Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Amazon S3 vs IBM SoftLayer 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon S3
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM SoftLayer
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
22nd
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 is 12.4%, up from 12.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SoftLayer is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

Vagner Martins - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced data security with seamless integration and static website capabilities
S3 is a great service offering numerous possibilities. It allows for storing objects and files of various types. I appreciate its capability to create static websites and integrate with services like CloudFront, EC2, and DynamoDB. Despite being focused on security, I leverage features such as cryptography and integration with CloudTrail.
reviewer1032702 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Amazon S3 is reliable."
"Amazon S3 is very flexible and provides high storage."
"The most effective features of Amazon S3 are its robust storage capabilities wherein you can combine it with different solutions, using it as a repository for analytics, whether for video analytics or data analytics, allowing for dynamic adjustment of storage automatically without any requisition or long process."
"It's reliable and stable."
"I rate the technical support from Amazon for S3 a ten out of ten."
"I used Amazon AWS/S3 solution to prove my concept before deploying it on real hardware. It was a great experience and was really scalable."
"The most valuable features are VNet, virtual machines, and Elastic Kubernetes Service."
"S3 is well suited for both big and little data repositories of objects ranging from backup to archive to active video images and much more."
"The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer."
"The stability is the solution's most valuable aspect for our organization."
 

Cons

"If a certain resource is left unchecked, you can easily use a lot of it and drive up costs."
"We would like some improvement in the cost of storage via this solution, as it currently has a very high price point."
"Amazon S3 could improve some of the features, such as indexing, or we should have more information about all the data stored in a single place. This way we can see what data resides where instead of going in different buckets, file locations manually, or searching. An index would be nice, allowing us to directly go to a location to use the date."
"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 is difficult to retrieve files in an emergency because the public cloud has data limits for immediate downloads."
"The security model can be improved as it is a bit confusing."
"Maybe it could be a bit cheaper."
"I would also like S3 to have the ability to do dynamic websites without the need to do reconfigurations outside of S3. You should be able to switch on dynamic websites in S3, and then it works. I shouldn't need to go elsewhere within Amazon Web Services to get a dynamic website to work."
"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."
"For us, the versioning was an issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of Amazon S3 is low. For R & D purposes there is a free option available. There is a license needed to use the solution."
"The price of Amazon S3 depends on various variables. However, the price overall is fair."
"There is a license to use Amazon S3."
"The price of Amazon S3 could be less expensive."
"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is reasonably priced."
"The tool's licensing costs are monthly and cheap."
"I know it is very inexpensive compared to other solutions."
"The price is okay."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Public Cloud Storage Services solutions are best for your needs.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

S3, Simple Storage Service
CloudLayer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 vs. IBM SoftLayer and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.