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Amazon S3 Glacier vs Microsoft Azure Block 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
4.0
Organizations benefit from Amazon S3 Glacier with cost savings and high ROI, despite needing better support and cost management.
Sentiment score
2.6
Microsoft Azure Block Storage optimizes expenses with 90% cost reduction, ease of management, and ensures data protection against issues.
If AWS improves support and cost management, there would be fewer reasons for users to consider other cloud platforms.
Technical Owner at Harman International
As it is Amazon S3 Glacier, it is used only for archival purposes, so it is comparatively okay to use it, and we can save money compared to the standard which is high.
Server Administrator at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.4
Amazon S3 Glacier support receives mixed reviews, with some praising assistance and others noting delays and occasional unresponsiveness.
Sentiment score
5.5
Microsoft Azure Block Storage support varies; premium plans offer faster responses, while others face delays and inconsistent service.
Amazon S3 Glacier is a good solution for us, and I am very happy with it.
Project Engineer at Astellas Pharma US
There is room for improvement in providing more skilled and comprehensive solutions.
Technical Owner at Harman International
They provide documentation and resolve issues.
Sr Data Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Support quality is good, but the main issue is the delay in handling tickets.
Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
I had contacted them before and they replied rapidly.
System vice president at a non-tech company with 51-200 employees
Ours is a government enterprise organization, so we have a premium support agreement with Microsoft, and they give us the best support.
Solution Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.1
Amazon S3 Glacier excels in scalability and integration, handling large data volumes effortlessly with high user ratings and reliability.
Sentiment score
5.8
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is scalable, user-friendly, and suitable for all businesses, though scaling can increase costs.
Amazon S3 Glacier auto-scales according to the data.
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
Amazon S3 Glacier is infinitely scalable, with no issues on our end.
Technical Owner at Harman International
Glacier has excellent scalability, with elasticity and security that meet industry standards.
Sr Data Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
The ability to scale is well-supported.
Sr. Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It is a significant advantage of the product.
Senior Consultant at a tech company with 501-1,000 employees
We are on a premium plan, which should handle scalability automatically.
Delivery Manager at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
Amazon S3 Glacier is highly stable, with minimal outages and enhanced performance from AWS tools, ensuring reliable data access.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is highly rated for stability, despite occasional regional downtime and minor improvement suggestions.
It is specifically designed for cold storage.
Technical Owner at Harman International
I do not experience any stability issues.
Server Administrator at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Amazon S3 Glacier is quite stable, nine out of ten.
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
It isn't as stable as sound storage systems in a premise environment.
Information Technology Business Partner and Enterprise Architecture Lead at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
Overall, the stability is very good.
Sr. Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
None of the other storage vendors have all these features so easily manageable and fast to set up as Block Storage.
Senior Solutions Architect at EQ2 Technology
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon S3 Glacier needs improvements in retrieval speed, integration, pricing, support, security, compliance, billing, and storage efficiency.
Microsoft Azure Block Storage users face pricing, interface, and integration challenges, with additional needs for better security and scalability.
I would like to see improvements in the transfer rate as it takes quite a long time to retrieve data from Glacier compared to standard S3 storage.
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
Support could be more robust, with a focus on providing comprehensive solutions even for novel issues.
Technical Owner at Harman International
Another improvement is making Glacier available in all regions.
Sr Data Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Its compatibility with various platforms could be enhanced to allow for a seamless operation across different cloud environments.
Information Technology Business Partner and Enterprise Architecture Lead at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
Some alternatives are cheaper and available for long trial periods before the payment.
Lead DevOps and Release Engineer-L2 at ITWORX
Enabling SFTP on Microsoft Azure Block Storage didn’t allow us to get the IP address, as Azure doesn’t support it.
Delivery Manager at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Amazon S3 Glacier's pricing is affordable but confusing, with no licensing fees and potential long-term costs for large data volumes.
Microsoft Azure Block Storage pricing is generally higher than competitors, but offers discounted rates through enterprise agreements.
Compared to competitors like GCP, AWS can work on reducing hidden costs and overall pricing to retain startups and medium-sized businesses.
Technical Owner at Harman International
The storage cost is minimal, which is beneficial for archival purposes.
Sr Data Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Amazon S3 Glacier is beneficial due to its lower cost.
Sr. Data Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
For medium-sized companies, especially when discussing cost and scalability, it can be quite expensive.
Information Technology Business Partner and Enterprise Architecture Lead at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
The cost for Azure Data Factory, utilized for intensive data migration, was high but expected, as it's a one-time activity.
Delivery Manager at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
It is reasonable, however, it can be cheaper.
Senior Consultant at a tech company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Amazon S3 Glacier provides affordable, secure archiving with easy integration, strong encryption, user-friendly features, and reliable data management.
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is reliable, scalable, secure, and affordable, with excellent data management and integration features.
Glacier greatly helps in managing storage costs by moving historical data to a lower-cost storage option.
Sr Data Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
The security features include object lock encryption and immutability options, so we can use this for backups.
Server Administrator at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
The most valuable features of Amazon S3 Glacier are its cost-effectiveness for data archiving and its durability.
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
The tool allows me to download to my device, control access, and manage data with ease.
Senior Solutions Architect at EQ2 Technology
The world is now directed toward a centralized data platform or Fabric to build a data lake house for data engineering, which keeps all data in a centralized place that's beneficial for the governance layer and unified governance.
System vice president at a non-tech company with 51-200 employees
The ability to increase and scale out is really easy, allowing us to manage a large amount of data with reduced dependency on scalability issues.
Information Technology Business Partner and Enterprise Architecture Lead at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon S3 Glacier
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Block Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 Glacier is 10.9%, down from 17.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is 2.2%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon S3 Glacier10.9%
Microsoft Azure Block Storage2.2%
Other86.9%
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

PF
Project Engineer at Astellas Pharma US
Archiving data has reduced storage costs and provides reliable long‑term retention
We have not really come across any downsides for us. It is possible that the retrieval of data may be expensive, which could be an issue, but we have not experienced that in fairness. Integration with our policies would be beneficial. We have policies for our systems where we delete data after a certain number of years, and having integration with Amazon S3 Glacier would be good. Having a guarantee that Amazon S3 Glacier would persist for the amount of time that we require in our archives would be valuable. In other words, Amazon would need to commit to support for the period we need. We could be talking about 20 years or longer. We cannot always move to the next version because we need to maintain old systems and legacy systems in order to maintain archives. A guarantee around support would be a good thing to have.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
Marketing Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Performing Arts
9%
Non Tech Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Amazon's S3 Glacier or EBS (Elastic Block Store)?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon's S3 Glacier or Elastic Block Store data storage software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Amazon's S3 Glacier, whi...
What do you like most about Amazon S3 Glacier?
I like creating buckets where data can be segregated at a high level and then routing the appropriate data to each designated bucket. In terms of value, I would say that the tool gets the job done ...
What needs improvement with Amazon S3 Glacier?
The support could be improved by having specialized support staff. When we submit a question, it gets passed between multiple people before finding the right expert. We typically see the case being...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
We use the solution to develop SaaS platforms on Azure. We utilize various Microsoft components like block storage and databases for this purpose.
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 ...
 

Also Known As

Amazon Glacier
MS Azure Block Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

King Cpunty, Illumina, Backupify, Nearmap.com, Scribd, Baylor College of Medicine, SoundCloud
Mazda, BlinkBox, Rakuten Showtime, Xbox One, Serko, ChronoDrive
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 Glacier vs. Microsoft Azure Block Storage and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.