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Amazon S3 vs Microsoft Azure File 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
5.8
Organizations find Amazon S3 cost-effective, scalable, and productivity-boosting, with economic advantages and reduced overhead costs.
Sentiment score
4.0
Mixed experiences with Microsoft Azure File Storage highlight ROI benefits, integration ease, but variable efficacy for medium businesses.
Moving infrequently accessed data to cheaper classes like Glacier is beneficial for long-term storage at a lower cost.
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
I have seen a return on investment, and the ROI that we observed in our organization includes reducing manpower by 20% and achieving zero downtime for storage expansion, which improves overall productivity.
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Amazon S3 has a reasonable price as you pay a flat price to use it.
Senior Data & AI Engineer at Imprint
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Amazon S3 support is professional and responsive, with high user ratings, despite occasional delays and cost concerns.
Sentiment score
6.3
Azure File Storage support varies by contract, location, and status; premium users enjoy faster response than standard users.
I rate the technical support from Amazon for S3 a ten out of ten.
CTO at Atulya Abhinav Tech Private Limited
The customer support for Amazon S3 is very good; they are responsive and knowledgeable, providing quick resolutions, clear documentation, and proactive guidance during migrations or performance tuning.
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
An engineer is assigned based on the severity of the issue.
DevOps Engineer at Olla Systems Limited
The perspective documentation is good.
Database Architect at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Microsoft technical support is very prompt.
Senior System Administrator at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
As and when we require, they are able to provide solutions or guide us toward solutions.
Senior Technical Architect at Volante
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Amazon S3 provides scalable, cost-effective storage with strong security, widely used across industries for data management.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Azure File Storage is highly scalable, easily integrates, adapts to needs, and receives strong user ratings.
Data placed in an S3 bucket is replicated across availability zones in a region, ensuring scalability and availability.
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
The level of scalability allows storage to automatically scale on demand, without the need for manual intervention.
AWS Consultant at Virtual University
The scalability of Amazon S3 is excellent as it handles unlimited data and seamlessly supports growth without manual provisioning or performance degradation.
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
We successfully handled a huge transaction during an iPhone launch without any issues.
Senior Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Amazon S3 is praised for high stability, performance, and 99.99% uptime with minor latency but noted security concerns.
Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Azure File Storage is reliable with high ratings, minor issues, and requires good internet for optimal performance.
There is zero latency or downtime.
AWS Consultant at Virtual University
Transitioning between S3 storage classes, like moving data from the standard class to Glacier or Glacier Deep Archive, has been challenging.
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Amazon S3 is highly stable.
DevOps Engineer at Olla Systems Limited
I rate the stability of Microsoft Azure File Storage as a seven out of ten.
Database Architect at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
There are a few technical issues that need to be fixed within the Azure ecosystem.
Data & Analytics Practitioner (BI Dw, Big Data) at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
We sometimes encounter glitches with bigger files, but everything else works as expected.
Lead Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon S3 users desire enhanced dashboards, better security, improved performance, simplified configurations, intuitive interfaces, and more competitive pricing.
Microsoft Azure File Storage needs better cost clarity, technical support, usability, security, performance, and diagnostics to enhance user experience.
An improvement could be associating the naming with personal accounts, allowing more familiar or desired names without conflicting with global conventions.
DevOps Engineer at Stellar Tech
The practice of protecting data could be more streamlined or mandatory.
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
I would like to see an increase in the data upload limit, similar to DynamoDB, where there is no data limit.
AWS Consultant at Virtual University
Some chunking logics need to be better to address issues with processing bigger files.
Lead Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
There is a limitation on the storage capacity, like four terabytes.
Database Architect at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The information is not readily available on the internet, so we have to double-check and understand everything.
Senior Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Amazon S3 offers cost-effective storage with pay-as-you-go pricing, but retrieval and advanced features can be expensive.
Microsoft Azure File Storage pricing is usage-based, often higher than competitors, with savings via long-term contracts and reservations.
I've used the free tier and haven't been charged yet.
DevOps Engineer at Stellar Tech
S3 offers multiple classes, allowing you to move data to cheaper classes for cost savings.
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Since using Amazon S3, storage costs have reduced by around 35% to 40% through lifecycle tiering.
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I would rate it three or three and a half out of ten on the pricing scale.
Lead Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I would rate the pricing of Microsoft Azure File Storage seven or eight, where one is high and ten is low.
Senior Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The pricing for Microsoft Azure File Storage is five out of ten, not so expensive and not so low.
Database Architect at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Amazon S3 offers scalability, high availability, security, and cost-effective data management, appreciated for performance, reliability, and global accessibility.
Microsoft Azure File Storage excels in flexibility, integration, security, and cost-effectiveness, meeting diverse organizational file storage needs.
Its stability and scalability are also impressive, as it allows for increased storage space according to demand.
DevOps Engineer at Stellar Tech
I appreciate its capability to create static websites and integrate with services like CloudFront, EC2, and DynamoDB.
Information Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Security measures like encryption, access controls, and the block public access feature are also important.
AWS Consultant at Virtual University
It is satisfying our requirements with encryption and security features in place.
Senior Data Production Engineer at a wellness & fitness company with 5,001-10,000 employees
File storage is complemented by OCR with Azure Cognitive Service.
Lead Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Microsoft Azure File Storage saves time compared to AWS.
Senior Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon S3
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure File Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Amazon S3 is 13.2%, up from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure File Storage is 8.6%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon S313.2%
Microsoft Azure File Storage8.6%
Other78.2%
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2774889 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Has reduced storage costs and improved data management through automated lifecycle and seamless service integration
The best features that Amazon S3 offers are high durability and availability with virtually unlimited storage, lifecycle management for automated tiering and cost control, versioning to retain and recover data changes, and integration with services such as Glue, Athena, EMR, Lambda, along with strong security via IAM roles, bucket policies, and encryption. These features help by ensuring data is always available, securely stored, and easily accessible for pipelines. Lifecycle policies reduce manual cleanup, versioning safeguards against accidental deletions, and integrations allow us to directly run analytics or trigger workflows without moving data around. Amazon S3 event notifications help automate tasks such as triggering ETL jobs or Lambda functions on new data arrivals, and features such as cross-region replication ensure data redundancy and compliance, while fine-grained access control makes it easy to manage permissions across teams securely. My organization has seen improvements in data accessibility, reduced infrastructure costs, and simplified data management through Amazon S3. We now have a unified scalable storage layer that supports analytics, backups, and migrations seamlessly, leading to faster workflows and better decision-making.
Karthik-A - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Has simplified customer data management and improved file transfer workflows
We are using AWS as well, and the main difference is that Microsoft Azure File Storage is more user-friendly for configuration-related and admin-related activities. We do not have to perform many complex activities, making it simpler compared to AWS. Security-wise, there are some concerns because it is in the cloud. The customers need to double-check, and they are not giving complete approval when it comes to security. I would rate Microsoft Azure File Storage's security compliance features seven or eight out of ten. It is secure, but since it is in the cloud, we have to convince customers when providing solutions. Many questions were raised while providing the architecture and solution for this file transfer management system. We convinced them because we have the feature and showed a demo, but it is still a prototype. We have to get approval before starting the work. The data redundancy options in Microsoft Azure File Storage are good. I am facing some challenges in convincing customers, and additional information would be helpful to address these challenges. Microsoft Azure File Storage saves time compared to AWS. We tried the prototype in AWS as well, but Azure is easier. Regarding cost, it is slightly less compared to AWS. The functionality of Microsoft Azure File Storage does not pose any issues, though basic users find it complex and require training. Regarding stability, I would rate Microsoft Azure File Storage 8.5 to 9. Scalability in Microsoft Azure File Storage is impressive. We recently handled a huge transaction during an iPhone launch without any problems.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise39
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
 

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?
Since using Amazon S3, storage costs have reduced by around 35% to 40% through lifecycle tiering, data availability improved to 99.9% which minimizes downtime, ETL processing time decreased by appr...
What needs improvement with Amazon S3?
Amazon S3 can be improved with more intuitive cost visualization tools with forecasting capabilities, faster restore times from Glacier tiers, better real-time monitoring of data access patterns, a...
Which file storage system is better - Amazon EFS (elastic file storage) or Azure File Storage?
Amazon EFS is easy to set up: you can use the AWS management console, API, or command-line. Amazon EFS can grow to petabytes and deliver consistent low latencies and high levels of throughput. This...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure File Storage?
The cost of Microsoft Azure File Storage depends on the storage account, whether it is premium or standard; there is a cost difference, with the cost being higher for premium and lower for standard...
 

Also Known As

S3, Simple Storage Service
MS Azure File Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Zillow, Alert Logic
Talon, Camden
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon S3 vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.