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Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) vs. Microsoft Azure vs. Microsoft SharePoint

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Amazon S3

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AAmazon 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

    Microsoft Azure

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft 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

    SharePoint

    Score7.9 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft's SharePoint is an Intranet solution that enables users to share and manage content, knowledge, and applications to empower teamwork, quickly find information, and collaborate across the organization.

    $5

    Per User Per Month

    Pricing
    Amazon S3Microsoft AzureSharePoint
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Developer
    $29
    per month
    Standard
    $100
    per month
    Professional Direct
    $1000
    per month
    Basic
    Free
    per month
    Plan 1
    $5.00
    Per User Per Month
    Plan 2
    $10.00
    Per User Per Month
    Office 365 E3
    $20.00
    Per User Per Month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Amazon S3Microsoft AzureSharePoint
    Free Trial
    NoYesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—The 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 S3Microsoft AzureSharePoint
    Considered Multiple Products
    Amazon AWS
    Chose Amazon S3
    Amazon S3 is more cost-effective then what Microsoft Azure offers.
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon S3
    When we were implementation the solution of our issue then we find Azure and Google Cloud Storage platforms but we were unable to find the proper documentation for the platform as compared to S3, So we moved to S3 and discarded the other options. Cost wise there are only some …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon S3
    AWS probably has the most difficult UI to learn but it's the far better service.
    Google is probably second but it has storage limitations and there are some security concerns (still a good tool for collaboration)
    The Microsoft products are the worst IMO. They're slow and have the …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon S3
    We initially looked at CloudBerry but they did not integrate into our NAS hardware out of the box like Amazon S3 did.
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon S3
    S3 provides an on-demand usage model for storage. You only pay for what you use. Nutanix is an on-premises solution and does not allow for usage-based pricing. Azure was less integrated with our current AWS workloads which helped drive our decision to use s3 with the Amazon …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon S3
    Amazon S3 comes with all other services of AWS, all other services are very quick and secure with S3 storage, which is the best option for any application. Again, compared to other services like Azure or GCP, AWS provides more configuration and functions to host multi nature …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon S3
    Some obvious ones are Google storage services like Drive, and their whole arsenal of services. Another could be the Office line where SharePoint and other programs can be used synchronously. I have seen other people use Windows Azure for storage needs similar to ours. We chose …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon S3
    S3 is much cheaper than the alternatives. And it's very easy to set up the billing.
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon S3
    Amazon has had years of development in building their cloud solution. A few other vendors are playing catch up but that's always the case when you have the key to success. The saying goes " if you built it, they will come". :)

    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft Azure
    Azure provides an environment that while at time is more pricey, the tight integration with our existing Microsoft-based infrastructure makes it difficult to beat.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Azure
    AWS is competitor and it's leading in cloud space with his wide sprawl of offerings and services. AWS is a ocean once you login you get everything on one console. AWS leads this space with all his offerings and capabilities. But Azure is not behind, it is competing and is …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Azure
    Azure has been the easiest to work with because it is a MS product and integrates so easily with the rest of their options.
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    Chose SharePoint
    Being integrated into Office 365 and included with your subscription, there are no added costs associated with setting up SharePoint. Also being able to sync one drive and being able to open files SharePoint files via file explorer is a great added benefit.
    Incentivized
    Chose SharePoint
    While a little pricy at $10 a month (the other plan isn't worth it), if your team can afford it, MS SharePoint is totally worth it. It is one of the best apps for what it does, beating DropBox and Google Drive in plugins, functionality, and third-party support. And SharePoint …
    Incentivized
    Chose SharePoint
    The decision of selecting MS Sharepoint was relatively easy, as we have all our servers and applications in Microsoft Environments. So, by selecting SharePoint, we didn't have to worry about compatibility issues. Also, the majority of our partners are Microsoft Gold Certified, …
    Incentivized
    Chose SharePoint
    SharePoint has replaced WordPress for internal blogs and Lotus Notes for collaboration sites. SharePoint was chosen because of its one-stop solution (blogs, news, document folder functionalities) over WordPress for blog. As for Lotus Notes, Outlook and SharePoint made a better …
    Incentivized
    Chose SharePoint
    This is basically just a me too product that does not work very well. I would recommend almost any other alternative based on my experiences. All it offers is an authenticated file directory. The version history and collaboration are so arduous to use it is not worth the time. …
    Incentivized
    Chose SharePoint
    Obviously we still use our CMS to manage our main websites but with SharePoint we no longer have to rely on one or two key employees to post the work that many have done. We also now have a central location for all of these files to be viewed and posted once they are made …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    40 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    89%
    Would buy again
    51 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    39 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    45 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    40 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    54 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    36 Answers
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    27 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    38 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    34 Answers
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    37 Answers
    Features
    Amazon S3Microsoft AzureSharePoint
    Data Center Backup
    Comparison of Data Center Backup features of Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) and Microsoft Azure and Microsoft SharePoint
    Feature
    Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
    8.6
    11 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Microsoft Azure
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft SharePoint
    -
    Ratings
    Universal recovery8.410 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Instant recovery8.310 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Recovery verification8.47 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Business application protection8.57 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple backup destinations8.210 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Incremental backup identification9.14 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Backup to the cloud8.511 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Deduplication and file compression9.05 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Snapshots8.67 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Flexible deployment9.011 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Management dashboard7.610 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform support8.510 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Retention options9.17 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Encryption9.58 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Enterprise Backup
    Comparison of Enterprise Backup features of Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) and Microsoft Azure and Microsoft SharePoint
    Feature
    Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
    8.5
    11 Ratings
    0% below category average
    Microsoft Azure
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft SharePoint
    -
    Ratings
    Continuous data protection9.510 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Replication8.410 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Operational reporting and analytics7.811 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Malware protection8.94 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-location capabilities8.511 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ransomware Recovery8.01 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) and Microsoft Azure and Microsoft SharePoint
    Feature
    Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Azure
    8.4
    27 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Microsoft SharePoint
    -
    Ratings
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.126 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.725 Ratings00 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.624 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates00 Ratings8.225 Ratings00 Ratings
    Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.326 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.424 Ratings00 Ratings
    Operating system support00 Ratings8.926 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security controls00 Ratings8.626 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automation00 Ratings8.224 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Amazon S3Microsoft AzureSharePoint
    Small Businesses
    Acronis Cyber Protect
    Score8.7 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    HCL Connections
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Carbonite by OpenText
    Score7.1 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    HCL Connections
    Score9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Druva Security Cloud
    Score9.4 out of 10
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    HCL Connections
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Amazon S3Microsoft AzureSharePoint
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.7
    (77 ratings)
    8.7
    (96 ratings)
    8.1
    (271 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    9.8
    (26 ratings)
    Usability
    8.6
    (15 ratings)
    8.3
    (36 ratings)
    8.2
    (31 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.8
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.8
    (21 ratings)
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    8.8
    (13 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    6.0
    (5 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (51 ratings)
    Data Sources
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.6
    (50 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Amazon S3Microsoft AzureSharePoint
    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.
    Incentivized
    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
    Microsoft
    It's Microsoft, so it rarely goes down or unnecessarily limits access. It works, though page load times can be long if you have lots of data. I feel like the Mac vs. PC divide has started to show up for MS products, but SharePoint works well with both.
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • We track employees' performance sheets, which are accessible to the employee, his manager, and HR, and this helps with transparency.
    • We maintain technical process documents and SOPs, which help us quickly provide relevant documents during audits.
    • We maintain incident documents change request forms in SharePoint, which helps us in tracking the changes.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Incentivized
    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
    Microsoft
    • Windows Explorer users have some difficulty having to constantly UPLOAD / DOWNLOAD files. Specifically on the DOWNLOAD when they are used to Drag & Drop in & out of LOCAL folders via Window's explorer.
    • Microsoft SharePoint supports multiple "library" types. When implementing our "image" library the search function is done via "tags" and boolean logic. This is challenging to most end users. I'd like our users to be able to search our Microsoft SharePoint image library without having to enter KEYWORD or other BOOLEAN logic.
    • Microsoft SharePoint can also be an internal website for each department or company wide communication tool but I believe these features are geared for much larger organizations. Since we are a SMB we really aren't using these features. So maybe something more useful to SMBs would be nice.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Amazon AWS
    Due to princing, availability and scalability.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Microsoft
    It's integral to our business. It's already included with most of the Office 365 licensing we buy, so the cost is effectively zero. It stores our files, it is the foundation for custom applications, and Microsoft only continues to enhance its functionality and its connections to other Microsoft tools. SharePoint just keeps getting better and better.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No usability issues reported. Individual teams also have allocated areas which replace legacy shared drives on local LANs. Access to Sharepoint resources is fully integrated with corporate Active Directory with additional two-factor authentication required for administrative users. Users have access to Microsoft Services Hub which allows you to create, manage, and track support requests while staying current on Microsoft technologies with access to select self-paced learning paths
    Incentivized
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Incentivized
    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!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Support for SharePoint is quite good. Microsoft provides good support. Microsoft offers
    • Quick turnaround time for issues
    • A range of support services
    • Access to a network of resources
    • Escalation of issues
    • Ongoing development and commitment to produce enhancement
    The majority of support is required for initial installation. Once complete and the system is operating we have had very few support issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    The face to face training I received was on SharePoint Administration. It was rushed as there was a lot of information to cover and the application of the labs weren't that great either. I like to be able to relate what I am learning to what I am currently doing.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    I like to learn at my own pace and online training allows for that. Additionally, you can skip through pieces of content that you already know or are already comfortable with. Microsoft actually offers great videos on their website for basic fundamental SharePoint Training. I have used these training videos in some of my own training sessions with end users.
    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
    Microsoft
    Planning to the last detail would be advised. SharePoint is a very large application that takes a lot of finesse to get operational
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    The reasons for selecting MS SharePoint are: SharePoint provides ease of use and web design assistance and support SharePoint helps you schedule your content for publishing. enables users to share documents with external parties and offers a better internal structure of the content and better indexing and searching capabilities.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • It comes with Office 365. It won't cost you any additional charges.
    • It will help you to streamline your communication and work as a central hub for all tasks, files[,] and events[.]
    • Setting it up will need a bit [of] planning. If you jump blindly it will become a confusing place for your team members and make them frustrated[.]
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots