The Bottom Line
Entry price
Paid plans only
Biggest pro
Industry standard
Biggest con
Complex pricing
TL;DR - AWS S3
- Amazon S3 is an object storage service offering industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance for virtually any use case.
- It provides 99.999999999% data durability and 99.99% availability, with cost-effective storage classes and robust security features.
- Pricing is based on storage, requests, data retrieval, data transfer, and management features, with no minimum charge and various storage classes optimized for different access patterns.
What is AWS S3?
Available on: Web
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Industry standard
- Highly scalable
- Strong ecosystem
- Many features
Cons
- Complex pricing
- AWS lock-in
- Learning curve
Ratings Across the Web
AWS S3 holds an aggregate rating of 4.7 out of 5 from 2,049 reviews across G2 and Capterra, last checked March 19, 2026.
What people say
“the platform absolutely works seemlessly once it's set up properly and never seems to have issues with downtime, latency, or general availability.”via Capterra
Ratings aggregated from independent review platforms. Learn more
Key Features
Pricing Plans
Pricing checked Aug 17, 2026
Free Tier
Free
- 5 GB standard storage
- 20,000 GET requests
- 2,000 PUT requests
- First 12 months only
S3 Standard
$0.023 / GB
- Frequently accessed data
- 99.99% availability
- Low latency
- No retrieval charges
S3 Intelligent-Tiering
$0.0025 / 1000 objects
- Auto-moves data between tiers
- No retrieval charges
- Monitoring fee per object
- Cost optimization
S3 Glacier
$0.004 / GB
- Archive storage
- 90-180 day minimum
- Retrieval fees apply
- Up to 99% cheaper than Standard
Is AWS S3 worth the price?
AWS S3's pricing is generally fair and highly competitive, especially with its diverse storage classes.
The Free Tier is generous for initial exploration, offering 5 GB of standard storage. While S3 Standard at $0.023/GB/month is competitive, the Intelligent-Tiering and Glacier options provide significant cost savings for varying access patterns, making it ideal for businesses of all sizes seeking scalable and cost-optimized object storage.
Hidden Costs & Gotchas
Data transfer out fees can add up
Retrieval fees for Glacier storage
Minimum storage duration for Glacier
Request fees for all storage classes
How AWS S3 Compares to Competitors
Compared to Google Cloud Storage, S3 Standard's $0.023/GB is similar to GCS Standard's $0.020/GB. For archival, S3 Glacier's $0.004/GB is competitive with GCS Archive's $0.0012/GB, though retrieval costs and minimum durations vary. Azure Blob Storage also offers comparable tiers, with its Hot tier around $0.020/GB, making S3's pricing highly competitive across the board.
Reviews
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Across 2,049 verified user reviews on Capterra, G2
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AWS S3 FAQ
What level of data durability and availability does Amazon S3 offer?
How does S3 Intelligent-Tiering handle objects smaller than 128 KB?
What are the minimum storage durations for objects in S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval, S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, and S3 Glacier Deep Archive?
How does Amazon S3 support generative AI use cases?
What metadata charges apply to objects stored in S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval and S3 Glacier Deep Archive?
Source: aws.amazon.com