AWS S3 vs Azure Blob Storage
Azure Blob Storage is cheaper across every workload modelled here.
List prices checked
Rate cards side by side
Only the axes at least one of them bills on. A dash means that provider does not charge for it.
| Billing axis | AWS S3 | Azure Blob Storage | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Storage | $0.023/GB-mo | $0.018/GB-mo | 1.3× Azure Blob Storage |
| Data transfer out | $0.090/GB | $0.087/GB | 1× Azure Blob Storage |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes | — |
Source: Amazon Web Services pricing (May 2026) · Microsoft pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.
Monthly cost for three real workloads
The rate cards applied to identical usage. This is where the winner changes.
| Workload | AWS S3 | Azure Blob Storage | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process. | $9.46 | $9.06 | Azure Blob Storagesaves $0.40/mo (4%) |
| Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers. | $102 | $96 | Azure Blob Storagesaves $5.50/mo (5%) |
| Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought. | $946 | $906 | Azure Blob Storagesaves $40/mo (4%) |
Workload definitions are identical on every comparison page, so figures here can be read against any other pair in the same category.
What each one is for
AWS S3
by Amazon Web Services
The reference implementation every competitor is compatible with. Storage is mid-priced and egress is the most expensive in the category, which is the entire reason the S3-compatible market exists.
Free tier: 5 GB of standard storage for 12 months
Azure Blob Storage
by Microsoft
Microsoft's object store with hot, cool, cold, and archive tiers. Moving between tiers carries its own transaction cost that is easy to miss when modelling the bill.
Free tier: 5 GB of hot block storage for 12 months
Common questions
- Is AWS S3 or Azure Blob Storage cheaper in 2026?
- Azure Blob Storage is cheaper in all 3 modelled workloads.
- What is the difference in egress cost between AWS S3 and Azure Blob Storage?
- Azure Blob Storage charges $0.087 per GB against AWS S3's $0.090, roughly 1× cheaper. Egress usually dominates the bill once traffic is measured in terabytes.
- Which has the better free tier, AWS S3 or Azure Blob Storage?
- Both publish one. AWS S3: 5 GB of standard storage for 12 months. Azure Blob Storage: 5 GB of hot block storage for 12 months.
- What do these estimates not include?
- Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.