Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) vs. Amazon Web Services

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon S3
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Amazon S3 is a cloud-based object storage service from Amazon Web Services. It's key features are storage management and monitoring, access management and security, data querying, and data transfer.N/A
Amazon Web Services
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing services. With over 165 services offered, AWS services can provide users with a comprehensive suite of infrastructure and computing building blocks and tools.
$100
per month
Pricing
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Amazon Web Services
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Free Tier
$0
per month
Basic Environment
$100 - $200
per month
Intermediate Environment
$250 - $600
per month
Advanced Environment
$600-$2500
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon S3Amazon Web Services
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAWS allows a “save when you commit” option that offers lower prices when you sign up for a 1- or 3- year term that includes an AWS service or category of services.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Amazon Web Services
Considered Both Products
Amazon S3
Chose Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
All other alternatives are also good but as our infrastructure was on AWS, Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) was a better choice due to its better integration with other AWS services. It was serving the purpose in an economical way. All of our needs were being fulfilled by …
Chose Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
They're both great. I really don't know the differences, but both have the same basic set of features, in my opinion. But, S3 is widely know as a greater tool, safer, and much easier. Also, it's used by and compatible with a lot of applications around the world. That made us …
Chose Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
I did not review or test with any other services. We started this business as a loyal and excited AWS customer and we remain the same today.
Chose Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
In terms of AWS services, S3 is the best storage solution offered that gives us security and reliability with a wide, even if it is too wide at times, array of services making it a cost effective solution. However, when compared to other large cloud providers, such as Google & …
Amazon Web Services
Chose Amazon Web Services
Both the services are in the field for quite sometime. And the biggest competitor of Amazon Web Services is Microsoft Azure. Though, Azure easily connects with Microsoft services like a jelly, even in AWS its so easy. And the best thing is due to its vast variety community …
Chose Amazon Web Services
Azure is the other product that we have used for some of our clients. In certain places Azure was very competitively priced and clients chose to go with Azure as a platform. Billing by the minute is definitely a competitive advantage in certain cases. AWS pricing structures …
Features
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Amazon Web Services
Data Center Backup
Comparison of Data Center Backup features of Product A and Product B
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
8.8
11 Ratings
2% above category average
Amazon Web Services
-
Ratings
Universal recovery8.710 Ratings00 Ratings
Instant recovery8.210 Ratings00 Ratings
Recovery verification8.37 Ratings00 Ratings
Business application protection8.57 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple backup destinations8.710 Ratings00 Ratings
Incremental backup identification9.24 Ratings00 Ratings
Backup to the cloud8.811 Ratings00 Ratings
Deduplication and file compression8.95 Ratings00 Ratings
Snapshots9.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Flexible deployment9.111 Ratings00 Ratings
Management dashboard7.910 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform support8.710 Ratings00 Ratings
Retention options9.57 Ratings00 Ratings
Encryption9.68 Ratings00 Ratings
Enterprise Backup
Comparison of Enterprise Backup features of Product A and Product B
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
8.6
11 Ratings
1% above category average
Amazon Web Services
-
Ratings
Continuous data protection9.410 Ratings00 Ratings
Replication8.810 Ratings00 Ratings
Operational reporting and analytics8.011 Ratings00 Ratings
Malware protection8.74 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-location capabilities8.911 Ratings00 Ratings
Ransomware Recovery8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
-
Ratings
Amazon Web Services
8.4
78 Ratings
2% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings9.172 Ratings
Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.873 Ratings
Elastic load balancing00 Ratings9.369 Ratings
Pre-configured templates00 Ratings7.166 Ratings
Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.373 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.166 Ratings
Operating system support00 Ratings7.972 Ratings
Security controls00 Ratings8.674 Ratings
Automation00 Ratings8.325 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Amazon Web Services
Small Businesses
Cove Data Protection
Cove Data Protection
Score 9.7 out of 10
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise
Score 9.5 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise
Score 9.5 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 S3 (Simple Storage Service)Amazon Web Services
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(77 ratings)
8.0
(90 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.4
(10 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(15 ratings)
7.8
(21 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.8
(21 ratings)
7.2
(24 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)Amazon Web Services
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
Amazon S3 is a great service to safely backup your data where redundancy is guaranteed and the cost is fair. We use Amazon S3 for data that we backup and hope we never need to access but in the case of a catastrophic or even small slip of the finger with the delete command we know our data and our client's data is safely backed up by Amazon S3. Transferring data into Amazon S3 is free but transferring data out has an associated, albeit low, cost per GB. This needs to be kept in mind if you plan on transferring out a lot of data frequently. There may be other cost effective options although Amazon S3 prices are really low per GB. Transferring 150TB would cost approximately $50 per month.
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Amazon AWS
This is something that is actually common across most cloud providers. A comprehensive understanding of one's use cases, constraints and future directions is key to determining if you even need a cloud solution. If you are a 2-person startup developing something with a best-scenario audience of 1k DAU in a year, you would very likely best served by a dirt-cheap dedicated Linux server somewhere (and your options to graduate to a cloud solution will still be open). If, however, you are a bigger fish, and/or you are actively considering build-vs-buy decisions for complicated, highly-loaded, six-figure requests per minute systems, global loadbalancing, extreme growth projections - then MAYBE you solve all or part of it with a cloud provider. And depending on your taste for risk, reliability, flexibility, track record - it might be AWS.
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Pros
Amazon AWS
  • Fantastic developer API, including AWS command line and library utilities.
  • Strong integration with the AWS ecosystem, especially with regards to access permissions.
  • It's astoundingly stable- you can trust it'll stay online and available for anywhere in the world.
  • Its static website hosting feature is a hidden gem-- it provides perhaps the cheapest, most stable, most high-performing static web hosting available in PaaS.
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Amazon AWS
  • During the month-end, we experience high resource utilization; however, with AWS's scalability, we can effectively tackle the peak load.
  • With AWS IAM, we don't need to set up complete infrastructure for identity and access management, as AWS provides end-to-end IAM services.
  • With AWS, development has become very easy as it's very quick to spin up and destroy the environment, which saves costs.
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Cons
Amazon AWS
  • Web console can be very confusing and challenging to use, especially for new users
  • Bucket policies are very flexible, but the composability of the security rules can be very confusing to get right, often leading to security rules in use on buckets other than what you believe they are
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Amazon AWS
  • When there is any misconfiguration of EC2 related to SSM Connect. It doesn't clearly states that what particular configuration is missing.
  • Debugging networking related issues could be improved.
  • From the security group page, it's difficult to determine which resource a security group is associated with.
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Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
Due to princing, availability and scalability.
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Amazon AWS
We are almost entirely satisfied with the service. In order to move off it, we'd have to build for ourselves many of the services that AWS provides and the cost would be prohibitive. Although there are cost savings and security benefits to returning to the colo facility, we could never afford to do it, and we'd hate to give up the innovation and constant cycle of new features that AWS gives us.
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Usability
Amazon AWS
It is tricky to get it all set up correctly with policies and getting the IAM settings right. There is also a lot of lifecycle config you can do in terms of moving data to cold/glacier storage. It is also not to be confused with being a OneDrive or SharePoint replacement, they each have their own place in our environment, and S3 is used more by the IT team and accessed by our PHP applications. It is not necessarily used by an average everyday user for storing their pictures or documents, etc.
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Amazon AWS
AWS offers a wide range of powerful services that cater to various business needs which is significant strength. The ability to scale resources on-demand is a major advantage making it suitable for businesses of all sizes. The sheer volume of options and configurations can be overwhelming for new users leading to a steep learning curve. While functional the AWS management console can feel cluttered and less intuitive compared to some competitors which can hinder navigation. Although some documentation lacks clarity and practical examples which can frustrate users trying to implement specific solutions.
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Reliability and Availability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Amazon AWS
Availability is very good, with the exception of occasional spectacular outages.
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Performance
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Amazon AWS
AWS does not provide the raw performance that you can get by building your own custom infrastructure. However, it is often the case that the benefits of specialized, high-performance hardware do not necessarily outweigh the significant extra cost and risk. Performance as perceived by the user is very different from raw throughput.
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Support Rating
Amazon AWS
AWS has always been quick to resolve any support ticket raised. S3 is no exception. We have only ever used it once to get a clarification regarding the costs involved when data is transferred between S3 and other AWS services or the public internet. We got a response from AWS support team within a day.
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Amazon AWS
The customer support of Amazon Web Services are quick in their responses. I appreciate its entire team, which works amazingly, and provides professional support. AWS is a great tool, indeed, to provide customers a suitable way to
immediately search for their compatible software's and also to guide them in a
good direction. Moreover, this product is a good suggestion for every type of
company because of its affordability and ease of use.
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Implementation Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Amazon AWS
The API's were very well documented and was Janova's main point of entry into the services.
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Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
Overall, we found that Amazon S3 provided a lot of backend features Google Cloud Storage (GCS) simply couldn't compare to. GCS was way more expensive and really did not live up to it. In terms of setup, Google Cloud Storage may have Amazon S3 beat, however, as it is more of a pseudo advanced version of Google Drive, that was not a hard feat for it to achieve. Overall, evaluating GCS, in comparison to S3, was an utter disappointment.
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Amazon AWS
Amazon Web Services fits best for all levels of organisations like startup, mid level or enterprise. The services are easy to use and doesn't require a high level of understanding as you can learn via blogs or youtube videos. AWS is Reasonable in cost as the plan is pay as you use.
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Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • It practically eliminated some real heavy storage servers from our premises and reduced maintenance cost.
  • The excellent durability and reliability make sure the return of money you invested in.
  • If the objects which are not active or stale, one needs to remove them. Those objects keep adding cost to each billing cycle. If you are handling a really big infrastructure, sometimes this creates quite a huge bill for preserving un-necessary objects/documents.
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Amazon AWS
  • Using Amazon Web Services has allowed us to develop and deploy new SAAS solutions quicker than we did when we used traditional web hosting. This has allowed us to grow our service offerings to clients and also add more value to our existing services.
  • Having AWS deployed has also allowed our development team to focus on delivering high-quality software without worrying about whether our servers will be able to handle the demand. Since AWS allows you to adjust your server needs based on demand, we can easily assign a faster server instance to ease and improve service without the client even knowing what we did.
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ScreenShots