Amazon S3 vs Google Cloud Storage (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
Amazon S3 is our pick, scoring 7.8/10 against 7.6/10 for Google Cloud Storage on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Integration score (10/10 vs 9/10). Only Google Cloud Storage has a free plan.
Last updated: November 2026
A
Amazon S3
7.8/10
Amazon S3 is AWS's pay-as-you-go object storage service. Businesses use it to store files, backups, data lakes and static website assets at almost any scale.
G
Google Cloud Storage
7.6/10
Managed object storage from Google Cloud for unstructured data, offering several storage classes, multi-region replication and pay-per-use pricing for developers and enterprises.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | A Amazon S3 | G Google Cloud Storage |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.8/10 | 7.6/10 |
| Integration | 10/10 | 9/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 5/10 | 5/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Reliability | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Ease of Use | 5/10 | 6/10 |
| Analytics | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Scalability | 10/10 | 9/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | Contact for pricing | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Contact for pricing | Free Always Free |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Automatic Backups | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| Object Storage | ||
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | ||
| Shared Hosting | ||
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
Amazon S3 vs Google Cloud Storage cost by team size
| Team size | Amazon S3 | Google Cloud Storage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | Contact for pricing | FreeAlways Free |
| 5 users | Contact for pricing | FreeAlways Free |
| 10 users | Contact for pricing | FreeAlways Free |
| 25 users | Contact for pricing | FreeAlways Free |
| 50 users | Contact for pricing | FreeAlways Free |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Who Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage suit
| Audience | Amazon S3 | Google Cloud Storage |
|---|---|---|
| Developers | 9/10S3 is managed through a widely adopted API and SDKs, and that API has become the standard interface for object storage. | 9/10Developers can choose from the CLI, client libraries in eight languages, REST and gRPC APIs, Terraform and FUSE mounting. |
| Enterprise | 9/10It offers Object Lock, replication, audit logging and organisation-wide analytics through Storage Lens. | 9/10Customer-managed encryption keys, Bucket Lock retention and dual-region turbo replication meet enterprise compliance and resilience needs. |
| SaaS Companies | 8/10It scales without limit for application data, and transfers to other AWS services in the same Region are free. | 8/10Elastic pay-per-use storage with event notifications suits application backends, though egress costs need watching. |
| Small Business | 5/10The storage rates are cheap, but reviewers say the console and the pricing model are complex. | 5/10The service is capable but technical, and its metered pricing is harder to forecast than flat-rate storage. |
| Startups | 7/10There are no upfront costs, and new AWS accounts get Free Tier credits. | 7/10An always-free allowance and no minimum fee make it cheap to start, but pricing complexity can cause surprise bills. |
Which One Should You Choose?
AWhy choose Amazon S3
- Higher Integration score (10/10 vs 9/10)
- Higher Scalability score (10/10 vs 9/10)
GWhy choose Google Cloud Storage
- Has a free plan (Amazon S3 does not)
- Higher Ease of Use score (6/10 vs 5/10)
Pros & Cons
AAmazon S3
Pros
- Very high scale: about 500 trillion objects stored and around 200 million requests per second, according to Wikipedia.
- The S3 API is the industry standard, so a wide range of tools and competing storage providers support it.
- Strong data protection: versioning, MFA Delete, Object Lock in compliance mode, and cross-Region replication with a time-bound SLA.
- Many storage classes, from Express One Zone to Glacier Deep Archive at about $0.001 per GB-month, let teams match cost to how often data is accessed.
- Reviews are consistently positive: about 4.7 out of 5 from more than 1,100 Capterra reviews.
Cons
- Internet egress costs about $0.09 per GB after the first free 100 GB a month, and competitors widely criticise these fees.
- Request, retrieval and lifecycle-transition fees make monthly bills hard to predict.
- Reviewers on Capterra and TrustRadius call the console navigation and user interface complex.
- The SLA pays only service credits toward future bills, never refunds, and infrequent-access classes have a lower 99% uptime threshold.
GGoogle Cloud Storage
Pros
- Standard storage at about $0.020 per GB-month is slightly cheaper than S3 Standard at $0.023, and Archive costs about $0.0012 per GB-month.
- Dual-region turbo replication aims to copy new objects within 15 minutes, which helps teams with strict recovery point objectives.
- Data protection is broad: Bucket Lock, retention policies, versioning, and soft delete on by default with seven days of retention.
- Developers get the CLI, client libraries in eight languages, REST and gRPC APIs, Terraform and FUSE mounting.
- Native ties to BigQuery, Pub/Sub, Eventarc and Cloud CDN suit analytics and event-driven pipelines on Google Cloud.
- Autoclass moves objects between classes without retrieval or early-deletion fees on those automatic moves.
Cons
- Internet egress starts at about $0.12 per GB, which several comparisons rank among the highest of the major clouds.
- Reviewers on G2, GetApp and Gartner say costs are hard to estimate, especially egress and retrieval.
- Nearline, Coldline and Archive carry 30, 90 and 365-day minimum storage durations, plus retrieval fees.
- Reviewers cite a learning curve and lock-in to Google Cloud.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Amazon S3 scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.8/10 against 7.6/10 for Google Cloud Storage. The largest gap is in Ease of Use: 5/10 for Amazon S3 and 6/10 for Google Cloud Storage.
Google Cloud Storage has a free plan; Amazon S3 does not list one.
