8 Best AWS S3 Alternatives (2026)
The closest alternatives to AWS S3 are Backblaze B2, Bunny Storage, Cloudflare R2 and DigitalOcean Spaces, with 4 more below. Each shares a comparison category with it, so every rationale here names both tools' real values. AWS S3 is 11th of 11 on Egress $/TB ($90 /TB) — usually where a switch starts.
Why do people look for AWS S3 alternatives?
Most people searching for AWS S3 alternatives are not shopping — they already run it and something has stopped fitting. That something is usually a specific number rather than a feeling, so this page starts from the fields where AWS S3 genuinely trails the rosters it appears in, and only then covers the reasons that never show up in a table.
The measured reasons.
- Egress $/TB — $90 /TB, the weakest of the 11 here. Cloudflare R2 records $0 /TB.
- True cost /mo (USD) — $472.6 /mo, the weakest of the 9 here. Hetzner Object Storage records $12.47 /mo.
- Storage $/TB/mo — $23 /TB/mo, the weakest of the 11 here. Storj records $4 /TB/mo.
- True cost /mo (AUD) — A$718.35 /mo, the weakest of the 9 here. Hetzner Object Storage records A$18.95 /mo.
- Class A $/M ops — $5 /M ops, 11th of 12. Backblaze B2 records $0 /M ops.
Any one of those is enough on its own if you sized your architecture around it. None of them is enough if you didn't — which is why the list is short and specific rather than a general case against AWS S3.
The reasons that never make it into a table. A price rise after a funding round. A licence change that turns a self-host into a subscription. A region you now need and they do not have. An acquisition. A support experience that quietly degrades. None of those are fields, and all of them move teams — which is why every entry below links back to S3-compatible storage, where the full field set and its sources live. The ones we catch get logged on the AWS S3 timeline.
How the shortlist is ordered. Every tool below shares at least one comparison category with AWS S3, sorted by how many categories the two overlap in. There is no editorial ranking, no sponsorship and no affiliate link — the order is the overlap count, and the rationale under each is generated from the two tools' own cells, so it names real values rather than adjectives.
1.
Backblaze B2
Backblaze B2 — Cheap US and EU object storage with free egress up to three times stored volume. It meets AWS S3 in S3-compatible storage. It is ahead on True cost /mo (USD) ($26.95 /mo against $472.6 /mo), Egress $/TB ($10 /TB against $90 /TB) and True cost /mo (AUD) (A$40.96 /mo against A$718.35 /mo). What you give up: Sydney region (No, where AWS S3 records Yes) and Official MCP server (No, where AWS S3 records Yes). Best for backup and archive targets where object lock matters and latency does not. The sensible middle: cheap, boring, feature-complete enough, and the Bandwidth Alliance makes egress free outright if Cloudflare or Fastly is already in your stack. The absence of any APAC region is the single reason to rule it out for Australian workloads.
- True cost /mo (AUD)
- A$40.96 /moAWS S3: A$718.35 /mo Inferredverified 2026-07-23
- Official MCP server
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferred
2.Bunny Storage
Bunny Storage — Edge storage built as a CDN origin, with its own API rather than a faithful S3 one. It meets AWS S3 in S3-compatible storage. It is ahead on Egress $/TB ($10 /TB against $90 /TB), True cost /mo (USD) ($60 /mo against $472.6 /mo) and Class A $/M ops ($0 /M ops against $5 /M ops). What you give up: S3 API coverage (30 %, where AWS S3 records 100 %) and Versioning (No, where AWS S3 records Yes). Best for static sites, images and video served to a global audience through Bunny's CDN. Included because people shortlist it against S3 providers, but it is a CDN origin with storage attached rather than an object store with a CDN attached. Superb Sydney delivery; do not expect S3 semantics, and read the regional egress table before modelling the cost.
- S3 API coverage
- 30 %AWS S3: 100 % Inferred
- Versioning
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferred
- Object lock / WORM
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferred
- Lifecycle rules
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferred
3.
Cloudflare R2
Cloudflare R2 — S3-compatible object storage with zero egress fees, on Cloudflare's network. It meets AWS S3 in S3-compatible storage. It is ahead on Egress $/TB ($0 /TB against $90 /TB), True cost /mo (USD) ($22.74 /mo against $472.6 /mo) and True cost /mo (AUD) (A$34.56 /mo against A$718.35 /mo). What you give up: Versioning (No, where AWS S3 records Yes) and IAM granularity (3, where AWS S3 records 5). Best for public assets, media and package registries where egress dwarfs storage. The default answer for anything read-heavy, and the only provider here where egress genuinely stops being a line item you have to model. Watch the $4.50 per million Class A charge on write-heavy workloads, remember that 'Oceania' is a hint rather than a region, and check that you are not quietly depending on versioning — R2 does not implement it, which is a bigger gap than the zero-egress headline lets people notice.
- True cost /mo (AUD)
- A$34.56 /moAWS S3: A$718.35 /mo Inferredverified 2026-07-23
- IAM granularity
- 3AWS S3: 5 Inferred
- True cost from Sydney (AUD)
- A$34.56 /moAWS S3: A$900.14 /mo Inferredverified 2026-07-23
4.
DigitalOcean Spaces
DigitalOcean Spaces — Bundled object storage plus free CDN, priced as a flat base fee with overages. It meets AWS S3 in S3-compatible storage. It is ahead on Egress $/TB ($10 /TB against $90 /TB), True cost /mo (USD) ($60 /mo against $472.6 /mo) and Class A $/M ops ($0 /M ops against $5 /M ops). What you give up: Versioning (No, where AWS S3 records Yes) and Object lock / WORM (No, where AWS S3 records Yes). Best for static assets and user uploads served from Sydney with a bundled CDN. Buy it for the bundling and the Sydney region, not the feature set. No versioning and no bucket events rules it out as a system of record; as a CDN-fronted asset bucket sitting next to your Droplets it is genuinely convenient and hard to misbudget.
- Versioning
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferredverified 2026-07-23
- Object lock / WORM
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferred
- Event notifications
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferred
5.
Hetzner Object Storage
Hetzner Object Storage — The cheapest credible S3 endpoint in Europe, with a deliberately thin feature set. It meets AWS S3 in S3-compatible storage. It is ahead on Egress $/TB ($1.38 /TB against $90 /TB), True cost /mo (USD) ($12.47 /mo against $472.6 /mo) and True cost /mo (AUD) (A$18.95 /mo against A$718.35 /mo). What you give up: Sydney region (No, where AWS S3 records Yes) and Object lock / WORM (No, where AWS S3 records Yes). Best for CI artefacts, build caches and cold backups where the bill is the point. Wins the headline number by a mile and loses the feature comparison by a similar margin. No object lock, ambiguous versioning, no notifications, no APAC location, no published durability figure — brilliant for build caches and cold backups, wrong for a system of record.
- Object lock / WORM
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferred
- TTFB from Sydney
- 300 msAWS S3: 25 ms Inferred
- Event notifications
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferred
6.iDrive e2
iDrive e2 — USD 4/TB S3-compatible storage with zero-egress marketing and a fair-use cap. It meets AWS S3 in S3-compatible storage. It is ahead on Egress $/TB ($0 /TB against $90 /TB), Storage $/TB/mo ($4 /TB/mo against $23 /TB/mo) and Class A $/M ops ($0 /M ops against $5 /M ops). What you give up: Event notifications (No, where AWS S3 records Yes) and Official MCP server (No, where AWS S3 records Yes). Best for backup and MSP workloads where storage volume dominates and reads are rare. The cheapest storage rate here alongside Storj, with object lock included, and the least legible egress terms in the roster — legible enough that we will not put a number in the cost column for it. Fine as a backup target, where you store far more than you read; do not build a public asset pipeline on a fair-use cap you cannot find written down.
- Event notifications
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferred
- Official MCP server
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferred
- CDN integration
- noneAWS S3: first-party-paid Inferred
7.
MinIO
MinIO — The self-hosted S3 reference implementation — your hardware, your bandwidth, your SLA. It meets AWS S3 in S3-compatible storage. It is ahead on Class A $/M ops ($0 /M ops against $5 /M ops), Class B $/M ops ($0 /M ops against $0.4 /M ops) and GA year (2015 against 2006). What you give up: CDN integration (diy, where AWS S3 records first-party-paid). Best for on-premises or air-gapped deployments where data cannot leave your control. The reference point rather than a competitor: it shows you what full S3 fidelity looks like and therefore what you are giving up when you buy cheap. Worth running only if you already operate storage hardware — and note the community build lost its admin console in 2025, which changed a lot of people's assumptions about what 'free and complete' meant. Note that we carry MinIO as the do-it-yourself baseline in that roster — the "what if we just ran this ourselves" reference point. The honest answer is usually that it is cheaper and considerably more work.
- Class A $/M ops
- $0 /M opsAWS S3: $5 /M ops Inferred
- Class B $/M ops
- $0 /M opsAWS S3: $0.4 /M ops Inferred
- CDN integration
- diyAWS S3: first-party-paid Inferred
- GA year
- 2,015AWS S3: 2006 Inferred
- Replication model
- erasure-codedAWS S3: multi-az Inferred
- S3 API coverage
- 98 %AWS S3: 100 % Inferred
8.
Scaleway Object Storage
Scaleway Object Storage — European-sovereign S3 storage with multi-AZ classes and a real IAM system. It meets AWS S3 in S3-compatible storage. It is ahead on Egress $/TB ($11.6 /TB against $90 /TB), True cost /mo (USD) ($72.8 /mo against $472.6 /mo) and Class A $/M ops ($0 /M ops against $5 /M ops). What you give up: Sydney region (No, where AWS S3 records Yes) and TTFB from Sydney (300 ms, where AWS S3 records 25 ms). Best for EU data residency obligations with a European legal entity behind them. The most feature-complete of the non-hyperscalers — genuine IAM, multi-AZ placement, object lock, real lifecycle rules — and irrelevant for Australian traffic at 300 ms away. Pick it when EU data residency is a requirement rather than a preference.
- Sydney region
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferredverified 2026-07-23
- TTFB from Sydney
- 300 msAWS S3: 25 ms Inferred
- Official MCP server
- NoAWS S3: Yes Inferred
How this list was built
There is no editorial ranking on this page and no sponsorship behind it. The order is mechanical: every tool that shares a comparison category with AWS S3, sorted by how many categories the two overlap in. A tool that meets AWS S3 in three rosters sits above one that meets it in a single roster, because more overlap means the comparison is more like-for-like.
The rationale under each entry is composed from the two tools' own cells. Where they differ on a field we score, the sentence names both values and the unit. Where they don't differ, it says so instead of manufacturing a distinction — which is why some entries are short.
Values, sources and verification dates all live on the category tables: S3-compatible storage. If a figure here disagrees with a vendor's current pricing page, the vendor is right and we are stale.
Still deciding whether to move at all? The AWS S3 profile has the when-to-use and when-not-to-use blocks, and the AWS S3 timeline has the dated changes that usually trigger a migration.