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IBM SoftLayer vs Microsoft Azure Block Storage comparison

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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

IBM SoftLayer
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Block Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of IBM SoftLayer is 1.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is 2.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure Block Storage2.8%
IBM SoftLayer1.9%
Other95.3%
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1032702 - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Principal Cloud Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is highly stable."
"The ability to extract 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 is the solution's most valuable aspect for our organization."
"The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer."
"The technical support from Microsoft Azure Block Storage is good."
"It has easy versioning. The versioning is amenable to any changes. It also has great security. It can only be accessed through an API, and only the requested users can access it. It is optimized for data lakes and comprehensive data management."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is the security and the management of user access from on-premise to the cloud."
"The initial setup for the production areas was on premise, which is very simple."
"Azure Block Storage has very good integration with the Microsoft suite, which helps a lot when creating a digital workspace."
"The solution is stable."
"The public access with more security available is valuable."
"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."
 

Cons

"For us, the versioning was an issue."
"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."
"Some alternatives are cheaper and available for long trial periods before the payment."
"Technical support needs improvement."
"One thing that needs improvement is authentication. They need to improve the integrated Azure Active Directory for the enterprise level."
"We cannot properly check the daily cost in the Azure portal."
"Overall, I would rate block storage as a six out of ten."
"Azure Block Storage could use more capacity."
"Microsoft Azure Block Storage could improve by allowing the switching of the hot tier to the cold tier."
"I have used Amazon's solutions which are better than Microsoft's. However, since I have predominately Microsoft solutions it is a better choice for me to use another Microsoft solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"In terms of pricing, Azure is quite cheaper than AWS. However, I have recently read that Oracle Cloud Generation 2 storage is quite cheaper than Azure. I haven't used it yet. We need to look at a customer's requirements, and, based on that, we can suggest the storage. You can save at least 20% with Azure as compared to AWS, which is quite costly."
"For the first 50DB, they cost around $50. It's an open solution for everybody. Anybody can go to the Microsoft website and they can get the pricing for it. But the first 50GB of data is a default rate and then it increases for the next 500GB or something like that. It is a pay as you go solution. The more you use, the more you pay. That's normally how you pay for any cloud solutions."
"The price of scaling the solution is not expensive."
"I use Microsoft Azure Block Storage's free version."
"We pay around $300 to $400 a month for some scenarios where consumption is limited. However, going forward, we're seeing the likelihood of the cost coming to around $2,000 as consumption rises."
"The solution requires an input-output operations fee as well as pay per gigabyte of storage."
"The price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is expensive. They should provide a more efficient cost."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six or seven out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Construction Company
14%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

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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 ...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
I am using Microsoft Azure Block Storage for file sharing, automation accounts, data storage, and archiving, and those are the main use cases.
 

Also Known As

CloudLayer
MS Azure Block Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Mazda, BlinkBox, Rakuten Showtime, Xbox One, Serko, ChronoDrive
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SoftLayer vs. Microsoft Azure Block Storage and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.