Storage Wars: Cloudflare R2 vs Amazon S3

Cloudflare's R2 is an S3-compatible object storage service that offers a competitive alternative to Amazon S3 by eliminating data egress fees, which can lead to significant cost savings for certain workloads. While Cloudflare R2 is cheaper for scenarios involving frequent data transfers, such as image hosting sites, it lacks the advanced features and variety of storage classes that Amazon S3 provides, which are beneficial for data archiving and compliance purposes. Despite R2's cost advantage in specific use cases, S3's mature ecosystem, including features like Intelligent-Tiering and more granular access controls, makes it a robust choice for complex storage needs. The blog highlights that while R2 is 99% cheaper than S3 for an image hosting scenario, S3 is 73% cheaper for a document cloud use case due to its tiered storage options. Cloudflare has committed to expanding R2's capabilities, but currently, it lacks certain functionalities such as bucket notifications. The document concludes by acknowledging the evolving landscape of cloud storage pricing models, suggesting that while R2 offers immediate savings for some applications, S3 remains a strong contender thanks to its established infrastructure and advanced features.