AWS S3 vs DigitalOcean Spaces
DigitalOcean Spaces 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 | DigitalOcean Spaces | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | — | $5.00/mo | — |
| Storage | $0.023/GB-mo | $0.020/GB-mo | 1.2× DigitalOcean Spaces |
| Data transfer out | $0.090/GB | $0.010/GB | 9× DigitalOcean Spaces |
| Free tier | Yes | No | — |
Source: Amazon Web Services pricing (May 2026) · DigitalOcean 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 | DigitalOcean Spaces | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process. | $9.46 | $0.40 | DigitalOcean Spacessaves $9.06/mo (96%) |
| Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers. | $102 | $10 | DigitalOcean Spacessaves $92/mo (90%) |
| Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought. | $946 | $130 | DigitalOcean Spacessaves $816/mo (86%) |
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
DigitalOcean Spaces
by DigitalOcean
A flat $5 per month covers 250 GB of storage and 1 TB of transfer, which makes small buckets cost nothing extra and large ones uncompetitive.
Common questions
- Is AWS S3 or DigitalOcean Spaces cheaper in 2026?
- DigitalOcean Spaces is cheaper in all 3 modelled workloads.
- What is the difference in egress cost between AWS S3 and DigitalOcean Spaces?
- DigitalOcean Spaces charges $0.010 per GB against AWS S3's $0.090, roughly 9× cheaper. Egress usually dominates the bill once traffic is measured in terabytes.
- Which has the better free tier, AWS S3 or DigitalOcean Spaces?
- AWS S3 does — 5 GB of standard storage for 12 months. DigitalOcean Spaces bills from the first unit of usage.
- 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.