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Amazon S3 Glacier pros and cons

Vendor: Amazon Web Services (AWS)

4.3 out of 5

43 reviews
91% willing to recommend

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Pros & Cons summary

Amazon S3 Glacier offers a low-cost storage solution ideal for infrequently accessed data, integrating seamlessly with Amazon S3 for automatic regional replication. It ensures robust security and scalability, supported by AWS documentation. Users face retrieval delays, high retrieval costs, and billing complexities. Technical support is slow, and GDPR compliance needs improvement, posing challenges in data management. AWS Lambda integration provides efficient code operation handling but technical issues affect user experience.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Amazon S3 Glacier offers an attractive low-cost storage solution, especially beneficial for data that is infrequently accessed.

It seamlessly integrates with Amazon S3 and automatically replicates objects between regions.

The platform provides robust security, compliance, and scalability features, making it suitable for large-scale storage needs.

It's highly stable and reliable, with extensive AWS documentation supporting easy implementation and maintenance.

AWS Lambda integration is valuable, providing an interface for handling code operations efficiently.

CONS

Amazon S3 Glacier's response time for data retrieval is slow, with users experiencing delays between four to seven hours.

The cost of data retrieval is high in comparison to other AWS storage services, leading to concerns about pricing and affordability.

Technical support needs improvement, with slower response times and difficulties reaching knowledgeable staff.

There are issues with billing, making it complicated to resolve problems and understand the pricing structure.

Amazon S3 Glacier faces challenges with GDPR compliance and new data protection legislation, requiring enhancements in data retention and deletion capabilities.

Amazon S3 Glacier Pros review quotes

Technical Owner at Harman International

Feb 18, 2025

Amazon S3 Glacier offers robust security features and practically infinite storage, where we can store all kinds of media swiftly.

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Sr. Data Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sep 26, 2025

The value of Amazon S3 Glacier for us is the lower cost. We put files there and tend not to touch them afterward.

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MA

Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global

Nov 4, 2024

Its auto-scaling capabilities allow us to add data continuously without needing to pre-provision storage.

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Amazon S3 Glacier

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Learn what your peers think about Amazon S3 Glacier. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2026.

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SR

Sreenivasulu Royala

Big Data Principal at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Feb 20, 2025

The most valuable feature of Glacier is its storage capability and cost benefit.

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AM

Server Administrator at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Jun 20, 2025

The cost is high, which I think is one of the best features of the product.

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Manager, Strategic Alliances at Softcell Technologies Limited

Jan 19, 2024

Amazon S3 Glacier is scalable, flexible, easy to maintain and handle.

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SP

Sucharita Prabhakar

Solution architect at Cargill

Mar 18, 2024

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

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Engineering manager at IDFC Bank

Feb 1, 2024

The solution is secure.

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Shambhu Narayan Singh

IT Manager at Axis Securities Limited

Nov 22, 2023

Amazon S3 Glacier is a scalable and easy-to-manage solution with good read-write capability.

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Geographic Information System Developer at Public Sector

Nov 8, 2023

AWS Lambda is the most valuable part of the solution because it gives you a code interface for everything.

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Amazon S3 Glacier Cons review quotes

Technical Owner at Harman International

Feb 18, 2025

There is room for improvement in terms of support

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Sr. Data Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sep 26, 2025

The support could be improved by having specialized support staff. When we submit a question, it gets passed between multiple people before finding the right expert.

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MA

Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global

Nov 4, 2024

I would like to see improvements in the transfer rate as it takes quite a long time to retrieve data from Glacier compared to standard S3 storage.

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Amazon S3 Glacier

Free Report: Amazon S3 Glacier Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Amazon S3 Glacier. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2026.

917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.

SR

Sreenivasulu Royala

Big Data Principal at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Feb 20, 2025

The cost of retrieval in Glacier is quite high.

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AM

Server Administrator at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Jun 20, 2025

Pricing is my concern; this is the only concern so far.

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Manager, Strategic Alliances at Softcell Technologies Limited

Jan 19, 2024

Amazon S3 Glacier could be more secure.

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SP

Sucharita Prabhakar

Solution architect at Cargill

Mar 18, 2024

I am unsure if the product provides good integration capabilities. From an improvement perspective, I want the tool to provide easier integration features.

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Engineering manager at IDFC Bank

Feb 1, 2024

The learning curve is very high.

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Shambhu Narayan Singh

IT Manager at Axis Securities Limited

Nov 22, 2023

The solution's dashboard is a bit complicated and could be improved.

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Geographic Information System Developer at Public Sector

Nov 8, 2023

Their pricing structure is always a big topic. It's so difficult to understand.

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