File and object storage
Object storage keeps uploaded files and media outside your app server.
Use for: User uploads, images, video, archives and backups.
S3-compatible object storage on Akamai Cloud (formerly Linode) for a flat $5 a month with 250 GB of storage, 1 TB of transfer and no request fees.
The original cloud object storage service, with eight storage classes, deep AWS integration and per-request, per-GB storage and egress billing.
Microsoft's object storage with Hot, Cool, Cold and Archive tiers, a choice of redundancy levels and per-operation and egress billing.
S3-compatible hot storage at $6.95 per TB-month with free egress up to three times what you store, free API calls and the first 10 GB free.
Pay-as-you-go storage from the CDN company bunny.net, replicated to up to 15 regions, with free API egress and a $1 monthly minimum.
S3-compatible object storage from Cloudflare that charges nothing for egress, with a 10 GB free tier and native bindings for Workers.
Image and video management platform with storage, URL-based transformations and CDN delivery, billed in credits shared across storage, bandwidth and transformations.
S3-compatible object storage for $5 a month including 250 GiB of storage, 1 TiB of transfer and a built-in CDN, from the developer-focused cloud.
Lightweight open-source S3-compatible object store designed to run on modest, mixed hardware spread across several sites, from the Deuxfleurs team.
Google Cloud's object storage with four storage classes, regional, dual-region and multi-region buckets, and a small always-free allowance in three US regions.
German S3-compatible object storage with a flat monthly base that includes 1 TB of storage and 1 TB of egress, free API calls and EU-only locations.
Budget S3-compatible hot storage from the IDrive backup company, with free API calls, free egress up to 3x storage and discounted yearly plans.
Real-time image and video optimisation CDN with an integrated media library, a forever-free plan and paid plans billed on bandwidth and storage.
Once the default self-hosted S3 server; its AGPL community edition is now archived and unmaintained, and development continues only in the commercial AIStor product.
French S3-compatible object storage with five classes from NVMe to tape, and no charges for egress, ingress or API calls.
French S3-compatible object storage with Multi-AZ, One Zone and Glacier classes, no request fees and 75 GB of free egress each month.
Apache-licensed distributed storage that serves S3 objects, POSIX files, WebDAV, HDFS and Iceberg tables from one cluster, with a paid Enterprise edition.
S3-compatible object storage that erasure-codes data across thousands of independent nodes worldwide, at $7 per TB stored and $7 per TB of egress.
Open-source Postgres platform that bundles a dedicated database with auth, file storage, edge functions, realtime and auto-generated REST and GraphQL APIs.
S3-compatible object storage that distributes data across regions behind one global endpoint, with zero egress fees and a free tier.
Hosted file uploading, storage, image and video processing and CDN delivery, billed by operations, with a personal-use free plan and paid plans from $66 a month.
Managed file uploads for full-stack TypeScript apps: type-safe upload routes, drop-in components and hosted storage with unlimited downloads, from $0 for 2 GB.
S3-compatible object storage from Vultr in five performance tiers, each a monthly bundle with 1 TB of storage and 1 TB of transfer and no request fees.
S3-compatible hot storage at one flat per-TB price with no egress or API fees, but a 1 TB monthly minimum and 90-day minimum retention.
| Tool | Pricing | Free tier | Storage (per GB/mo) | Egress | S3 API |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Akamai Object Storage (Linode) linode.com · EU | Paid | None ($5/mo flat rate) | 250 GB in $5/mo, then $0.02/GB | 1 TB added to pool, then $0.005/GB | Yes |
| Amazon S3 aws.amazon.com · EU | Paid | No always-free S3 allowance; new accounts get up to $200 credit | $0.023/GB-month (Standard, first 50 TB, us-east-1) | $0.09/GB first 10 TB; first 100 GB/mo free account-wide | Yes (the reference S3 API) |
| Azure Blob Storage azure.microsoft.com · EU | Paid | None always free; 12-month offers for new accounts | About $0.018/GB-month (Hot LRS, first 50 TB) | First 100 GB/mo free, then $0.087/GB (NA/EU) | No (own Blob API) |
| Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage backblaze.com · EU | Freemium | First 10 GB always free | $6.95/TB-month (about $0.00695/GB) | Free up to 3x stored; then $0.01/GB; free to partner CDNs | Yes |
| Bunny Storage bunny.net · EU | Paid | None ($1 monthly minimum) | $0.01/GB per region (HDD); $0.02/GB (Edge SSD) | API egress free; public delivery billed via Bunny CDN | Yes, in public preview (chosen at zone creation) |
| Cloudflare R2 cloudflare.com · EU | Freemium | 10 GB, 1M writes, 10M reads per month | $0.015/GB-month Standard; $0.01 Infrequent Access | Free | Yes |
| Cloudinary cloudinary.com | Freemium | 25 credits/month (e.g. 25 GB storage or bandwidth) | 1 credit per GB (credits shared with bandwidth) | 1 credit per GB image bandwidth; video 2 GB per credit on paid | No (own upload and delivery APIs) |
| DigitalOcean Spaces digitalocean.com · EU | Paid | None ($5/mo subscription) | 250 GiB in $5/mo, then $0.02/GiB; cold $0.007/GiB | 1 TiB included, then $0.01/GiB; built-in CDN free | Yes |
| Garage garagehq.deuxfleurs.fr · OSS | Open source | Free software (AGPLv3), self-hosted | Your own hardware | Your own network | Yes (core API; no versioning or ACL/policies) |
| Google Cloud Storage cloud.google.com · EU | Freemium | 5 GB, 5K Class A, 50K Class B, 100 GB egress (3 US regions) | About $0.020/GB-month (Standard, us-central1) | $0.12/GB first 10 TiB (most destinations) | Partial (XML API with HMAC keys is S3-interoperable) |
| Hetzner Object Storage hetzner.com · EU | Paid | None (base price includes 1 TB + 1 TB) | 1 TB in €6.49/mo base; overage billed per TB-hour | 1 TB included, then €1.00/TB | Yes (subset of S3 actions) |
| IDrive e2 idrive.com · EU | Paid | None (1 TB minimum at $6/mo) | $0.006/GB-month pay-as-you-go; yearly from $59.50/TB | Free up to 3x stored, then $0.01/GB | Yes |
| ImageKit imagekit.io | Freemium | 20 GB bandwidth, 3 GB storage per month | Pro: 225 GB included, then $0.09/GB | Pro: 225 GB included, then $0.45/GB | No (connects to S3 and other origins) |
| MinIO (AIStor) min.io · OSS | Open source | AGPL community source (archived); AIStor Free single-node | Your own hardware | Your own network | Yes |
| OVHcloud Object Storage ovhcloud.com · EU | Paid | None; new customers get US$200 trial credit | ≈€0.0071/GiB-month Standard 1-AZ; ≈€0.014 3-AZ | Free | Yes |
| Scaleway Object Storage scaleway.com · EU | Paid | No free storage; first 75 GB egress/month free | ≈€0.016/GB-month Multi-AZ; €0.008 One Zone; €0.0025 Glacier | 75 GB/mo free, then €0.01/GB | Yes |
| SeaweedFS seaweedfs.com · OSS | Open source | Open source (Apache 2.0); Enterprise free for dev/test under 25 TB | Your own hardware; Enterprise licence $2/TB-month | Your own network | Yes |
| Storj storj.io | Paid | 30-day free trial only; $5 monthly minimum | $7/TB-month Standard; $10/TB Advanced | $7/TB ($0.007/GB) | Yes |
| Supabase supabase.com · OSS · EU | Freemium | ||||
| Tigris tigrisdata.com · EU | Freemium | 5 GB, 10K Class A, 100K Class B per month | $0.02/GB-month Standard; $0.004 Archive | Free (including region-to-region) | Yes (over 90% of the S3 API) |
| Uploadcare uploadcare.com | Freemium | 1 GB storage, 5 GB traffic, 1,000 ops; personal use | 10 GB in Pro, then $0.35/GB; Business $0.25/GB | 25 GB in Pro, then $0.35/GB | No (own upload and REST APIs; can back up to S3) |
| UploadThing uploadthing.com | Freemium | 2 GB storage, unlimited uploads and downloads | $10/mo for 100 GB; $25/mo for 250 GB then $0.08/GB | Unlimited downloads included | No (own SDK and upload API) |
| Vultr Object Storage vultr.com · EU | Paid | None | Standard $18/TB-month ($0.018/GB); Archival $0.006/GB | 1 TB included, then $0.01/GB | Yes |
| Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage wasabi.com · EU | Paid | None (1 TB minimum monthly charge) | $7.99/TB-month (about $0.0078/GB) | Free if monthly egress is at most stored volume | Yes |
No tools match these filters.
How to choose a file storage
- Estimate how much you store and how much is downloaded each month; for public files, egress is usually the bigger bill.
- Providers with free or bundled egress (Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2 with a partner CDN, Wasabi within its policy) are far cheaper for files people download.
- Stick to the S3 API so you can move later; almost every provider and library supports it.
- For user uploads, check whether you want a finished upload widget (UploadThing, Uploadcare) or just a bucket.
Questions
What is the cheapest S3-compatible storage?
For files that are downloaded a lot, providers without egress fees usually win; for backups that are rarely read, the lowest per-GB price wins. The table lists both.
Pricing changes
-
Storj simplifies to Standard and Advanced tiers
Storj · source ↗
-
Wasabi pay-as-you-go rises to $7.99/TB
Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage · source ↗
-
Free plan loses email template editing on default SMTP
Supabase · source ↗
-
Backblaze B2 storage rises to $6.95/TB, API calls become free
Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage · source ↗
-
Hetzner Object Storage base price rises to €6.49
Hetzner Object Storage · source ↗