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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Infrastructure as a Service
  4. Cloud Storage
  5. Amazon S3 vs Azure Storage vs Google Cloud Storage

Amazon S3 vs Azure Storage vs Google Cloud Storage

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Amazon S3
Amazon S3
Stacks55.1K
Followers40.2K
Votes2.0K
Google Cloud Storage
Google Cloud Storage
Stacks2.0K
Followers1.2K
Votes75
Azure Storage
Azure Storage
Stacks1.3K
Followers787
Votes52

Amazon S3 vs Azure Storage vs Google Cloud Storage: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Key differences between Amazon S3, Azure Storage, and Google Cloud Storage:

1. **Storage Options**: Amazon S3 allows users to choose between different storage classes based on access frequency, while Azure Storage offers Blob Storage with options like hot, cool, and archive tiers for data optimization. Google Cloud Storage provides Multi-Regional, Regional, Nearline, and Coldline storage classes for cost-effective data management.

2. **Pricing Structure**: Amazon S3 charges separately for storage, requests, and data transfer, with pricing varying across regions. Azure Storage offers a more granular pricing model, including charges for storage, data retrieval, transactions, and redundancy options. Google Cloud Storage has a simplified pricing structure with data storage and network egress fees.

3. **Encryption and Security Features**: Amazon S3 supports server-side encryption, client-side encryption, and integration with AWS Key Management Service for enhanced security. Azure Storage provides encryption at rest, in transit, and options for managing encryption keys through Azure Key Vault. Google Cloud Storage offers server-side encryption with Google-managed or customer-supplied keys for securing data.

4. **Integration with Other Services**: Amazon S3 integrates seamlessly with other AWS services like AWS Lambda, Glacier, and IAM for automated workflows and access control. Azure Storage integrates well with Azure functions, Azure Data Lake, and Active Directory for enhanced functionalities. Google Cloud Storage can be easily integrated with Google BigQuery, Compute Engine, and Cloud Functions for streamlined data processing and analysis.

5. **Data Transfer Speed and Availability**: Amazon S3 ensures high availability and reliability with its global infrastructure, offering consistent performance for data transfers. Azure Storage guarantees low latency and high throughput for data operations through its scalable platform and global network. Google Cloud Storage offers parallel uploads and downloads for improved data transfer speeds and high availability with its multi-region and dual-region options.

6. **Management Tools and Monitoring Capabilities**: Amazon S3 provides a user-friendly console, SDKs, and third-party tools for managing storage resources efficiently. Azure Storage offers Azure Portal, PowerShell, and Azure CLI for monitoring and managing storage accounts effectively. Google Cloud Storage provides Cloud Console, gsutil tool, and integration with Stackdriver for monitoring storage usage and performance metrics.

In Summary, Amazon S3, Azure Storage, and Google Cloud Storage differ in storage options, pricing structures, encryption/security features, integration capabilities, data transfer speeds, and management tools/monitoring capabilities.

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Advice on Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Storage

Mohammad
Mohammad

Aug 30, 2020

Needs adviceonBackblaze B2 Cloud StorageBackblaze B2 Cloud StoragePHPPHPLaravelLaravel

Hello! I have a mobile app with nearly 100k MAU, and I want to add a cloud file storage service to my app.

My app will allow users to store their image, video, and audio files and retrieve them to their device when necessary.

I have already decided to use PHP & Laravel as my backend, and I use Contabo VPS. Now, I need an object storage service for my app, and my options are:

  • Amazon S3 : It sounds to me like the best option but the most expensive. Closest to my users (MENA Region) for other services, I will have to go to Europe. Not sure how important this is?

  • DigitalOcean Spaces : Seems like my best option for price/service, but I am still not sure

  • Wasabi: the best price (6 USD/MONTH/TB) and free bandwidth, but I am not sure if it fits my needs as I want to allow my users to preview audio and video files. They don't recommend their service for streaming videos.

  • Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage: Good price but not sure about them.

  • There is also the self-hosted s3 compatible option, but I am not sure about that.

Any thoughts will be helpful. Also, if you think I should post in a different sub, please tell me.

180k views180k
Comments
Dalton
Dalton

Oct 23, 2020

Decided

Minio is a free and open source object storage system. It can be self-hosted and is S3 compatible. During the early stage it would save cost and allow us to move to a different object storage when we scale up. It is also fast and easy to set up. This is very useful during development since it can be run on localhost.

143k views143k
Comments
Gabriel
Gabriel

CEO at NaoLogic Inc

Dec 24, 2019

Decided

We offer our customer HIPAA compliant storage. After analyzing the market, we decided to go with Google Storage. The Nodejs API is ok, still not ES6 and can be very confusing to use. For each new customer, we created a different bucket so they can have individual data and not have to worry about data loss. After 1000+ customers we started seeing many problems with the creation of new buckets, with saving or retrieving a new file. Many false positive: the Promise returned ok, but in reality, it failed.

That's why we switched to S3 that just works.

330k views330k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Amazon S3
Amazon S3
Google Cloud Storage
Google Cloud Storage
Azure Storage
Azure Storage

Amazon Simple Storage Service provides a fully redundant data storage infrastructure for storing and retrieving any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web

Google Cloud Storage allows world-wide storing and retrieval of any amount of data and at any time. It provides a simple programming interface which enables developers to take advantage of Google's own reliable and fast networking infrastructure to perform data operations in a secure and cost effective manner. If expansion needs arise, developers can benefit from the scalability provided by Google's infrastructure.

Azure Storage provides the flexibility to store and retrieve large amounts of unstructured data, such as documents and media files with Azure Blobs; structured nosql based data with Azure Tables; reliable messages with Azure Queues, and use SMB based Azure Files for migrating on-premises applications to the cloud.

Write, read, and delete objects containing from 1 byte to 5 terabytes of data each. The number of objects you can store is unlimited.;Each object is stored in a bucket and retrieved via a unique, developer-assigned key.;A bucket can be stored in one of several Regions. You can choose a Region to optimize for latency, minimize costs, or address regulatory requirements. Amazon S3 is currently available in the US Standard, US West (Oregon), US West (Northern California), EU (Ireland), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Asia Pacific (Sydney), South America (Sao Paulo), and GovCloud (US) Regions. The US Standard Region automatically routes requests to facilities in Northern Virginia or the Pacific Northwest using network maps.;Objects stored in a Region never leave the Region unless you transfer them out. For example, objects stored in the EU (Ireland) Region never leave the EU.;Authentication mechanisms are provided to ensure that data is kept secure from unauthorized access. Objects can be made private or public, and rights can be granted to specific users.;Options for secure data upload/download and encryption of data at rest are provided for additional data protection.;Uses standards-based REST and SOAP interfaces designed to work with any Internet-development toolkit.;Built to be flexible so that protocol or functional layers can easily be added. The default download protocol is HTTP. A BitTorrent protocol interface is provided to lower costs for high-scale distribution.;Provides functionality to simplify manageability of data through its lifetime. Includes options for segregating data by buckets, monitoring and controlling spend, and automatically archiving data to even lower cost storage options. These options can be easily administered from the Amazon S3 Management Console.;Reliability backed with the Amazon S3 Service Level Agreement.
High Capacity and Scalability;Strong Data Consistency;Google Developers Console Projects;Bucket Locations;REST APIS;OAuth 2.0 Authentication;Authenticated Browser Downloads;Google Account Support for Sharing
Blobs, Tables, Queues, and Files;Highly scalable;Durable & highly available;Premium Storage;Designed for developers
Statistics
Stacks
55.1K
Stacks
2.0K
Stacks
1.3K
Followers
40.2K
Followers
1.2K
Followers
787
Votes
2.0K
Votes
75
Votes
52
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 590
    Reliable
  • 492
    Scalable
  • 456
    Cheap
  • 329
    Simple & easy
  • 83
    Many sdks
Cons
  • 7
    Permissions take some time to get right
  • 6
    Requires a credit card
  • 6
    Takes time/work to organize buckets & folders properly
  • 3
    Complex to set up
Pros
  • 28
    Scalable
  • 19
    Cheap
  • 14
    Reliable
  • 9
    Easy
  • 3
    Chealp
Pros
  • 24
    All-in-one storage solution
  • 15
    Pay only for data used regardless of disk size
  • 9
    Shared drive mapping
  • 2
    Cheapest hot and cloud storage
  • 2
    Cost-effective
Cons
  • 2
    Direct support is not provided by Azure storage
Integrations
No integrations availableNo integrations available
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure

What are some alternatives to Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Storage?

Amazon EBS

Amazon EBS

Amazon EBS volumes are network-attached, and persist independently from the life of an instance. Amazon EBS provides highly available, highly reliable, predictable storage volumes that can be attached to a running Amazon EC2 instance and exposed as a device within the instance. Amazon EBS is particularly suited for applications that require a database, file system, or access to raw block level storage.

Minio

Minio

Minio is an object storage server compatible with Amazon S3 and licensed under Apache 2.0 License

OpenEBS

OpenEBS

OpenEBS allows you to treat your persistent workload containers, such as DBs on containers, just like other containers. OpenEBS itself is deployed as just another container on your host.

Rackspace Cloud Files

Rackspace Cloud Files

Cloud Files, powered by OpenStack®, provides an easy to use online storage for files and media which can be delivered globally at blazing speeds over Akamai's content delivery network (CDN).

Storj

Storj

It is an open source, decentralized file storage solution. It uses encryption, file sharing, and a blockchain-based hash table to store files on a peer-to-peer network. The goal is to make cloud file storage faster, cheaper, and private.

RunAbove

RunAbove

We give you full access to the OpenStack API, which our compute (Nova) and storage (Swift) solutions are based on. This means no provider lock-in and easy automation of all your deployments. You can also manage your account and billing details via our RESTful API. You can choose between Horizon or OVH's easy-to-use web panel.

DigitalOcean Spaces

DigitalOcean Spaces

DigitalOcean Spaces are designed to make it easy and cost effective to store and serve massive amounts of data. Spaces are ideal for storing static, unstructured data like audio, video, and images as well as large amounts of text.

Rook

Rook

It is an open source cloud-native storage orchestrator for Kubernetes, providing the platform, framework, and support for a diverse set of storage solutions to natively integrate with cloud-native environments.

DigitalOcean Block Storage

DigitalOcean Block Storage

Add more storage space, mix and match compute and storage to suit your database, file storage, application, service, mobile, and backup needs.

Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage

Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage

It is a generic cloud storage. You can use it from any computer, any operating system or any cloud storage purpose. You can manage and store large amounts of media files using this service

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