Amazon S3 vs IBM SoftLayer vs Microsoft Azure Object Storage comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and IBM 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 IBM is ranked #23. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 13.6% mindshare in PCSS, compared to IBM’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Amazon S3

Read 83 Amazon S3 reviews

2,849 Views
2,792 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

IBM SoftLayer

Read 2 IBM SoftLayer reviews

224 Views
125 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure Object Storage

Read 54 Microsoft Azure Object Storage reviews

564 Views
558 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Amazon S3

IBM SoftLayer

Microsoft Azure Object Storage

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon S3, IBM SoftLayer, and Microsoft Azure Object 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: 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 IBM SoftLayer is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Object Storage is 2.2%, up from 1.8% 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 Object Storage	2.2%
IBM SoftLayer	0.5%
Other	83.7%

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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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.

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Akram Zabat

Consultant - Architecture Solution at Onepoint

Provides versatile data storage solutions with a simple setup and easy to use

It's similar to S3 for AWS. The ability to store everything inside Blob or Object storage and use it for archiving data is beneficial. For example, you can transform data from relational databases, flatten it, and store it in Object storage to save space within the databases. If I want to save data and do not require legacy access, it's a good solution, for instance, to migrate archives from databases to Object storage. This can also be used for business intelligence purposes. Having a storage solution for data makes it the best place to store it. Azure has its own solution for StatsQ Web Apps.

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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 stability is very good."

"Great for storing all types of data."

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

"Amazon S3 is scalable and available."

"The most useful features of Amazon S3 are the intelligent multipart upload."

"Feature-wise, Amazon S3 is the cheapest and it's reliable."

"It's reliable and stable."

"The most valuable feature is the sharing capabilities."

More Amazon S3 pros

"The stability is the solution's most valuable aspect for our organization."

"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 store everything inside Blob or Object storage and use it for archiving data is beneficial."

"The key feature for us is the possibility to have a copy of our data and machines outside of our premises just in case of a disaster."

"The benefits of using Microsoft Azure Object Storage include being able to keep all unstructured data in the storage, allowing users to access it from anywhere by configuring the storage explorer in their system, based on the policies we apply during the implementation."

"The most valuable feature of Azure Object Storage for us is its simplicity and reliability as a storage solution."

"For security solutions in Microsoft Azure, I particularly appreciate Microsoft Azure AI foundation."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Object Storage is that it is on the cloud."

"We can do data queries easily."

"Technical support is excellent."

More Microsoft Azure Object Storage pros

Cons

"The search option must be enabled in the UI to filter and retrieve files."

"The naming conventions require unique global names, which can be cumbersome."

"One thing would be automatic replication between buckets, some feature like that."

"I would like a batch downloading option added to the AWS console."

"There are some scalability limitations."

"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."

"Enhancements in security features might be beneficial."

"I would like to see an easier setup that doesn't require as much training."

More Amazon S3 cons

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

"For us, the versioning was an issue."

"The setup process could always be a bit easier."

"If we look at the different versions of that ADLS, it really does not have a hierarchical storage mechanism."

"I would like to have out-of-the-box connectors to make integration with other products easier."

"I think if the tool puts features that only exist in the easy copying area through Azure Storage Explorer, so introducing such features in Microsoft Azure Object Storage can make it more user-friendly."

"The solution can be quite slow."

"The password retrieval process was very difficult."

"Since the solution is messy and heavy, it needs to be faster in terms of speed and latency."

"The tool should be a little bit cheaper."

More Microsoft Azure Object Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution has reasonable pricing and a low cost."

"The pricing can be improved."

"I have seen the pricing on AWS, but I believe it's a discount price for organizations."

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

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

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

"The pricing for Amazon S3 is reasonable, so price-wise, it's a seven out of ten."

"Amazon S3 is a cost-effective solution compared to the others."

More Amazon S3 pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"Object Storage is competitively priced."

"It has a pay-as-you-go model. So, you are only paying for what you store. It's an attractive model. You don't pay for a set; you pay for what you actually use."

"The tool's licensing costs are annual. It should be made reasonable."

"You can download the application from Microsoft free of charge."

"Object Storage is cost-effective, and our license fees are about $200 per month."

"Currently, it is a flexible price policy."

"I think we pay per bit as per usage. There is a billing pattern for the subscription, and we get a monthly bill. I've seen that happen over there. I haven't seen any fixed costs. It always depends on what we're using and how much the servers are running. The breakdown appears on the bill."

"We have a separate package and pay extra for additional technical support."

More Microsoft Azure Object Storage pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	22
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	19

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon S3?

We can easily connect to the AWS resources.

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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 ...

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What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Object Storage?

The layout of Microsoft is professional.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Object Storage?

The licensing cost of Microsoft Azure Object Storage is cheaper compared to other competitors, such as Google or thir...

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What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Object Storage?

The improvement needed for Microsoft Azure Object Storage is to reduce the transactional charges, as these read and w...

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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

Zadara vs Amazon S3

Compared 4% of the time

More Amazon S3 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

Oracle Cloud Object Storage vs Microsoft Azure Object Storage

Compared 45% of the time

Amazon S3 Glacier vs Microsoft Azure Object Storage

Compared 21% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Object Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3

September 2025

Download Amazon S3 product report

Buyer's Guide

Public Cloud Storage Services

September 2025

Download IBM SoftLayer product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Object Storage

September 2025

Download Microsoft Azure Object Storage product report

Also Known As

S3, Simple Storage Service

CloudLayer

Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, Azure Object Storage, MS Azure Object 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)

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

REST-based object storage for unstructured data in the cloud

Store infrequently accessed data in a low-cost cool storage tier
Store frequently accessed application data in a hot storage tier
Stream video, audio, and other media to web, mobile, or desktop applications
Power big data analytics
Access your data more securely, both over the wire and at rest

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic

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

Umbraco, Xbox, Radioshack, 343 Industries, McKesson

Buyer's Guide

Public Cloud Storage Services

September 2025

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