Azure Blob Storage vs. IBM Cloud Object Storage

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Blob Storage
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's Blob Storage system on Azure is designed to make unstructured data available to customers anywhere through REST-based object storage.
$0.01
per GB/per month
IBM Cloud Object Storage
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
IBM Cloud Object Storage is an IBM Cloud product in the endpoint backup and IaaS categories. It is commonly used for data archiving and backup, for web and mobile applications, and as scalable, persistent storage for analytics.N/A
Pricing
Azure Blob StorageIBM Cloud Object Storage
Editions & Modules
Block Blobs
$0.0081
per GB/per month
Azure Data Lake Storage
$0.0081
per GB/per month
Files
$0.058
per GB/per month
Managed Discs
$1.54
per month
Lite Plan
Free
Up to 25 GB/mo. For all terms go to https://www.ibm.com/cloud/object-storage
Standard Plan
There is no minimum fee, pay only for what you use
For pricing and all terms go to https://www.ibm.com/cloud/object-storage
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Blob StorageIBM Cloud Object Storage
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe Lite and Standard service plans for Cloud Object Storage include resiliency options, flexible data classes and built-in security. Pricing is based on the choice of location, storage class and resiliency choice.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Azure Blob StorageIBM Cloud Object Storage
Considered Both Products
Azure Blob Storage

No answer on this topic

IBM Cloud Object Storage
Chose IBM Cloud Object Storage
Along with IBM Watson for AI and machine learning, IBM Aspera for fast data transport, and IBM Cloud SQL Query for data analysis, IBM Cloud Object Storage works seamlessly with other IBM Cloud services. For research initiatives that call for a variety of tools and services, …
Chose IBM Cloud Object Storage
Better price consistency, performance and flexibility.
Chose IBM Cloud Object Storage
I chose IBM Cloud Object Storage for my personal account because it's free and also doesn't need credit card to register. I also found that IBM Cloud Object Storage is easy to understand. I signed up for IBM data science courses on Coursera which has a lot of helpful resource …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Azure Blob StorageIBM Cloud Object Storage
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Azure Blob Storage
-
Ratings
IBM Cloud Object Storage
8.2
145 Ratings
2% above category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.0133 Ratings
Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.2135 Ratings
Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.2132 Ratings
Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.0135 Ratings
Security controls00 Ratings8.5140 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Azure Blob StorageIBM Cloud Object Storage
Small Businesses
Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage
Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage
Score 9.7 out of 10
Amazon S3
Amazon S3
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Google Cloud Storage
Google Cloud Storage
Score 9.1 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Google Cloud Storage
Google Cloud Storage
Score 9.1 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Azure Blob StorageIBM Cloud Object Storage
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(9 ratings)
8.5
(149 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(1 ratings)
7.4
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(3 ratings)
9.1
(8 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
5.8
(4 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Blob StorageIBM Cloud Object Storage
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
Blob storage is well suited to hosting/sharing zipped files rather than several smaller files, as folder enumeration/listing is not supported. Files uploaded are case-sensitive, so users need to be educated on the correct naming convention format if they are delegating the file-sharing process outside of IT.
Read full review
IBM
In my experience, IBM Cloud Object Storage is well suited for projects like the one I am working on. This includes the use of natural language classification and the uploading of data to train a machine learning model for tag suggestions based on a body of text. Using IBM Cloud Object Storage has helped with this greatly. IBM Cloud Object Storage has also been great for Big Data Analytics thanks to its scalablilty and ease of use for large datasets. Alongside IBM Watson and our team's internal big data tools we've managed to process and analyze data more efficiently, leading to key insights that have driven business value for our clients.
Read full review
Pros
Microsoft
  • Easy to work with - drag and drop
  • Capable of long term retention
  • Relatively low cost
  • Good for different data formats
  • Allows archival storage
Read full review
IBM
  • IBM Cloud Object Storage is an excellent choice for disaster recovery and backup solutions. Its high durability and geographic redundancy ensure that our backup data is safe and can be quickly restored in case of a disaster. This capability is crucial for maintaining our business continuity and minimizing downtime. We have deployed our loads in an IKS cluster distributed in 3 different AZs with stateful data allocated in COS.
  • We have a video streaming application and need to store and deliver a vast library of video content to millions of users worldwide, so we store our data in COS, which is cheap and reliable.
  • We have a bunch of data that must be analyzed and stored in datasets for fraud detection, risk management, and customer insights. In these cases, this data is moved from Onprem to IBM Cloud so we can use cheap storage like COS.
Read full review
Cons
Microsoft
  • If we are transferring huge amount of data (outbound), it can get quite expensive.
  • With new features being added constantly, although a good thing, at times it becomes difficult to keep up with the changes. Documentation needs to keep UpToDate and should include best practices.
  • Performance can be improved especially when it comes to cold storage.
Read full review
IBM
  • Searching and retrieving—full-text search or metadata search—is one of the significant areas of improvement. It isn't easy to search for data with this.
  • Integration with other IBM cloud services is trickier. For example, integrating this with API Connect to access the data from API will be difficult for users.
  • Support - I think you should have more support community.
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
IBM
because it is a robust, safe and flexible product
Read full review
Usability
Microsoft
Blob storage is fairly simple, with several different options/settings that can be configured. The file explorer has enhanced its usability. Some areas could be improved, such as providing more details or stats on how many times a file has been accessed. It is an obvious choice if you're already using Azure/Entra.
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IBM
For my use cases, it has been a very smooth experience. Even my new colleagues have been able to get on top of things very quickly. This shows how easy it is to work with
Read full review
Support Rating
Microsoft
Microsoft has improved its customer service standpoint over the years. The ability to chat with an issue, get a callback, schedule a call or work with an architecture team(for free) is a huge plus. I can get mentorship and guidance on where to go with my environment without pushy sales tactics. This is very refreshing. Typically support can get me to where I need to be on the first contact, which is also nice.
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IBM
I have been working in IT sector for more than 15 years. I have worked with various vendors. IBM's sales team, support team have been really helpful. After we start to use their product, their UX design team also contacted us to get feedback from us. They are really interested about our experience.
Read full review
Online Training
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
IBM
I just researching and applying the tools on their platforms to ensure a good learning path, based on my needs. Reading the documentation related with resources, tools. Is too big, but I am trying to know more about it every day. It is a good way to know more about their resources. A new way to attract new customers. At the end of the day, we are all involved in improvement and automation of our tasks and resources for customers and end-users.
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Implementation Rating
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
IBM
Yes Our organization used IBM professional services to implement IBM object storage because of its data consistency and multiple way to upload and download data and its encryption security features. Also that its brand matter for the any organization to secure the layer and storage. It sis also verify that application and system are compatibale for this product
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Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Azure Blob Storage is the best choice to store files when the app runs in Azure. It also has some advantages over S3, like Shared Access Signatures, that make it easy to control access to files directly via a URL. Azure Blob Storage is very fast and we have not had any major issues with it after using it for several years.
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IBM
Amazon S3 is a great service to safely back up your data where redundancy is guaranteed, and the cost is fair. In the past I have used 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. Amazon S3 service is a good option, but based on the features it provides compared with IBM Cloud Object Storage, it is less suitable. IBM Cloud Object Storage is also integrated with more services, like IBM Cloud SQL and IBM Aspera, which AWS does not provide to transfer files at maximum speed in the world.
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • Azure has increased the flexibility of where we place data within our organization.
  • It has proven to be very reliable and always accessible.
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IBM
  • This allows us to recommend a platform to our clients that will quickly help them create new, efficient business processes with very little development.
  • This saves clients hours and days of manual analysis of images, allowing the system to do the work when attaching Object Storage to models.
  • There is a learning curve in utilizing the storage and the modeling, but once up and running, it works well during deployment.
Read full review
ScreenShots

IBM Cloud Object Storage Screenshots

Screenshot of Cloud Object Storage set upScreenshot of storage bucket creationScreenshot of the Access Management interfaceScreenshot of the interface to create, add and management of Storage BucketsScreenshot of data uploadingScreenshot of usage details