Backblaze B2 vs Wasabi vs AWS S3 2026: Best Object Storage for Backups

S3-compatible object storage has become the backbone of modern backup strategies. Whether you are archiving encrypted backups with Restic, BorgBackup, or Kopia, storing assets for a web application, or keeping an off-site copy of your NAS, the choice of provider has a direct and lasting impact on your bill. And in 2026, this choice often boils down to three players: Backblaze B2, Wasabi, and the historical heavyweight, AWS S3.

The classic trap is to compare only the price per GB of storage. However, for backup usage, the total cost includes three other items often overlooked: data egress fees, API request costs, and early deletion penalties. It is precisely on these hidden items that AWS S3 becomes economically unviable for simple archives, and where Backblaze and Wasabi make their full sense.

We have modeled the real costs for volumes of 1 TB, 5 TB, and 20 TB, tested restoration performance from European VPSs, and analyzed the durability of each service. Here is our unbiased comparison between Backblaze B2, Wasabi, and AWS S3.

Backblaze B2 vs Wasabi vs AWS S3 Comparison Table in 2026

Criteria	Backblaze B2	Wasabi	AWS S3 (Standard)
Storage Price / TB / month	~$6	~$7 (fixed price)	~$23
Egress Fees	Free up to 3x storage/month	None (subject to usage policy)	~$0.09/GB (very high)
API Request Cost	Low	Included	Billed (PUT/GET)
Early Deletion Penalty	None	90-day minimum	Depends on class
Storage Classes	Single	Single	Standard, IA, Glacier, etc.
Durability	11 nines	11 nines	11 nines
S3 Compatibility	Yes	Yes	Native (reference)
Regions	US, Europe (Amsterdam)	Global (multi-region)	Widest on the market
Ideal For	Consumer/SME Backups	Fixed-price active storage	Complex cloud architectures

Indicative prices May 2026 excluding promotions. The real cost of a backup depends as much on egress and requests as on the price per GB stored.

The Total Cost Trap: Why Price Per GB Is Not Enough

For a backup, the total cost is calculated as follows:

1. Monthly Storage: the price per GB stored, the most visible item.
2. Egress (Outbound): the cost to download your data, i.e., … restoring a backup. The most treacherous item.
3. API Requests: billed per 10,000 PUT/GET/LIST operations. Negligible for large files, but heavy for millions of small objects.
4. Retention Penalties: some services charge a minimum number of storage days, even if you delete the object beforehand.

It is on the egress item that AWS S3 traps users. At approximately $0.09/GB, restoring a 1 TB backup costs nearly $90 in egress fees. Try this once per quarter to validate your backups (which is a mandatory best practice), and the bill explodes. Backblaze B2 and Wasabi have precisely built their value proposition on eliminating this item.

Backblaze B2: The Champion for Consumers and SMEs

Backblaze B2 was designed from the outset as a radically cheaper S3-compatible alternative to AWS, with a pricing model of disarming simplicity: a single price per GB, with no distinction between storage classes.

Strengths:

• Generously free egress: Backblaze offers a free egress allocation equivalent to about three times your stored volume each month. For a 1 TB backup, you can restore up to 3 TB for free per month, which covers restoration tests and most real-life incidents. Beyond that, egress remains very cheap.
• Lowest price per GB of the three, around $6/TB/month.
• No early deletion penalties, unlike Wasabi.
• 11 nines durability across multiple geographically distributed copies, with a proven reliability history spanning over a decade.

Weaknesses:

• Limited geographic coverage (data centers in the US and Amsterdam for Europe). Latency varies depending on your location.
• Basic support, API-oriented, without premium assistance for small accounts.
• Listing performance can sometimes be slower on buckets containing millions of objects.

Backblaze B2 is the default choice for the solo developer, homelab, and SME who want the lowest cost without surprises on restorations.

Wasabi: Fixed Price and Consistent Performance

Wasabi made a radical bet: a fixed storage price, with no egress or request fees (subject to a reasonable usage policy, meaning your monthly egress does not exceed your stored volume).

Strengths:

• No egress or request fees within the reasonable usage policy. You know exactly what you will pay: storage, period.
• Consistent performance and low latency: in our tests on European VPSs, Wasabi shows 8-12 ms latency and stable read throughput, superior in regularity to B2.
• Wider multi-region coverage than Backblaze.
• 11 nines durability on replicated clusters.

Weaknesses:

• 90-day minimum retention: any stored object is billed for a minimum of 90 days, even if you delete it before then. This is a major point to watch for fast-rotation backups (daily backups with short retention). For long-term archives, it has no impact.
• Conditional egress policy: if your egress regularly exceeds your stored volume, Wasabi may consider the usage non-compliant. For standard backup (write heavily, read rarely), this is rarely an issue.
• Server-side encryption managed by Wasabi: client-side encryption is therefore mandatory for confidentiality.

Wasabi is the ideal choice for long-term active or semi-active storage, where absolute cost predictability and consistent performance take precedence.

AWS S3: The Reference, But Not for Pure Backup

AWS S3 is the object storage reference, the API that all others imitate. Its strength is not price, but deep integration with the AWS ecosystem and the richness of its storage classes.

Strengths:

• Multiple storage classes: Standard for frequent access, Standard-IA and One Zone-IA for infrequent access, and especially Glacier / Glacier Deep Archive for very long-term archiving, where the price drops to a few dollars per TB/year. For pure cold archive that you will almost never restore, Glacier Deep Archive is unbeatable per TB stored.
• Native integration with Lambda, CloudFront, IAM, EC2: essential if your infrastructure already lives on AWS.
• Widest regional coverage on the market and most advanced features (versioning, lifecycle policies, Object Lock for immutability, inter-region replication).
• Object Lock for immutable anti-ransomware backups, a mature and certified feature.

Weaknesses:

• Prohibitive egress fees (~$0.09/GB): restoring is expensive, which disqualifies S3 Standard for backup usage where restorations are tested regularly.
• Complex pricing: between classes, lifecycle transitions, Glacier retrieval fees, and requests, calculating the real cost requires effort. Glacier adds delays and restoration fees.
• High Standard cost (~$23/TB/month) compared to challengers.

AWS S3 remains relevant for architectures already on AWS, for advanced immutability, or for pure cold archiving via Glacier Deep Archive. For a standard backup with regular restorations outside the AWS ecosystem, it is the most expensive.

Performance and Durability

Theoretical durability is identical: 11 nines (99.999999999%) for all three, meaning it is statistically almost impossible to lose data. The mechanisms differ: multi-copy redundancy for B2, replicated clusters for Wasabi, multi-AZ architecture for S3.

Regarding restoration performance, from our tests on VPSs in Europe:

• Wasabi: 8-12 ms latency, most regular throughput, most predictable for restoring a large volume.
• Backblaze B2: 15-30 ms latency depending on datacenter proximity, excellent performance with a nearby endpoint, sometimes slowdowns on listing very populated buckets.
• AWS S3 Standard: excellent performance and latency, but Glacier imposes retrieval delays (minutes to hours depending on the tier chosen).

For a tool like Restic or Kopia that multiplies small requests, Wasabi (with no request fees) is the most comfortable regarding the bill. For Glacier, beware of retrieval delays and fees, which reserve it for archives you will almost never read.

Use Cases: Who Should Choose What?

Homelab or VPS Backups, Tight Budget

Backblaze B2. Lowest price per GB, free egress up to three times the storage, no deletion penalties. Perfect with Restic, Borg, or Kopia.

Long-term Storage with Perfectly Predictable Cost

Wasabi. Fixed price, no egress or request fees. Ideal if you keep archives for several months or years (the 90-day retention becomes irrelevant) and want zero surprises on the bill.

Infrastructure Already on AWS or Need for Advanced Immutability

AWS S3. Native integration, anti-ransomware Object Lock, lifecycle policies. And for pure cold archive that you will (almost) never restore, Glacier Deep Archive is the cheapest per TB stored.

Robust 3-2-1 Strategy

The best approach combines strengths: primary backup on Backblaze B2 (low cost, easy and free restoration), secondary off-site copy on Wasabi or in Glacier Deep Archive for geo-redundancy. Tools like rclone or Restic’s multiple destinations make this configuration trivial.

Verdict: Three Use Cases, Three Winners

The right choice depends on your data access profile, not just the displayed price.

Backblaze B2 is the best choice for most technical users: developers, homelabs, SMEs. Lowest price per GB, generous free egress that eliminates the fear of restoring, no deletion penalties. It is our default recommendation for client-side encrypted backups.

Wasabi is the champion of predictability. Fixed price, zero egress and request fees, most regular performance. Unbeatable for long-term storage where the 90-day minimum retention has no impact and you want a bill with no variables.

AWS S3 is not a bad choice, it is a contextual choice. If your infrastructure lives on AWS, if you need Object Lock for immutable backups, or if you archive pure cold data via Glacier Deep Archive, it is the way to go. For a standard backup tested regularly outside AWS, its egress fees make it the most expensive of the trio.

Our advice: Backblaze B2 to start simple and cheap, Wasabi for long-term predictability, and AWS S3 only if the ecosystem or immutability requires it. Whatever your choice, encrypt your data client-side and test your restorations regularly. An untested backup is a backup that doesn’t exist.

FAQ

What is the cheapest for simple backups?

Backblaze B2, for active and semi-active storage: lowest price per GB and free egress up to three times the stored volume. For pure cold archive that you will almost never restore, AWS Glacier Deep Archive becomes the cheapest per TB stored, at the cost of retrieval delays and fees.

Are AWS S3 egress fees really a problem for backup?

Yes. At approximately $0.09/GB, restoring 1 TB costs nearly $90. Since testing restorations is a mandatory best practice, these fees add up quickly. This is the main reason why Backblaze B2 and Wasabi are preferred for pure backup.

Does Wasabi’s 90-day retention pose a problem?

Only for fast-rotation backups (daily backups with short retention), because every object is billed for a minimum of 90 days even if deleted beforehand. For archives kept for several months or years, this rule has no impact.

Are these services compatible with Restic, Borg, and Kopia?

Yes. All three expose an S3-compatible API that Restic, Kopia, and rclone (usable as a backend for Borg) manage natively. You just need to configure the endpoint, bucket, and access keys. All encrypt client-side, ensuring the provider never sees your data in plaintext.

Should I encrypt my data myself?

Yes, always, especially with Wasabi where server-side encryption is managed by the provider. Client-side encryption (native in Restic, Borg, and Kopia) ensures that even in the event of a provider compromise, your data remains unreadable. This is a non-negotiable rule for any serious backup.

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