Amazon S3 vs Google Cloud Storage Nearline comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google 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 Google is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.7. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 14.1% mindshare in PCSS, compared to Google’s 8.2% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Google users who would recommend it.

Amazon S3

Read 83 Amazon S3 reviews

2,775 Views
2,720 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Read 10 Google Cloud Storage Nearline reviews

1,528 Views
1,513 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon S3

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 1, 2024

Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage Nearline offer cloud storage solutions, each with unique strengths. Amazon S3 holds an advantage due to its extensive features and configuration options, although Google Cloud Storage Nearline is noted for its cost-effectiveness and customer support.

Features: Amazon S3 features data replication, lifecycle policies, and integration with AWS services. Google Cloud Storage Nearline offers low-latency access, lower retrieval costs for infrequent data, and seamless integration with Google Cloud services.

Room for Improvement: Amazon S3 could enhance cost predictability, simplify pricing structure, and improve user interface. Google Cloud Storage Nearline can improve documentation, offer more intuitive management tools, and enhance data migration options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon S3 is noted for straightforward deployment and comprehensive customer service, including reliable AWS support. Google Cloud Storage Nearline is also easy to deploy, with responsive support and useful resources.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon S3's setup costs are higher but offer significant long-term ROI due to robust features and reliability. Google Cloud Storage Nearline stands out for lower initial costs and favorable ROI for infrequently accessed data.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon S3 vs. Google Cloud Storage Nearline Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 vs. Google Cloud Storage Nearline

September 2025

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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

Amazon S3

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

2nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 is 14.1%, up from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is 8.2%, up from 7.6% 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	14.1%
Google Cloud Storage Nearline	8.2%
Other	77.7%

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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Victor Oladejo

Data Engineer at Electronics Collections Group

A reliable solution for long-term data storage with room for improvement regarding its cost efficiency

The suggestion for improvement primarily revolves around cost efficiency. Currently, Google Cloud Storage Nearline charges a minimum of thirty days for data access. I propose a more flexible approach. Instead of a fixed thirty-day minimum charge, there could be a programmatic adjustment based on data access patterns. For instance, if Google Cloud notices that certain data is no longer frequently accessed, they could automatically adjust the billing. When data isn't actively used, the charges for access to that data should decrease. This approach would ensure that users are billed fairly for the actual access they require, especially when data access patterns vary over time.

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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 most valuable feature is the storage."

"The most valuable feature of the product is storage classes."

"Overall, I rate Amazon S3 a ten out of ten."

"Amazon S3 is highly stable."

"An important feature of the Amazon S3's system is that it offers encryption while the files are at rest. This is crucial in ensuring the security of the files being restored and addressing potential security risks. That's what I would emphasize."

"The most valuable feature of Amazon S3 for me is static deployment; it doesn't charge much, and I can integrate CloudFront for DNS and routing. It is very useful and affordable."

"Amazon S3 is easy to use and it is beneficial to use the CLI to make the backups. Since I use the CLI I do not have to do it on a web portal which is a big advantage because everything can be automatized. Automation can be done very well in Amazon S3."

"We appreciate that this solution is relatively easy to use, straightforward, and reliable."

More Amazon S3 pros

"Google is always introducing new features and tends to have a new release every month."

"It provides the necessary support and flexibility to manage data storage effectively, especially during times of variable data flow."

"The most valuable aspect of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is its integration with the wider Google Cloud ecosystem."

"The data structure and the types of data that are supported are very good."

"The capacity and space on offer are excellent."

"Nearline is highly stable."

"The most valuable aspect of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is its integration with the wider Google Cloud ecosystem."

"It can isolate files and stop them from corrupting other files."

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline pros

Cons

"They should improve in the area of metadata curation."

"We need the mapping to Windows. That feature is needed in S3. That feature is in the Azure cloud where we can map it like a drive. We can map the cloud storage to the effort driving our Windows PC. But Amazon is not providing that feature for the S3 solution."

"A feature that should be included is to find and provide a HIPPA compliant solution for the Presigned URL."

"The free web and DB hosting could be improved. It could be faster when you download huge files from the S3 bucket to your local system. If the S3 bucket availability and performance could be improved, we would consider hosting our database over there."

"There is a limitation with the data upload size, such as the five terabytes restriction. I would like to see an increase in the data upload limit, similar to DynamoDB, where there is no data limit."

"The pricing for Amazon S3 needs improvement. Another area for improvement is the file size change because it has some limitations that require more time for rendering, especially if you're not merely uploading a file, but reviewing that file, too."

"It would be good if Amazon S3 had an API to get screenshots or video streaming continuously."

"Amazon S3 could improve the load balancers. They are very basic compared to other solutions in the industry, such as F5. It has to be able to be analyzed up to a certain level."

More Amazon S3 cons

"They need a better, more visual, user interface for folders and files."

"The suggestion for improvement primarily revolves around cost efficiency."

"The pricing is quite high."

"Nearline security could be better. The solution could integrate better with SEIM tools."

"The solution needs to offer better System Information and Event Management (SEIM). I'd like to discover how we could implement something like that within Google's cloud."

"One area that needs improvement is the documentation, which I find to be disorganized and not user-friendly."

"The UI could be a little bit more effective."

"They should provide more options or flexibility in terms of pricing."

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Amazon S3 should be reduced."

"The licensing is pay as you go, and I'm happy with the pricing."

"The tool's price is a little bit high, but it is reasonable."

"The price of the Amazon S3 is low. The license model is based on what you use."

"For pricing, I would give it a six or seven out of ten."

"The price of the Amazon S3 is reasonable. There are not any licensing costs, they have a pay-as-you-use model."

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

"I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten. Pricing depends on a particular class where you want save your objects. There are different classes when it comes to storage in S3."

More Amazon S3 pricing and cost advice

"Right now, for the number of servers and the storage that I have, I would say I'm charged between $125 and $150 per month."

"Google Cloud Storage Nearline is very inexpensive. It costs us less than $50 a month to store our files. We use approximately 10 terabytes. Overall, I would rate the product a five out of five for affordability."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	2

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon S3?

We can easily connect to the AWS resources.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 included in Amazon S3. One aspect I would mention is the naming in Amazon S3. If...

See all answers

What do you like most about Google Cloud Storage Nearline?

The most valuable feature of Nearline is the access. It's helpful to move data that is generated once a month, such as salary information, to Nearline.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Storage Nearline?

The storage and access cost of Nearline are considered optimal compared to other cloud storage solutions, although I lack a clear view of other cloud storage costs.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Cloud Storage Nearline?

From a storage standpoint, it would be beneficial if the retrieval cost could be optimized, as it is comparatively higher than storage costs in Nearline.

See all answers

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 9% of the time

Oracle Cloud Object Storage vs Amazon S3

Compared 8% of the time

Wasabi vs Amazon S3

Compared 4% of the time

More Amazon S3 Competitors

Amazon S3 Glacier vs Google Cloud Storage Nearline

Compared 93% of the time

More Google Cloud Storage Nearline Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3

September 2025

Download Amazon S3 product report

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud Storage Nearline

September 2025

Download Google Cloud Storage Nearline product report

Also Known As

S3, Simple Storage Service

No data available

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)

A low-cost, highly-durable and highly available storage service for infrequently accessed data, data archiving, online backup and disaster recovery. Data is available instantly, not within hours or days. With sub-second average response times and 1 cent per GB/month pricing, Cloud Storage Nearline gives you terrific performance at a low cost.

Google

Sample Customers

Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 vs. Google Cloud Storage Nearline

September 2025

Free Report: Amazon S3 vs. Google Cloud Storage Nearline

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