Amazon S3
7.8/10Amazon 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.
Data last updated November 2026 · Our methodology
Overview
Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is the object storage service from Amazon Web Services. It launched in March 2006. Data is stored as objects in buckets, and a single object can be up to 5 TB. According to Wikipedia, by 2025 S3 held about 500 trillion objects and handled around 200 million requests per second. Its API has become the de facto standard that many competing storage providers copy. S3 offers several storage classes, from Standard and the low-latency Express One Zone to Intelligent-Tiering, the infrequent-access classes and three Glacier archive tiers. Lifecycle rules move data between these classes automatically. Data protection features include versioning, MFA Delete, Object Lock for write-once retention, cross-Region and same-Region replication, and Replication Time Control. New uploads are encrypted by default, and Block Public Access is on by default for new buckets. Storage Lens shows storage usage across an organisation and suggests ways to cut costs. There are no plans or seats. You pay for storage per GB-month, for requests, for data transfer out and for retrieval from some classes. In US East, S3 Standard costs about $0.023 per GB-month for the first 50 TB. S3 fits developers, SaaS companies and enterprises that already run on AWS, because transfers to services in the same Region and to CloudFront are free. Its main drawback is cost predictability. Internet egress of roughly $0.09 per GB, request fees and retrieval charges can make bills hard to forecast. Competitors such as Wasabi, Backblaze B2 and Cloudflare R2 market themselves directly on lower or zero egress fees.
Our Rating
Who Amazon S3 is best for
Best software for DevelopersGood fit
S3 is managed through a widely adopted API and SDKs, and that API has become the standard interface for object storage.
It offers Object Lock, replication, audit logging and organisation-wide analytics through Storage Lens.
It scales without limit for application data, and transfers to other AWS services in the same Region are free.
There are no upfront costs, and new AWS accounts get Free Tier credits.
Less suited
The storage rates are cheap, but reviewers say the console and the pricing model are complex.
Pros & Cons
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.
Key Features
Not included
- Managed WordPress
- Shared Hosting
Amazon S3 Pricing
Pay as you go
- Uploads (data in) are free
- Billed only for usage, with no minimum commitment
- S3 Standard about $0.023 per GB-month for the first 50 TB in US East
- New AWS accounts get up to $200 in Free Tier credits (since July 15, 2025)
- First 100 GB per month of internet egress is free, counted across AWS services
Frequently Asked Questions
Since July 15, 2025, new AWS customers get up to $200 in Free Tier credits that can be spent on S3, and the first 100 GB per month of internet data transfer out is free.
S3 Standard guarantees 99.9% monthly uptime. Credits are 10% below 99.9%, 25% below 99% and 100% below 95%. Infrequent-access classes and Intelligent-Tiering use a 99% threshold. Credits apply only to future S3 charges.
Uploads are free. Internet egress costs about $0.09 per GB for the next 10 TB after the free 100 GB, then falls in tiers. Transfers to CloudFront, and to AWS services in the same Region, are free.
Yes. Object Lock offers write-once-read-many retention, and in compliance mode no user, including root, can remove the lock. Audit logs and replication controls support compliance as well.
Yes. S3 encrypts all new uploads automatically. Customers can choose from several server-side key management options or encrypt data client-side.
A single object can be up to 5 TB. Uploads larger than 5 GB must use the multipart upload API.
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