What is S3 storage, and do you need AWS for it?

S3 in plain words

Object storage keeps each file as an object with a name and a web address, inside a container called a bucket. An app talks to the bucket over the web with an access key and a secret key. There is no folder tree to browse on a desktop, and no drive letter to mount. You pay for the gigabytes you store each month, plus small charges for the requests that read and write them.

AWS designs S3 for 99.999999999% (11 nines) durability and stores data redundantly across at least three Availability Zones by default. The S3-compatible services we tested accept the same API calls.

Object, file and block storage

Cloud storage is the broad category; object storage is one way to build it. File storage gives you a shared folder in the sky, the way a NAS or a network drive does. Block storage gives you a virtual hard disk that a server formats and mounts. Easemic works with S3 object storage and with drives (WebDAV, Google Drive, OneDrive); with each it reads only the part of a file a page needs.

Do you need AWS? No.

AWS invented S3, but the S3 API became a common language. Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, Bunny Storage, Tigris and iDrive e2 all accept the same S3 requests. You need an account with whichever service you pick, a bucket, and a pair of keys.

In Easemic, Cloudflare R2 binds by signing in to Cloudflare inside the app; the account needs R2 turned on with a card on file. Other S3 services take keys. A planned feature will let you enter an API key and have the app create the bucket for you, then discard the key; that is not shipped yet.

List prices checked 2026-09-30; prices change. We assume you read the whole library once a month (100,000 page reads) and add a few comics (5,000 uploads).

S3 or Google Drive for personal files?

A drive is an app with a quota. Google Drive gives you a friendly web interface, desktop sync, and sharing, but its 15 GB free tier is shared with Gmail and Google Photos. Paid plans start with Basic (100 GB) at $1.99 a month, and Google AI Plus gives 2 TB for $9.99 (US plans, checked 2026-10-01). Google's Abuse Program Policies say: "We may review content for violations of these policies and take action. This review includes access restriction of content, removal of content, and limitation or termination of a user's access to Google products." What that allows, and what OneDrive's pages say, is in Does Google Drive scan your files?

S3 is pay-per-GB storage with more setup and no consumer app. The provider's job is to keep the bits; reading them is your app's job. The storage providers say less about reviewing what you store: Cloudflare describes acting on abuse reports, Backblaze reserves the right to act on reported violations, and Wasabi says it does not monitor customer content. Each of the providers named here removes illegal content when it is reported.

At these list prices, B2 costs less than the Google One plan at 100 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB; R2 costs less at 100 GB, 500 GB. The S3 bills cover storage only and do not share quota with your email. If you already pay for Google One or Microsoft 365, you can keep your comics there: Easemic reads from Google Drive and OneDrive directly, and drive libraries are always encrypted on the phone before upload. On S3 you choose whether to encrypt. In our tests the first page took 1.1 s on Google Drive and 1.1 s on OneDrive (medians), and 123 ms to 347 ms on the S3 services we tested.

Some drives offer WebDAV, a file protocol that works like a network drive over the web. If you prefer that route, our WebDAV guide covers which drives support it.

What is an egress fee?

Egress fees are charges for data transfer to the internet: data leaving the provider. For a comic library that is every page you read, because opening a comic downloads its pages to your phone. AWS prices that data transfer per GB, on top of storage (its S3 pricing page).

Cloudflare R2 and Tigris list downloads as free, and Bunny Storage's pricing page says "Free API egress" (checked 2026-10-01). Backblaze B2 and iDrive e2 allow free downloads up to 3 times what you store, then charge $0.01 per GB past that. Wasabi makes downloads free only while you download no more than what you store each month. Whether that matters depends on how much you read back: the monthly totals in the cheapest-storage comparison assume reading the whole library once a month, so downloads there come to what you store, once.

What a comic library costs

The table in the previous section shows the monthly bill at list prices. For a 200 GB library read back once a month, the cheapest option is Backblaze B2 at $1.32; Bunny Storage is $2.00 and Cloudflare R2 is $2.85. The full comparison, with every size from 50 GB to 1 TB, is in What's the cheapest S3-compatible storage for a comic library?

How fast it reads

We timed how long each service takes to put the first page of a comic on screen, from Los Angeles on a typical US home connection (September 2026). The fastest were Bunny Storage (123 ms), Cloudflare R2 (199 ms) and Wasabi (215 ms). The full results, with every run, are in How fast is reading comics straight from your own cloud?

AWS storage classes in brief

AWS sells several S3 storage classes, priced by how often you expect to read the data. S3 Standard is for frequently accessed data. S3 Standard-IA and S3 One Zone-IA are for infrequently accessed data. S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval, S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval and S3 Glacier Deep Archive are for archives, with retrieval times from milliseconds up to 12 hours. AWS also offers S3 Intelligent-Tiering, which moves objects between tiers automatically for a small monitoring charge.

Backblaze calls B2 "always-hot" and Wasabi sells a single hot tier. Cloudflare R2 also sells an Infrequent Access class: it is cheaper to store, charges for every GB read back, and has a minimum storage period, so it suits archives rather than a library you read (R2 pricing). Tigris lists four classes, including Infrequent Access and Archive; Bunny Storage sells two performance tiers, both hot. For a personal library you read from, Standard storage is usually the right fit.

Questions people ask