Backblaze B2 vs Cloudflare R2
Both are alternatives to Amazon S3. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as Cloudflare R2 vs Backblaze B2 — same comparison, one verdict.
Backblaze B2 and Cloudflare R2 are closely matched on ownership (42 vs 40) — this one comes down to pricing and to which trade-offs below you can live with.
Backblaze B2
A quarter of S3's storage price, with free egress to partner networks.
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.
Cloudflare R2
S3-compatible with zero egress fees — the direct answer to the complaint.
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.
Side by side
6 points of comparison, every one read from a verified field. Green marks the side that wins a row outright. A dash means we do not hold that fact — never that it is zero.
| Backblaze B2 | Cloudflare R2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty ScoreOur transparent 0–100 composite for data ownership and exit cost. | 42 | 40 |
| Open source | No | No |
| Self-hostable | No | No |
| Local-first data | No | No |
| License | Proprietary (hosted service) | Proprietary (hosted service) |
| Pricing | About $0.006/GB/month storage; free egress to Bandwidth Alliance partners. Checked 2026-08-04. | About $0.015/GB/month storage. No egress charges. Free tier included. Checked 2026-08-04. |
Backblaze B2 edges it on the Sovereignty Score, but the right pick depends on the trade-offs below.
Backblaze B2
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
Cloudflare R2
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
Which one fits you
The trade-offs above, turned into a decision. Find the line that describes your team.
Choose Backblaze B2
if a lower exit cost matters more to you than any single feature, and roughly a quarter of S3's storage price.
Choose Cloudflare R2
if zero egress fees — the single biggest cost difference in this category.
Neither, yet
if both carry a real cost you should weigh first — proprietary and hosted, and proprietary and hosted — you have swapped one vendor for another. If either of those is a dealbreaker for your team, the shortlist is wrong rather than the choice.
Backblaze B2 vs Cloudflare R2 — common questions
Is Backblaze B2 a better fit than Cloudflare R2 for object storage?
It depends on what you are optimising for, and the honest split is this: Backblaze B2 scores 42 to Cloudflare R2's 40 on data ownership and exit cost, so it is the safer choice if you care about being able to leave. Cloudflare R2 earns its place on a different axis — zero egress fees — the single biggest cost difference in this category. Neither is a wrong answer for every team; the table above is the actual comparison.
What happens if we want to switch later?
Neither of these is local-first by default, so plan the exit at the point you adopt rather than later. Export what matters on a schedule instead of trusting you can retrieve it on demand — that is the most common way a object storage migration turns into a project instead of an afternoon.
Are Backblaze B2 and Cloudflare R2 both alternatives to Amazon S3?
Yes — both appear in our Amazon S3 comparison, which is why they are worth putting side by side. People usually arrive here already having decided to move off Amazon S3 and now choosing between the two replacements, which is a narrower and much easier question.
Related alternative guides
Facts verified 2026-08-04. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.