The dominant object store versus a newer S3-compatible alternative with no egress fees — pick based on traffic patterns and ecosystem fit.
Pick AWS S3 when you're already on AWS and the deep service ecosystem — IAM, Lambda triggers, lifecycle policies, analytics integrations — outweighs egress costs. Pick Cloudflare R2 when egress fees are eating your budget, you serve a lot of public assets, or you're building on Workers and want object storage co-located with your compute. R2's S3-compatible API makes mixed or migratory setups practical.
How we evaluate →Get the next comparison in your inbox
Weekly digest — no spam, unsubscribe anytime.
| Attribute | Cloudflare R2 | Amazon S3 |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Storage | Storage |
| Pricing Model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting Price | Free | Free |
| Free Tier | Yes | Yes |
| Open Source | No | No |
| Platforms | web, api, edge | web, api |
