DevVersus

AWS S3 vs Cloudflare R2(2026)

AWS S3 is better for teams that need battle-tested reliability. Cloudflare R2 is the stronger choice if no egress fees (huge vs aws s3). AWS S3 is paid (from $0.023/GB/month + egress) and Cloudflare R2 is freemium (from $0.015/GB/month).

Full feature breakdown, pricing details, and pros & cons below.

Affiliate disclosure: Some “Visit” links on this page are affiliate links. We may earn a commission if you sign up — at no extra cost to you. It does not affect our rankings or editorial coverage. Learn more.

AWS S3 logo

AWS S3

paid

Amazon S3 is the industry-standard object storage service with 99.999999999% durability.

Starting at $0.023/GB/month + egress

Visit AWS S3
Cloudflare R2 logo

Cloudflare R2

freemium

Cloudflare R2 is an S3-compatible object storage with zero egress fees and a generous free tier.

Starting at $0.015/GB/month

Visit Cloudflare R2

How Do AWS S3 and Cloudflare R2 Compare on Features?

FeatureAWS S3Cloudflare R2
Pricing modelpaidfreemium
Starting price$0.023/GB/month + egress$0.015/GB/month
99.999999999% durability
Versioning
Lifecycle policies
Event notifications
Glacier archival
Access controls
S3-compatible API
Zero egress fees
Global replication
Public buckets
Workers integration

AWS S3 Pros and Cons vs Cloudflare R2

A

AWS S3

+Battle-tested reliability
+Massive ecosystem
+Extensive tooling
+Fine-grained access control
Egress fees add up fast
Complex pricing
AWS account complexity
C

Cloudflare R2

+No egress fees (huge vs AWS S3)
+S3-compatible
+Global CDN included
+Very cheap
No lifecycle policies (yet)
Cloudflare account required
Less mature than S3

Should You Use AWS S3 or Cloudflare R2?

Choose AWS S3 if…

  • Battle-tested reliability
  • Massive ecosystem
  • Extensive tooling

Choose Cloudflare R2 if…

  • No egress fees (huge vs AWS S3)
  • S3-compatible
  • Global CDN included

More Object Storage Comparisons