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Windows Azure Storage Explorers

Windows Azure Storage Explorers


We get a few queries every now and then on the availability of utilities for Windows Azure Storage and decided to put together a list of the storage explorers we know of. The tools are all Windows Azure Storage explorers that can be used to enumerate and/or transfer data to and from blobs, tables or queues. Many of these are free and some come with evaluation periods.

I should point out that we have not verified the functionality claimed by these utilities and their listing does not imply an endorsement by Microsoft. Since these applications have not been verified, it is possible that they could exhibit undesirable behavior.

Do also note that the table below is a snapshot of what we are currently aware of and we fully expect that these tools will continue to evolve and grow in functionality. If there are corrections or updates, please click on the email link on the right and let us know. Likewise if you know of tools that ought to be here, we’d be happy to add them.

In the below table, we list each Windows Azure Storage explorer, and then put an “X” in each block if it provides the ability to either enumerate and/or access the data abstraction. The last column indicates if the explorer is free or not.

(Table updated on 1/5/2011)

Windows Azure Storage
Explorer

Block Blob

Page Blob

Tables

Queues

Free

Azure Blob Studio 2011

X

X

.

.

Y

Azure Blob Compressor
Enables compressing blobs for upload and download

X

.

.

.

Y

Azure Blob Explorer

X

.

.

.

Y

Azure Storage Explorer

X

X

X

X

Y

Azure Storage Explorer for Eclipse

X

X

X

X

Y

Azure Storage Simple Viewer

X

.

X

X

Y

Azure Web Storage Explorer A portal to access blobs, tables and queues

X

X

X

X

Y

Cerebrata Cloud Storage Studio

X

X

X

X

Y/N

Cloud Berry Explorer

X

X

.

.

Y

Clumsy Leaf Azure Explorer
Visual studio plug-in

X

X

X

X

Y/N

Factonomy Azure Utility

X

.

.

.

Y

Gladinet Cloud Desktop

X

.

.

.

Y

MyAzureStorage.com
A portal to access blobs, tables and queues

X

X

X

X

Y

Space Block

X

.

.

.

Y

Windows Azure Management Tool

X

X

X

X

Y

Windows Azure Storage Explorer for Visual Studio 2010

X

X

X

.

Y

Dinesh Haridas

Comments (15)

  1. Joannes Vermorel says:

    Thanks for sharing those links. Actually, I am rather surprised that Microsoft itself isn’t working on a product equivalent to the "SQL Management Studio". This product is one of the killer-feature of SQL Server, the piece that really stands out of the competition.

    Expecting the community to deliver an equivalent product for Windows Azure looks risky to me and the ‘NDoc’ story is likely to repeat. Not mentioning that storage management is super-mission critical and evolve a very high level of trust in the 3rd party tool.

  2. Nor free marked as free says:

    Clumsy Leaf Azure Explorer  is not free as marked. It's $50 per license.

  3. Tzafrir says:

    None of the above is a web application, is there a web explorer?

    When you upload a new package, you can browse your blob to located it in storage. I'd like to have similar web functionality rather than simple win form app

  4. Dinesh says:

    Cerebrata for one offers a browser based storage explorer. It requires a Silverlight enabled browser and currently is free to use

  5. David Pallmann says:

    I thought I'd mention that version 4 of Azure Storage Explorer is out and now suppports page blobs.

    azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com/…/basic

  6. Alessandro Del Sole [MVP] says:

    Hi, I would like to let you know that my Azure Blob Client is now "Azure Blob Studio 2011", with new features targeting Windows Azure SDK 1.3. It is now also available both as a stand-alone WPF client and as an extension for Visual Studio 2010. With async support now things go better 🙂

    The updated URL is: azureblobstudio.codeplex.com

    Thanks for the mention!

  7. Require better tool from MS says:

    I would feel MS should develop one better tool which will give more information like :

    1. Query -> result

    2. Time took for processing

    3. Request id's

    4. Diagnostic information.

  8. Vitor Ciaramella says:

    You can also use the Blob Transfer Utility to download and upload all your blob files.

    It's a tool to handle thousands of (small/large) blob transfers in a effective way.

    Binaries and source code, here: http://bit.ly/blobtransfer

  9. Mark Rendle says:

    Please could you add Zudio to the list? It's a full-on web-based management studio for Blobs, Tables and Queues, with a one month free trial and very reasonable subscription rates.

    https://zud.io/

  10. Guy says:

    Thanks for the great list!

    Is that list updated? Can you mark which OS is supported?

    (I'm looking for tools that are running on Ubuntu)

    Thanks

  11. alex.s.gap@windowslive.com says:

    A new kid on the block – Cloud Combine. Just like "SQL Management Studio" but for Azure and some other clouds.

    Not so many features yet but it is HQ and just works the way it should:

    http://www.gapotchenko.com/cloudcombine

  12. Ben says:

    None of these appear to work on Mac.  Is that the case?  Its not possible to manage Azure storage from a Mac???

    Many thanks,

    Ben

  13. Andy says:

    @mark – zud.io is web based.

  14. Jianping Zhou says:

    If you want to synchronize files with Windows Azure Storage, I recommend you to use BestSync.

    http://www.risefly.com/fsedwld.htm

    BestSync finds the difference between the local folder and Azure Storage container, and download and upload only changed files by flexible schedule.

  15. Ramin says:

    A tool developed by Microsoft would be a good idea. Azure storage explorer for example is just too slow: The UI blocks too often, too long.

    Can you add a column to your overview giving a rating for the performance of the tools?

    Thank you!