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Amazon S3 vs Microsoft Azure File Storage 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
3.3
Microsoft Azure File Storage offers easy global file sharing and cost savings, though ROI impact varies for medium businesses.
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
5.8
Microsoft Azure File Storage customer service varies in response time, with premium contracts offering better efficiency and support.
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.
The perspective documentation is good.
Microsoft technical support is very prompt.
As and when we require, they are able to provide solutions or guide us toward solutions.
 

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
6.1
Microsoft Azure File Storage offers exceptional scalability, accommodating diverse business needs with automatic scaling for substantial user bases.
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
6.0
Microsoft Azure File Storage is highly rated for stability and reliability, with minor connectivity issues and minimal disruptions.
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.
I rate the stability of Microsoft Azure File Storage as a seven out of ten.
We sometimes encounter glitches with bigger files, but everything else works as expected.
 

Room For Improvement

Users want a more intuitive Amazon S3 interface, enhanced speed, security features, simplified pricing, and better service integration.
Microsoft Azure File Storage needs cost transparency, better support, performance, security, usability, and improved integration and management features.
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.
Some chunking logics need to be better to address issues with processing bigger files.
There is a limitation on the storage capacity, like four terabytes.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon S3's pay-as-you-go model offers cost-effectiveness, though advanced features may increase expenses compared to competitors.
Microsoft Azure File Storage pricing is moderate, flexible, and usage-based, but transparency and competitiveness could be improved.
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.
I would rate it three or three and a half out of ten on the pricing scale.
The pricing for Microsoft Azure File Storage is five out of ten, not so expensive and not so low.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon S3 is favored for its security, scalability, unlimited storage, and integration with AWS, ideal for diverse data needs.
Microsoft Azure File Storage provides scalable, secure cloud storage with seamless Azure integration, supporting multiple file formats and Active Directory.
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.
It is satisfying our requirements with encryption and security features in place.
File storage is complemented by OCR with Azure Cognitive Service.
In Microsoft Azure File Storage, the S3 bucket is the most helpful feature for my use.
 

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
Microsoft Azure File Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 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
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon S313.6%
Microsoft Azure File Storage9.9%
Other76.5%
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.
PrashanthR - PeerSpot reviewer
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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
5%
 

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 Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise22
 

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...
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 petabytes and deliver consistent low latencies and high levels of throughput. This...
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.
 

Also Known As

S3, Simple Storage Service
MS Azure File Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic
Talon, Camden
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.