Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage vs. Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage

Who Should You Choose, and Why?

✋ Most important consideration

Storage on Backblaze B2 is cheaper than Wasabi, but Backblaze charges for bandwidth/egress and operations while Wasabi does not.

🤔 Strongly consider Wasabi over Backblaze if

• You store your files for long periods of time and only access them occasionally.
• You need HIPAA-compliant storage.

🤔 Strongly consider Backblaze over Wasabi if

You overwrite or delete a considerable amount of your files within 90 days of upload.

📝 Other Notes

• While both providers promote an 100% compatible S3 API, they are not exactly the same in implementation and may have different restrictions compared to the AWS S3 API.
• There is a minimum file storage period of 90 days with Wasabi.
  

• Backblaze B2’s replication factors are limited to 1 or 2 regions, and Wasabi just a few more.
• Backblaze B2 has a weekly 2-hour maintenance window.
• If you migrate storage and keep the rest of your infrastructure on another provider (like AWS), you will incur new ongoing transfer costs. Example: Moving from Amazon S3 to Backblaze B2 or Wasabi but having storage interactions with Amazon EC2 boxes can be expensive on egress.
• Wasabi will charge you for a minimum of 3 months of storage for any uploaded data. For example, if you upload a file and then delete it within 1 month, you’ll get charged for the remaining 2 months.
• Wasabi’s zero fee egress does not allow you to download more than you have stored.
• While no explicit limits are stated on the website, Wasabi may also limit the number of operations based on your volume of storage.

Product Information

• Backblaze and Wasabi are both part of the Bandwidth Alliance which provides free egress to CDNs like Cloudflare CDN for approved use cases.

Pricing Pages

• Backblaze B2 Pricing Page
• Backblaze B2 Pricing Organized by API Calls
• Wasabi Pay-Go Pricing FAQs
• Wasabi Pricing

Other

• Backblaze B2 Customer Case Studies
• Backblaze B2 Documentation
• Wasabi Documentation
• Wasabi Case Studies

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Louis-Victor Jadavji (or "LV") is a recognized leader in the cloud services industry. He's helped 50+ digital native companies like ModusBox, Later, and NS1 choose the right cloud stack for their applications. His work has been featured in Forbes (30 Under 30 All-Star), HuffPost, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, and Inc. Magazine.