Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) vs. Microsoft Azure

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
The Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) provides a simple, scalable, elastic file system for Linux-based workloads for use with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources.
$0.04
per GB
Microsoft Azure
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.
$29
per month
Pricing
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)Microsoft Azure
Editions & Modules
US East & West Region
$0.043
per month per GB (One zone)
Europe (Ireland) Region
$0.046
per month per GB (One zone)
Asia Pacific & Canada Region
$0.047
per month per GB (One zone)
Africa (Cape Town) Region
$0.054
per month per GB (One zone)
AWS GovCloud (US-East)
$0.056
per month per GB (One zone)
US East & West Region
$0.08
per month per GB (Standard)
Asia Pacific & Canada Region
$0.09
per month per GB (Standard)
Europe (Ireland) Region
$0.09
per month per GB (Standard)
Africa (Cape Town) Region
$0.10
per month per GB (Standard)
AWS GovCloud (US-East)
$0.11
per month per GB (Standard)
Developer
$29
per month
Standard
$100
per month
Professional Direct
$1000
per month
Basic
Free
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)Microsoft Azure
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThere is no minimum fee or setup charge. You pay only for the storage you use, for read and write access to data stored in Infrequent Access storage classes, and for any provisioned throughput. Amazon EFS offers four storage classes: two standard storage classes, including Amazon EFS Standard and Amazon EFS Standard-Infrequent Access (EFS Standard-IA), and two One Zone storage classes, including Amazon EFS One Zone and Amazon EFS One Zone-Infrequent AccessThe free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)Microsoft Azure
Features
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)Microsoft Azure
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)
8.8
5 Ratings
7% above category average
Microsoft Azure
8.4
28 Ratings
2% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime10.05 Ratings8.227 Ratings
Dynamic scaling10.05 Ratings8.626 Ratings
Elastic load balancing10.04 Ratings8.725 Ratings
Pre-configured templates4.04 Ratings8.226 Ratings
Monitoring tools8.55 Ratings8.327 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images7.03 Ratings8.425 Ratings
Operating system support9.55 Ratings8.927 Ratings
Security controls10.05 Ratings8.627 Ratings
Automation10.04 Ratings8.225 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)Microsoft Azure
Small Businesses
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)Microsoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
7.5
(5 ratings)
8.7
(97 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(17 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(37 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
6.8
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(28 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)Microsoft Azure
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
While the idea is to utilize it enterprise wide; it sometimes doesn't work well in smaller applications and that causes slowdowns and impacts productivity. Also when evaluating EFS versus EBS - one needs to look at cost as EFS is a lot more expensive to implement and run so you need to weigh cost benefits of both systems and choose the best for you.
Read full review
Microsoft
Azure is particularly well suited for enterprise environments with existing Microsoft investments, those that require robust compliance features, and organizations that need hybrid cloud capabilities that bridge on-premises and cloud infrastructure. In my opinion, Azure is less appropriate for cost-sensitive startups or small businesses without dedicated cloud expertise and scenarios requiring edge computing use cases with limited connectivity. Azure offers comprehensive solutions for most business needs but can feel like there is a higher learning curve than other cloud-based providers, depending on the product and use case.
Read full review
Pros
Amazon AWS
  • This is very easy to setup and has a great performance.
  • As per the name, Elastic grows as your data grows.
  • We can run multiple EC2 instances.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Microsoft Azure is highly scalable and flexible. You can quickly scale up or down additional resources and computing power.
  • You have no longer upfront investments for hardware. You only pay for the use of your computing power, storage space, or services.
  • The uptime that can be achieved and guaranteed is very important for our company. This includes the rapid maintenance for security updates that are mostly carried out by Microsoft.
  • The wide range of capabilities of services that are possible in Microsoft Azure. You can practically put or create anything in Microsoft Azure.
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • For early age start it would be costly
  • Not necessary for small scale system, but very beneficial for system which have high TPS and huge user base
Read full review
Microsoft
  • The cost of resources is difficult to determine, technical documentation is frequently out of date, and documentation and mapping capabilities are lacking.
  • The documentation needs to be improved, and some advanced configuration options require research and experimentation.
  • Microsoft's licensing scheme is too complex for the average user, and Azure SQL syntax is too different from traditional SQL.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Moving to Azure was and still is an organizational strategy and not simply changing vendors. Our product roadmap revolved around Azure as we are in the business of humanitarian relief and Azure and Microsoft play an important part in quickly and efficiently serving all of the world. Migration and investment in Azure should be considered as an overall strategy of an organization and communicated companywide.
Read full review
Usability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
As Microsoft Azure is [doing a] really good with PaaS. The need of a market is to have [a] combo of PaaS and IaaS. While AWS is making [an] exceptionally well blend of both of them, Azure needs to work more on DevOps and Automation stuff. Apart from that, I would recommend Azure as a great platform for cloud services as scale.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
Read full review
Support Rating
Amazon AWS
The documentation is sufficient for setting up and it is basic NFS for mounting so not much support is required. I have not had any issues to warrant a request with AWS support.
Read full review
Microsoft
We were running Windows Server and Active Directory, so [Microsoft] Azure was a seamless transition. We ran into a few, if any support issues, however, the availability of Microsoft Azure's support team was more than willing and able to guide us through the process. They even proposed solutions to issues we had not even thought of!
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
EFS is easier to configure, no need for Active Directory.
Read full review
Microsoft
As I continue to evaluate the "big three" cloud providers for our clients, I make the following distinctions, though this gap continues to close. AWS is more granular, and inherently powerful in the configuration options compared to [Microsoft] Azure. It is a "developer" platform for cloud. However, Azure PowerShell is helping close this gap. Google Cloud is the leading containerization platform, largely thanks to it building kubernetes from the ground up. Azure containerization is getting better at having the same storage/deployment options.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • Cost is always a paramount issue when looking at ROI
  • It is fast and if that's what you need for your implementation - you probably will not find a better solution
  • Expertise in EFS is sometimes hard to come by so it's best to look at your employee's ability to grasp this technology. Otherwise, it's a pretty steep learning curve.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • For about 2 years we didn't have to do anything with our production VMs, the system ran without a hitch, which meant our engineers could focus on features rather than infrastructure.
  • DNS management was very easy in Azure, which made it easy to upgrade our cluster with zero downtime.
  • Azure Web UI was easy to work with and navigate, which meant our senior engineers and DevOps team could work with Azure without formal training.
Read full review
ScreenShots