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Migration guide · Object storage

The 5 best Amazon S3 alternatives

S3 is the object store the modern internet is built on: durable, effectively infinite, and the default target for backups, data lakes, static assets and everything else that is a file rather than a row. Its API became the standard by being first and good enough, which is why almost every competitor implements it rather than inventing their own.

92
Bottom line

If your compute lives on AWS, S3 is correct and the egress complaint mostly evaporates. If it does not, Backblaze B2 or Cloudflare R2 deliver the same API with free or near-free egress, and MinIO gives you the API on hardware you own.

Jump to the full comparison →

The cost

Storage is roughly $0.023 per GB per month on Standard, with cheaper tiers for infrequent access and Glacier for archives — cheap enough that storage is rarely the complaint. Egress is: about $0.09 per GB to the internet after the first 100 GB free per month, plus per-request charges. Moving 10 TB out costs close to $900. Figures checked 2026-08-04.

Why people consider an alternative

Egress, and only egress. The storage price is fair and the durability is genuine; the bill that makes people angry is the one for reading their own data back. It is also the mechanism that makes leaving expensive, which is not a coincidence — a pricing structure where retrieval costs forty times storage is a retention strategy whether or not anyone calls it one. The second reason is that S3-compatible alternatives now match the API closely enough that switching is a config change, and several charge nothing for egress at all.

When Amazon S3 is still the right call

Stay if your compute is on AWS. Transfer between S3 and EC2 in the same region is free, so co-location removes the only real complaint. Stay for the durability and compliance record, which is genuinely the best in the category and is not marketing. Stay if you need the surrounding services — lifecycle policies, Glacier, event notifications, cross-region replication — which the alternatives cover partially at best. And stay if your data is small enough that egress is theoretical.

The verdict — at a glance

AlternativeLicenseSelf-hostPricingSovereignty
MinIO★AGPL-3.0YesFree and open source. Commercial licence and support available from MinIO Inc.92
GarageAGPL-3.0YesFree and open source. Designed for commodity and second-hand hardware.95
SeaweedFSApache-2.0YesFree and open source. You supply the hardware.93
Backblaze B2Proprietary (hosted service)NoAbout $0.006/GB/month storage; free egress to Bandwidth Alliance partners. Checked 2026-08-04.42
Cloudflare R2Proprietary (hosted service)NoAbout $0.015/GB/month storage. No egress charges. Free tier included. Checked 2026-08-04.40
92
Macrostack's top pick

MinIO

The S3 API on your own hardware — same calls, no egress bill.

Which one fits your situation?

There is no single best answer — it depends on what you are actually trying to do.

Just tell me the best Amazon S3 alternative

MinIO92

Our top pick — the highest Sovereignty Score at 92, and the one we would choose ourselves.

MinIO vs Garage →

I have no budget — is there a genuinely free one?

Garage95

Open source under AGPL-3.0. Free and open source. Designed for commodity and second-hand hardware.

Garage vs MinIO →

I want to self-host it and own the data

SeaweedFS93

Self-hostable, so your data stays on your own server. Free and open source. You supply the hardware.

SeaweedFS vs MinIO →

Every alternative, compared

#1★ TOP PICK

MinIO

The S3 API on your own hardware — same calls, no egress bill.

92
OPEN SOURCEAGPL-3.0SELF-HOSTLOCAL-FIRST

MinIO is a high-performance object server that speaks the S3 API closely enough that most applications need only a changed endpoint. Run it on a spare machine, a rack, or across a cluster; it handles erasure coding, versioning and encryption. AGPL-3.0, around 61k stars. For anyone whose objection to S3 is the egress bill rather than the storage price, this removes it entirely — the data is on hardware you already pay for. AGPL is the caveat: read it before you embed MinIO in a product you distribute.

Strengths

  • +S3-compatible API — most applications need one endpoint changed
  • +No egress charges at all, because the data never leaves your network
  • +Genuinely fast; used for high-throughput analytics workloads
  • +Erasure coding, versioning and encryption built in

Trade-offs

  • −AGPL-3.0 needs reading if you distribute a product containing it
  • −You own durability now — replication and backups are your design
  • −No Glacier equivalent for cheap cold archive
  • −Recent licensing and feature changes have unsettled some users
Free and open source. Commercial licence and support available from MinIO Inc.
WebsiteSourceDocs
#2

Garage

Object storage for geographically scattered, unreliable hardware.

95
OPEN SOURCEAGPL-3.0SELF-HOSTLOCAL-FIRST

Garage is a lightweight S3-compatible store built by Deuxfleurs for a case the others handle badly: nodes spread across different homes and cities on ordinary connections, where latency is high and machines come and go. It is deliberately small, has no single point of failure, and runs on hardware you would not consider adequate for object storage. AGPL-3.0. It is the most niche entry here and it earns its place by being the honest answer for community and self-hosted infrastructure rather than a datacentre.

Strengths

  • +Built for geographically distributed nodes on unreliable links
  • +Extremely light — runs on hardware other stores refuse
  • +No single point of failure by design
  • +AGPL-3.0 with genuinely community governance

Trade-offs

  • −Smallest project here by a wide margin
  • −Fewer S3 API features implemented than MinIO
  • −Not aimed at high-throughput single-datacentre workloads
  • −Very small community if you get stuck
Free and open source. Designed for commodity and second-hand hardware.
WebsiteDocs
#3

SeaweedFS

Built for billions of small files, where most object stores struggle.

93
OPEN SOURCEApache-2.0SELF-HOSTLOCAL-FIRST

SeaweedFS is a distributed file and object store designed around a specific weakness in the others: enormous numbers of small files. Its architecture keeps metadata lookups fast where conventional object stores slow down, which makes it a strong fit for image, thumbnail and document workloads at scale. Apache-2.0, around 34k stars, with an S3-compatible gateway and tiered storage to cloud back-ends. It is less known than MinIO and that is the main caution — fewer worked examples when something goes wrong.

Strengths

  • +Handles billions of small files where other object stores degrade
  • +Apache-2.0 — more permissive than MinIO's AGPL
  • +S3-compatible gateway plus a real filesystem interface
  • +Tiered storage to cloud back-ends for cold data

Trade-offs

  • −Smaller community and fewer worked examples than MinIO
  • −More moving parts — master, volume and filer servers
  • −Documentation is thinner
  • −Less battle-tested at enterprise scale
Free and open source. You supply the hardware.
WebsiteSource
#4

Backblaze B2

A quarter of S3's storage price, with free egress to partner networks.

42
SOURCE-AVAILABLEProprietary (hosted service)

B2 is about $0.006 per GB per month — roughly a quarter of S3 Standard — with free egress to Cloudflare and other Bandwidth Alliance partners and generous free egress otherwise. It is S3-API compatible and the company has published its storage-durability statistics for years, which is a level of transparency the hyperscalers do not match. For backups and archives specifically it is very hard to beat on price. It is proprietary and hosted, and the ecosystem around it is small compared with AWS.

Strengths

  • +Roughly a quarter of S3's storage price
  • +Free egress to Cloudflare and other partner networks
  • +S3-compatible API
  • +Publishes real durability and drive-failure statistics

Trade-offs

  • −Proprietary and hosted
  • −Far smaller service ecosystem than AWS
  • −Fewer regions, which matters for latency and residency
  • −Not built for high-throughput analytics workloads
About $0.006/GB/month storage; free egress to Bandwidth Alliance partners. Checked 2026-08-04.
WebsiteDocs
#5

Cloudflare R2

S3-compatible with zero egress fees — the direct answer to the complaint.

40
SOURCE-AVAILABLEProprietary (hosted service)

R2 is Cloudflare's object store and its defining feature is a deliberate attack on S3's pricing: storage around $0.015 per GB per month and no egress charges whatsoever. For anything read frequently over the internet — media, assets, public datasets — that single difference can turn a four-figure monthly bill into a two-figure one. It is S3-API compatible, so migration is largely a config change. It is proprietary and hosted, which is the honest trade, and it makes Cloudflare rather than Amazon the party you depend on.

Strengths

  • +Zero egress fees — the single biggest cost difference in this category
  • +S3-compatible API, so migration is mostly configuration
  • +Cheaper storage than S3 as well
  • +Integrates with Cloudflare Workers and the CDN

Trade-offs

  • −Proprietary and hosted — you have swapped one vendor for another
  • −Fewer surrounding services than S3's ecosystem
  • −No deep-archive tier comparable to Glacier
  • −Ties you into Cloudflare's platform decisions
About $0.015/GB/month storage. No egress charges. Free tier included. Checked 2026-08-04.
WebsiteDocs

Questions people ask

▸ Why is my S3 bill so high?

Almost always egress, not storage. Storage is around $0.023 per GB per month; reading data out to the internet is about $0.09 per GB after the first 100 GB, plus per-request charges. Moving 10 TB out costs close to $900. If your compute is on AWS in the same region, transfer is free and the problem largely disappears.

▸ What is the cheapest S3 alternative?

Backblaze B2 at roughly a quarter of S3's storage price with free egress to Bandwidth Alliance partners, or Cloudflare R2 which charges nothing for egress at all. Both speak the S3 API, so migration is mostly a configuration change. MinIO is free entirely if you have hardware to run it on.

▸ Is MinIO a real replacement for S3?

For the API, yes — most applications need only a changed endpoint. What you take on is durability: S3's eleven nines are the product of enormous engineering, and self-hosting means replication, backups and failure planning become yours. That is a fair trade for many workloads and a bad one for your only copy of something irreplaceable.

Compare them head-to-head

MinIO vs Garage→MinIO vs SeaweedFS→MinIO vs Backblaze B2→MinIO vs Cloudflare R2→Garage vs SeaweedFS→Garage vs Backblaze B2→Garage vs Cloudflare R2→SeaweedFS vs Backblaze B2→SeaweedFS vs Cloudflare R2→Backblaze B2 vs Cloudflare R2→

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Entry last verified 2026-08-04. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.

The Macrostack brief

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