The Great Cloud Storage Showdown: SharePoint vs Azure Files vs Blob Storage

Picture this: You’re sipping lukewarm coffee, your inbox is full of “URGENT: FTP ACCESS NEEDED” emails, and your boss just asked you to “make it serverless, secure, and scalable… by lunch.” Welcome to the thrilling world of cloud storage decision-making.

Today’s episode: Which storage service should you use for your serverless FTP site? Our contenders: SharePoint, Azure Files, and Azure Blob Storage. Let’s meet the cast.

🧙‍♂️ SharePoint: The Corporate Sorcerer

Pros:

• Integrates beautifully with Microsoft 365.

• Great for document collaboration.

• Comes with versioning, permissions, and enough governance to make your compliance officer weep with joy.

Cons:

• FTP? LOL. SharePoint doesn’t do FTP. It does “document libraries” and “metadata” and “why is this file locked again?”

• More suited for humans than machines. If your FTP users are robots or scripts, SharePoint will ghost them.

Verdict: Use SharePoint if your “FTP site” is actually a bunch of Excel files that Karen from HR wants to co-author with Bob from Finance.

🧰 Azure Files: The Network Drive That Went to the Cloud

Pros:

• SMB protocol support = drop-in replacement for your old-school file server.

• Works with Azure File Sync if you’re into hybrid setups.

• Supports FTP via Azure VM or container with an FTP server.

Cons:

• Slightly more setup required for serverless scenarios.

• Costs can add up if you’re not careful with access patterns.

Verdict: Azure Files is your go-to if your users still think “drag and drop” is the pinnacle of UX and you want to keep them happy without explaining what a blob is.

☁️ Azure Blob Storage: The Cool, Scalable Millennial

Pros:

• Cheap, fast, and infinitely scalable.

• REST APIs, lifecycle management, and static website hosting.

• Works great with serverless tools like Azure Functions and Logic Apps.

Cons:

• No native FTP support (but you can fake it with tools like Azure FTP Gateway or custom functions).

• Not ideal for users who expect a Windows Explorer-style interface.

Verdict: Blob Storage is perfect if your FTP site is really just a glorified file drop for apps, scripts, or that one DevOps engineer who insists on automating everything.

Final Scene: The Decision

So which one wins?

• If your users are humans who love Office 365 → SharePoint.

• If your users are humans who love mapped drives → Azure Files.

• If your users are machines, scripts, or cloud-native apps → Azure Blob Storage.

And if you’re still unsure? Just tell your boss you’re “evaluating hybrid cloud strategies” and go make another coffee.