To put it shortly - it’s really hard to choose between Microsoft Azure Blob and Amazon S3 and it’s classes. Here’s the table, so you can compare the prices for storage. These are prices to store 1GB/month.
Google Cloud Storage comes in 3-rd.
However, there are concepts we should take into account to fully evaluate the proposition.
Currently all of the big three, Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage and Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, has different storage classes, aimed towards different usage scenarios:
HOT — durable, available and performance object storage for frequently accessed data
COOL — storage class for data that is accessed less frequently, but requires rapid access when needed
COLD — secure, durable, and low-cost storage service for data archiving
While HOT storage is pretty straightforward - you pay for the storage, COOL andCOLD storage tiers are a bit trickier.
They were designed for the files, that might not need to be accessed that frequently. Thus, all three of the providers has a so-called early deletion fee for both, COOL and COLD storage classes.
This fee is, effectively, takes place when you move or delete any piece of data, prior to the early deletion period. These periods are:
COOL Class:
Amazon S3 IA/Z-IA - 30 days
Microsoft Azure Blob Cool Tier - 30 days,
Google Cloud Nearline - 30 days
COLD Class:
Amazon Glacier - 90 days
Google Coldline - 90 days
Microsoft Azure Archive Blob - 180 days
In this table you can find (if you look really hard) the prices for early deletion fees.
Last, but not the least, you should take into account - transfer out prices (prices to download data, whenever necessary) and prices for requests. They are more or less the same in all storage solutions, so we won’t analyze them this time