# Storj vs Amazon S3

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/storj-vs-amazon-s3/

Every value below is read from Storj's and Amazon S3's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Storj | Amazon S3 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Egress over allowance | $7 per TB, the same rate as storage — reduced from $20 per TB on the Standard tier. Storj charges for egress where R2, Wasabi and Tigris do not, but at a tenth of what S3 charges. | $0.09 per GB for the first 10 TB a month out to the internet, after a free 100 GB aggregated globally. It falls to $0.085 above 10 TB, $0.07 above 50 TB and $0.05 above 150 TB. This is AWS's outbound data transfer rate rather than an S3-specific one — the charge that R2, Wasabi and Tigris do not levy at all. |
| Storage price | $7 per TB per month, which is $0.007 per GB. A $5 monthly minimum applies to Standard and Advanced accounts. | $0.023 per GB-month for S3 Standard, first 50 TB, in us-east-1. S3 prices vary by region; this and every other S3 figure on the site is that region. |
| Operations price | Segment fees have been eliminated across all new tiers. They still apply to accounts on legacy plans. | $0.005 per 1,000 PUT, COPY, POST and LIST requests, and $0.004 per 10,000 GET and all other requests, in us-east-1. DELETE and CANCEL are free. |
| S3-compatible API | Supported | Supported |

## Where they differ

### Egress over allowance

- Storj: $7 per TB, the same rate as storage — reduced from $20 per TB on the Standard tier. Storj charges for egress where R2, Wasabi and Tigris do not, but at a tenth of what S3 charges. ([source](https://www.storj.io/pricing))
- Amazon S3: $0.09 per GB for the first 10 TB a month out to the internet, after a free 100 GB aggregated globally. It falls to $0.085 above 10 TB, $0.07 above 50 TB and $0.05 above 150 TB. This is AWS's outbound data transfer rate rather than an S3-specific one — the charge that R2, Wasabi and Tigris do not levy at all. ([source](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AWSDataTransfer/current/us-east-1/index.json))

### Storage price

- Storj: $7 per TB per month, which is $0.007 per GB. A $5 monthly minimum applies to Standard and Advanced accounts. ([source](https://www.storj.io/pricing))
- Amazon S3: $0.023 per GB-month for S3 Standard, first 50 TB, in us-east-1. S3 prices vary by region; this and every other S3 figure on the site is that region. ([source](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AmazonS3/current/us-east-1/index.json))

### Operations price

- Storj: Segment fees have been eliminated across all new tiers. They still apply to accounts on legacy plans. ([source](https://www.storj.io/pricing))
- Amazon S3: $0.005 per 1,000 PUT, COPY, POST and LIST requests, and $0.004 per 10,000 GET and all other requests, in us-east-1. DELETE and CANCEL are free. ([source](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AmazonS3/current/us-east-1/index.json))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Storj if Workloads that want data spread across many independent locations rather than one provider's region, at a storage rate close to the cheapest here.

Pick Amazon S3 if Workloads already inside AWS, where keeping data in the same region as the compute avoids the transfer charges that dominate an object storage bill.

Consider something else: Storj — Egress is charged at the same $7 per TB as storage, so a read-heavy workload costs roughly double what the storage line suggests — the three free-egress providers here charge nothing for it.

Consider something else: Amazon S3 — Egress is the cost that decides this category and S3 charges for it, where R2, Wasabi and Tigris do not. Prices also vary by region, so a figure quoted anywhere is only true for the region it was read in.

## Documented by only one

- Free tier: Amazon S3: Yes
- Pricing model: Amazon S3: Per region and per storage class, with storage, requests, retrievals, data transfer and management features each metered separately. AWS states there is no minimum charge, and bills storage in binary gigabytes — 1 GB is 2^30 bytes, not 10^9.
- Storage (entry plan): Amazon S3: None. S3 has no plans and no included storage — AWS states there is no minimum charge and you pay only for what you use, billed per GB-month from the first byte. New accounts get AWS Free Tier credits ($100 immediately, up to $200 over six months) which are spendable credit rather than a standing storage allowance.
- Regions: Storj: Distributed across tens of thousands of storage locations globally rather than named regions; a US-only option runs on SOC 2 type 2 compliant data centres.
- Minimum storage duration: Amazon S3: None on S3 Standard. 30 days on Standard-IA and One Zone-IA, 90 days on Glacier Instant and Flexible Retrieval, 180 days on Glacier Deep Archive, each with a pro-rated charge for early deletion.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Egress over allowance: Storj or Amazon S3?**

Storj: $7 per TB, the same rate as storage — reduced from $20 per TB on the Standard tier. Storj charges for egress where R2, Wasabi and Tigris do not, but at a tenth of what S3 charges.
Amazon S3: $0.09 per GB for the first 10 TB a month out to the internet, after a free 100 GB aggregated globally. It falls to $0.085 above 10 TB, $0.07 above 50 TB and $0.05 above 150 TB. This is AWS's outbound data transfer rate rather than an S3-specific one — the charge that R2, Wasabi and Tigris do not levy at all.

**Should I choose Storj or Amazon S3?**

Pick Storj if Workloads that want data spread across many independent locations rather than one provider's region, at a storage rate close to the cheapest here.
Pick Amazon S3 if Workloads already inside AWS, where keeping data in the same region as the compute avoids the transfer charges that dominate an object storage bill.