S3 vs B2
Cloud object storage pricing comparison. For a mid-size SaaS workload, B2 is cheaper.
Cost Comparison by Scenario
Personal site, small app, or hobby project: 10GB storage, 50GB egress, 10,000 writes, 100,000 reads per month.
| Cost Component | S3 | B2 |
|---|---|---|
| Storage | $0.23 | $0.06 |
| Egress | $4.50 | $0.50 |
| API Requests | $0.09 | $0.08 |
| Monthly Total | $4.82 | $0.64 |
| Annual Total | $58 | $8 |
B2 is 87% cheaper for this scenario, saving $4.18/mo ($50/year).
Feature Comparison
| Feature | S3 | B2 |
|---|---|---|
| S3 Compatible | Yes | Yes |
| Zero Egress Cost | No | No |
| Free Tier | Yes | Yes |
| GDPR | Yes | Yes |
| HIPAA | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes |
| Encryption at Rest | Yes | Yes |
| Customer-Managed Keys | Yes | Yes |
| Sensitive Data | full | limited |
| Data Residency | US, EU, AP, SA, AF | US, EU |
| CDN Integration | cloudfront, cloudflare, fastly | cloudflare, fastly, bunny |
Strengths & Weaknesses
S3
Pros
- +Most feature-rich storage service
- +Largest ecosystem and tooling support
- +Granular lifecycle and tiering policies
- +Global availability with 30+ regions
Cons
- −Complex tiered pricing
- −Expensive egress fees
- −Free tier expires after 12 months
B2
Pros
- +Extremely low storage price ($0.006/GB)
- +Simple flat pricing
- +S3-compatible API
- +Free egress to Cloudflare/Fastly CDN partners
Cons
- −Only 2 regions
- −No HIPAA
- −Limited feature set compared to hyperscalers
- −Smaller company risk
When to Choose Which
Choose S3 if you need:
- Enterprise workloads
- Complex data lifecycle needs
- Multi-service AWS integration
Choose B2 if you need:
- Backup and archive storage
- Media storage on a budget
- Pairing with Cloudflare CDN for free egress