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

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Read 50 Microsoft Azure File Storage reviews

4,985 Views
2,243 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Amazon S3

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage Nearline, and Microsoft Azure File Storage 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: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Public Cloud Storage Services

August 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 867,349 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 Microsoft Azure File Storage is 9.9%, down from 13.4% 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%
Microsoft Azure File Storage	9.9%
Google Cloud Storage Nearline	8.7%
Other	67.8%

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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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

"I've also used Azure's tool, and S3 is far more stable I haven't seen the same issues on AWS that I'm having on Azure. Amazon CloudFront is way faster. The websites are loading way faster than when you do it on Azure CDN."

"Amazon S3 is a stable solution."

"The solution auto-scales so it is easily scalable."

"Amazon S3 has multiple types of data detection. You can store data on a monthly basis, yearly basis, and long term basis."

"S3 is well suited for both big and little data repositories of objects ranging from backup to archive to active video images and much more."

"We appreciate that this solution is relatively easy to use, straightforward, and reliable."

"The most valuable feature is the automated replication of the data."

"Enables content sharing by multiple users."

More Amazon S3 pros

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

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

"Nearline is highly stable."

"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."

"Google is always introducing new features and tends to have a new release every month."

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

"The capacity and space on offer are excellent."

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

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline pros

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

"The most valuable aspect of Azure File Storage is that all the features are available in one place."

"File storage is complemented by OCR with Azure Cognitive Service."

"The initial setup is very seamless."

"We have not explored the desktop performance analysis of the file storage, but the user interface, API, and the response that we receive over the file storage are very good. We have a lot of customers that connect to the client-side, click the images, and upload them. The beauty of the solution is that we can mount the file storage into a critical server as well as an external drive. The speed that we receive with the images is pretty good."

"It was quick to synchronize back from Azure to the on-premise server."

"Integration with the entire Azure platform."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pros

Cons

"Sometimes, there is latency in getting data, especially if the file size is large. This could be improved."

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

"I would like there to be more support without needing to use Transfer Family."

"The solution's pricing should be modified to automatically expand storage based on prior usage."

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

"It could maybe use more integration."

"I encountered some issues with the data lifecycle. Transitioning between S3 storage classes, like moving data from the standard class to Glacier or Glacier Deep Archive, has been challenging."

"The pricing and licensing are pretty complex."

More Amazon S3 cons

"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."

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

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

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

"The pricing is quite high."

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline cons

"Based on our use case, I think maybe that cost is actually more. That's the main challenge; when going to Microsoft, that cost tends to be greater."

"Importing and exporting data needs to have a bit more documentation."

"Microsoft Azure File Storage needs more integrations. In the future, I also want to see GRC added to the portal. If you enroll or sign up for Azure services, your country may not have GRC available in the portal, so you may have to choose a strange country, for example, Kenya, to activate credit."

"Licensing costs are expensive."

"Firewall rules should be introduced to secure the access date from any virus attacks. Anti-virus should be introduced in the work filtering and document filtering."

"The security could always be modernized."

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

"Microsoft Azure File Storage is not that easy to use."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Not many products in the market beat the solution in terms of quality or price."

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

"The cost of Amazon S3 is good. The pricing model is based on the usage of the solution."

"I use the tool's free tier. I believe that there is a need to make annual payments towards the licensing charges associated with the product."

"One can manage the price of the tool. The tool is worth the money if we want to store the data in Amazon S3."

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

"The solution is very inexpensive at 50 cents per gigabyte, per month."

"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is reasonably priced."

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."

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

"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."

"For one terabyte of data, we are spending about 150 Euro every month."

"The price is comparable to other competitive solutions."

"I give the pricing of the solution a seven out of ten."

"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."

"Microsoft Azure File Storage has a reasonable price."

"We pay for both yearly and monthly licenses. The yearly one is cheaper than the monthly one."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

University

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

University

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	22

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...

See all answers

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...

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

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 pe...

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

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs Amazon S3

Compared 15% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Amazon S3

Compared 13% of the time

Oracle Cloud Object Storage vs Amazon S3

Compared 10% of the time

Rackspace Cloud Files vs Amazon S3

Compared 7% 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 93% of the time

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline Competitors

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

Compared 61% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 13% of the time

Wasabi vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon S3 Glacier vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle Cloud Software Appliance vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Azure File Storage 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

Microsoft Azure File Storage

August 2025

Download Microsoft Azure File Storage product report

Also Known As

S3, Simple Storage Service

No data available

MS Azure File Storage

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

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

Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic

Information Not Available

Talon, Camden

Buyer's Guide

Public Cloud Storage Services

August 2025

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Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Microsoft and others in Public Cloud Storage Services. Updated: August 2025.

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