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IBM SoftLayer vs Microsoft Azure Block Storage comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM SoftLayer
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Block Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of IBM SoftLayer is 1.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is 2.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure Block Storage2.8%
IBM SoftLayer1.9%
Other95.3%
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1032702 - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Principal Cloud Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
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.
Ajai Jayakumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Has supported secure file sharing and data automation with minimal setup effort
The encryption feature in Microsoft Azure Block Storage is very good, and the security is excellent. It is easy to map the storage to the virtual servers and user desktops, which is also very beneficial. I can perform automations on the data, such as moving hot data and cold data, and I can select storage based on performance. The security provided by Microsoft around Microsoft Azure Block Storage is a very good function. The replication feature in Microsoft Azure Block Storage is a very good function. The analytic capabilities of Microsoft Azure Block Storage can help optimize resources. I usually work with a third-party tool; our data analytics team uses some custom-made tools for analytics data and dashboards, so we do not use the Microsoft dashboard; we are using a third-party dashboard. It is very easy to manage Microsoft Azure Block Storage. If you have good knowledge of it, it is very easy to manage. Microsoft Azure Block Storage service is a very good, 100% reliable service. It is highly scalable, and performance-wise and reliability-wise, it does not go down. It provides 99.9% uptime without downtime, so it is a very good feature. The backup and restoration efficiency of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is good.

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 the solution's most valuable aspect for our organization."
"The solution is highly stable."
"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 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 cost is very low."
"The tool is most valuable for scenarios involving logs and monitoring. For example, logs are generated when using services like Front Door."
"The tier feature in V2 is the most valuable feature of this solution. It enables you to move your storage from hot tier to cold tier into archive tier."
"Microsoft is currently updating a few features, such as object sizes and tiering, which were not available previously."
"Basically, there are a lot of features that are provided and we have a lot of options."
"We can use Azure Block Storage for some of our bigger files."
"The most helpful features of Microsoft Azure Block Storage are the many use cases. Additionally, it can be locked down well and has two-factor authentication."
"Azure Block Storage is scalable and is widely used for Kubernetes for memory profiles."
 

Cons

"For us, the versioning was an issue."
"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."
"They could create more readability of files."
"I find the user interface of newer versions, particularly, the flows, not user-friendly. The UI of Azure’s initial version was very comfortable. I didn’t have to remember floor menus. I knew where I had to go to see the logs or grab configuration parameters."
"We encountered an issue where enabling SFTP on Microsoft Azure Block Storage didn’t allow us to get the IP address, as Azure doesn’t support it."
"The cost of the solution has room for improvement. Microsoft Azure Block Storage is priced higher than alternative solutions."
"The support response time could be quicker."
"Some alternatives are cheaper and available for long trial periods before the payment."
"Uploading of data could be improved. Currently, the only way you can upload your data is by using their storage explorer."
"I have used Amazon's solutions which are better than Microsoft's. However, since I have predominately Microsoft solutions it is a better choice for me to use another Microsoft solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing for Microsoft Azure Block Storage is high because of MSA and SBA contracts, where Microsoft takes care of the security aspects, apart from the maintenance, and Microsoft has service level agreements with the customers."
"The solution requires an input-output operations fee as well as pay per gigabyte of storage."
"The price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is less expensive than other solutions on the market, such as Cloud Storage from GCP."
"The price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is expensive. They should provide a more efficient cost."
"For the first 50DB, they cost around $50. It's an open solution for everybody. Anybody can go to the Microsoft website and they can get the pricing for it. But the first 50GB of data is a default rate and then it increases for the next 500GB or something like that. It is a pay as you go solution. The more you use, the more you pay. That's normally how you pay for any cloud solutions."
"The solution is pay as you go, so it depends on the amount of data that is stored and the transactions."
"I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"The solution is affordable, and we only pay for what we use."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Construction Company
14%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
Our experience with pricing has been positive. The budget for Microsoft Azure services has been within expectations for the last couple of months. The cost for Azure Data Factory ( /products/azure-...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
For improvement in Microsoft Azure Block Storage, they can provide tiered level storages, maybe low-cost storages for storing archive data, but it is already there. I do not think there is much to ...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
I am using Microsoft Azure Block Storage for file sharing, automation accounts, data storage, and archiving, and those are the main use cases.
 

Also Known As

CloudLayer
MS Azure Block Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Mazda, BlinkBox, Rakuten Showtime, Xbox One, Serko, ChronoDrive
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SoftLayer vs. Microsoft Azure Block Storage and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,351 professionals have used our research since 2012.