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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
7.0
Organizations achieved 300% ROI with Amazon S3 Glacier through infrastructure savings, improved efficiency, and resource reallocation, despite support challenges.
Sentiment score
7.5
Organizations achieve 90% cost savings with Azure Block Storage, enhancing security and promising further cost reductions over three years.
If AWS improves support and cost management, there would be fewer reasons for users to consider other cloud platforms.
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.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.5
Amazon S3 Glacier support is mixed: efficient assistance but variable response times, sufficient documentation, and varied support levels impact experiences.
Sentiment score
5.5
Customers find Microsoft Azure Block Storage support responsive but desire faster access to expert help and more consistent assistance.
There is room for improvement in providing more skilled and comprehensive solutions.
They provide documentation and resolve issues.
If it is a business plan, then the support we have is really good.
The response time for enterprise support needs improvement.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
9.2
Amazon S3 Glacier excels in scalability, supporting vast data volumes and seamless integration, meeting diverse enterprise demands globally.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is highly scalable, easily accommodating diverse project sizes with seamless vertical and horizontal scaling support.
Amazon S3 Glacier auto-scales according to the data.
Amazon S3 Glacier is infinitely scalable, with no issues on our end.
Glacier has excellent scalability, with elasticity and security that meet industry standards.
The ability to scale is well-supported.
It is a significant advantage of the product.
We are on a premium plan, which should handle scalability automatically.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Amazon S3 Glacier is praised for reliable performance, excellent SLA, and is ideal for cold storage despite occasional regional issues.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is highly stable and reliable, though some large users experience broader service instability and slow downloads.
It is specifically designed for cold storage.
I do not experience any stability issues.
Amazon S3 Glacier is quite stable, nine out of ten.
It isn't as stable as sound storage systems in a premise environment.
Overall, the stability is very good.
None of the other storage vendors have all these features so easily manageable and fast to set up as Block Storage.
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon S3 Glacier needs improved speed, security, compliance, pricing clarity, user experience, support, cost efficiency, and interface usability.
Microsoft Azure Block Storage encounters issues with cost, support, integration, UI complexity, stability, scalability, security, and performance.
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.
Support could be more robust, with a focus on providing comprehensive solutions even for novel issues.
Another improvement is making Glacier available in all regions.
Its compatibility with various platforms could be enhanced to allow for a seamless operation across different cloud environments.
Some alternatives are cheaper and available for long trial periods before the payment.
Enabling SFTP on Microsoft Azure Block Storage didn’t allow us to get the IP address, as Azure doesn’t support it.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon S3 Glacier provides cost-effective data archiving, though pricing complexity raises concerns despite lower initial costs and operational flexibility.
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is cost-effective with pay-as-you-go pricing, but extra costs for backup and data access occur.
Compared to competitors like GCP, AWS can work on reducing hidden costs and overall pricing to retain startups and medium-sized businesses.
The storage cost is minimal, which is beneficial for archival purposes.
While it's generally cost-effective, the pricing model could be clearer.
For medium-sized companies, especially when discussing cost and scalability, it can be quite expensive.
The cost for Azure Data Factory, utilized for intensive data migration, was high but expected, as it's a one-time activity.
It is reasonable, however, it can be cheaper.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon S3 Glacier offers affordable, secure, and scalable long-term storage, ideal for infrequent data access and efficient cost management.
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is praised for its security, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and seamless integration with strong management and deployment features.
Glacier greatly helps in managing storage costs by moving historical data to a lower-cost storage option.
The security features include object lock encryption and immutability options, so we can use this for backups.
The most valuable features of Amazon S3 Glacier are its cost-effectiveness for data archiving and its durability.
The tool allows me to download to my device, control access, and manage data with ease.
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.
I can store data, use the storage account as a queue, and the pricing is also quite economical.
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon S3 Glacier
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Block Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 Glacier is 16.4%, up from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is 0.9%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

ArunDhwaj - PeerSpot reviewer
Versatile data storage improves security and supports increasing data volumes
Amazon S3 Glacier offers robust security features and practically infinite storage, where we can store all kinds of media swiftly. It supports various data types, including semi-structured and raw formats. These features facilitate log management and data dumping since the service is versatile enough to handle large volumes of data and provide necessary security.
MatsHagberg Olsson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers secure data management with affordable tools and minimal hassle
The most valuable feature is that it's very affordable in comparison to competitors. The absolute best feature is the Azure Storage Explorer tool. The tool allows me to download to my device, control access, and manage data with ease. Additionally, the joint use of Azure portal further facilitates management depending on my location.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 cost of retrieval in Glacier is quite high. It would be excellent if Amazon could work on reducing retrieval costs. Another improvement is making Glacier available in all regions.
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?
We encountered an issue where enabling SFTP on Microsoft Azure Block Storage didn’t allow us to get the IP address, as Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ) doesn’t support it. We had to set ...
 

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: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.