Backblaze B2

Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage has disrupted the cloud storage market by offering S3-compatible object storage at roughly one-quarter the cost of AWS S3. For businesses, developers, and IT teams looking to store large volumes of data — backups, media assets, archives, or application data — Backblaze B2 provides a compelling alternative to the hyperscaler ecosystem without sacrificing reliability or compatibility.

The pricing model is remarkably simple and transparent: 0.006 USD per GB per month for storage, with no minimum fees, no per-request charges for most operations, and generous free egress through partnerships with Cloudflare, Fastly, and other CDN providers through the Backblaze Alliance. Compare this to AWS S3's 0.023 USD per GB plus significant egress fees, and the savings become substantial for storage-heavy workloads. A business storing 10TB pays roughly 60 USD per month with B2 versus over 230 USD on S3.

S3 compatibility means existing tools, scripts, and applications built for AWS S3 can work with Backblaze B2 with minimal changes — just swap the endpoint and credentials. This compatibility extends to popular tools like rclone, Cyberduck, MSP360, Veeam, and Synology NAS devices. For organizations looking to reduce cloud storage costs without rewriting their infrastructure, this drop-in compatibility is essential.

Backblaze maintains its own data centers and custom-built storage hardware, the well-documented Backblaze Storage Pods, giving them unique cost advantages over cloud providers who rent third-party infrastructure. Their annual hard drive reliability reports are widely cited and respected in the industry, demonstrating a level of operational transparency that larger cloud providers rarely offer.

The platform includes Object Lock for immutable backups, which is critical for ransomware protection and regulatory compliance. Lifecycle rules handle automatic data management and cleanup. While B2 does not match S3 breadth of features — no built-in serverless functions, no native analytics, no multiple storage classes — it covers the core storage use cases that represent the vast majority of cloud storage spending.

For businesses in data-intensive industries — media production, healthcare imaging, surveillance systems, or scientific research — Backblaze B2 can reduce storage costs by 70 to 80 percent compared to AWS without meaningful trade-offs in reliability or data accessibility.