Garage vs Backblaze B2
Both are alternatives to Amazon S3. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as Backblaze B2 vs Garage — same comparison, one verdict.
Garage is open source (AGPL-3.0) and Backblaze B2 is not (Proprietary (hosted service)) — so the real question is whether you want to own the object storage stack or rent it.
Garage
Object storage for geographically scattered, unreliable hardware.
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.
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.
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.
| Garage | Backblaze B2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty ScoreOur transparent 0–100 composite for data ownership and exit cost. | 95 | 42 |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Local-first data | Yes | No |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary (hosted service) |
| Pricing | Free and open source. Designed for commodity and second-hand hardware. | About $0.006/GB/month storage; free egress to Bandwidth Alliance partners. Checked 2026-08-04. |
Garage edges it on the Sovereignty Score, but the right pick depends on the trade-offs below.
Garage
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
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
Which one fits you
The trade-offs above, turned into a decision. Find the line that describes your team.
Choose Garage
if you want the source and the option to fork it, and you would rather run it on your own hardware, and your data should stay on machines you control.
Choose Backblaze B2
if roughly a quarter of S3's storage price.
Neither, yet
if both carry a real cost you should weigh first — smallest project here by a wide margin, and proprietary and hosted. If either of those is a dealbreaker for your team, the shortlist is wrong rather than the choice.
Garage vs Backblaze B2 — common questions
Is Garage a better fit than Backblaze B2 for object storage?
It depends on what you are optimising for, and the honest split is this: Garage scores 95 to Backblaze B2's 42 on data ownership and exit cost, so it is the safer choice if you care about being able to leave. Backblaze B2 earns its place on a different axis — roughly a quarter of S3's storage price. Neither is a wrong answer for every team; the table above is the actual comparison.
What happens if we want to switch later?
Garage keeps its data local or in open formats, so leaving is an export rather than a negotiation. Backblaze B2 keeps your data on its own infrastructure, which is the part to plan for: confirm the export path before you commit, not when you are already trying to leave.
Can I self-host Garage?
Garage can be self-hosted; Backblaze B2 cannot, so it stays on the vendor's infrastructure whatever you do.
Are Garage and Backblaze B2 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.
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Facts verified 2026-08-04. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.