Index › Cloud and infrastructure › September 2026 Edition

Object storage

Asked as “object storage service”, and as “S3-compatible cloud storage”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 39 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.

Standing

Backblaze B2

Clear leader

46% of first choices, clear leader.

ShowinginAll 67 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

Small business

Backblaze B260%Clear leaderStanding →Mid-market

Backblaze B246%Clear leaderThis page Enterprise

Amazon S330%ContestedStanding →

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.

ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant

Backblaze B24%52endorsed leader

Cloudflare R27%43accepted challenger

Amazon S323%60accepted challenger

Azure Blob Storage22%46accepted challenger

Wasabi38%50criticized challenger

IDrive e217%12accepted challenger

Storj27%11criticized challenger

Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate

DigitalOcean Spaces38%24criticized challenger

Google Cloud Storage24%45accepted challenger

MinIO15%27accepted challenger

Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.

Head to head

Backblaze B2 vs Cloudflare R2 Backblaze B2 vs Amazon S3 Cloudflare R2 vs Amazon S3

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default

Negative label rate →

Accepted challengerEndorsed leader

0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative60%

Key

Backblaze B246%

Cloudflare R221%

Amazon S315%

Azure Blob Storage8%

Wasabi5%

IDrive e23%

Storj3%

Google Cloud Storage0%

MinIO0%

DigitalOcean Spaces0%

02What they warned about

Four of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Perplexity Sonar, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.

Wasabi

38%

19 of 50 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 3 hard negative

“**Data corruption incidents** ... 90-day minimum retention (charged for deleted data), slow support” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt

DigitalOcean Spaces

38%

9 of 24 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 2 hard negative

“5 GB max object size limit... These are non-starters for many modern workloads” MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt

Azure Blob Storage

22%

10 of 46 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 1 hard negative

“~$18/TB/month plus ~$87/TB egress” DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt

Google Cloud Storage

24%

11 of 45 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 1 hard negative

“not** budget-friendly for most use cases ... ~$20/TB/month plus ~$120/TB egress” DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

60 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 5 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 785 links across 230 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

mixpeek.com

30 answers · 45 citations · 9 models

digitalocean.com

vendor site · DigitalOcean20 answers · 25 citations · 9 models

gartner.com

19 answers · 21 citations · 9 models

cloudian.com

vendor site · Cloudian16 answers · 29 citations · 8 models

github.com

vendor site · GitHub16 answers · 17 citations · 9 models

aimultiple.com

16 answers · 16 citations · 9 models

lowcloud.io

16 answers · 16 citations · 9 models

backblaze.com

vendor site · Backblaze14 answers · 22 citations · 9 models

solved.scality.com

vendor site · Scality14 answers · 19 citations · 8 models

worldmetrics.org

13 answers · 15 citations · 7 models

enterprisestorageforum.com

13 answers · 13 citations · 8 models

trustradius.com

12 answers · 17 citations · 8 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

mixpeek.com/blog/object-storage-comparison-2026

26 answers · 9 models

gartner.com/reviews/market/file-and-object-storage-platforms

19 answers · 9 models

mixpeek.com/curated-lists/best-s3-compatible-object-storage

18 answers · 9 models

digitalocean.com/resources/articles/object-storage-solutions-cloud-data

17 answers · 8 models

aimultiple.com/cloud-object-storage

16 answers · 9 models

lowcloud.io/en/blog/s3-compatible-object-storage

16 answers · 9 models

github.com/mixpeek/awesome-object-storage

14 answers · 9 models

enterprisestorageforum.com/cloud/best-object-storage-solutions

13 answers · 8 models

backblaze.com/cloud-storage

12 answers · 8 models

worldmetrics.org/service/object-storage

12 answers · 7 models

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.

ModelDirect“What is the best object storage service for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which S3-compatible cloud storage would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top object storage services and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best object storage service for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating an object storage service. What should we look at?”Negative“Which object storage services should I avoid or be cautious about?”

Claude Haiku 4.5Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storageagainst: MinIOno first choiceChangedAmazon S3

Five alternatives

Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Cloudian, Google Cloud Storage, MinIO

no first choice

Six alternatives

Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Google Cloud Storage, MinIO, Wasabi

no first choicenothing named

GPT-5.4 miniAmazon S3

Four alternatives

Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Google Cloud Storage, Wasabi

Amazon S3Held

Two alternatives

Backblaze B2, Wasabi

Amazon S3

Three alternatives

Azure Blob Storage, Cloudflare R2, Google Cloud Storage

Backblaze B2

Two alternatives

Cloudflare R2, Wasabi

against: Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storageno first choicenothing named

Gemini 3.5 FlashBackblaze B2

Two alternatives

Cloudflare R2, Wasabi

against: Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud StorageBackblaze B2Held

Two alternatives

Cloudflare R2, MinIO

against: Amazon S3, Wasabino first choiceagainst: WasabiBackblaze B2

Three alternatives

Cloudflare R2, IDrive e2, Wasabi

against: Amazon S3no first choice

Three alternatives

Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, Wasabi

against: Ceph, MinIOagainst: Amazon S3, Arweave, Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Contabo, Filecoin, Google Cloud Storage, Hostinger, Storj, Wasabi

Perplexity SonarAmazon S3

Four alternatives

Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, DigitalOcean Spaces, IBM Cloud Object Storage

Backblaze B2Changed

Two alternatives

DigitalOcean Spaces, Wasabi

against: Cloudian HyperStore, MinIOAmazon S3

Five alternatives

Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, Google Cloud Storage, Wasabi

Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2

Two alternatives

IDrive e2, Storj

against: Wasabino first choiceagainst: Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, DigitalOcean Spaces, Google Cloud Storage, Linode Object Storage, OVHcloud Object Storage, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage, Vultr Object Storage, Wasabi

Grok 4.1 FastBackblaze B2

Two alternatives

Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2

against: WasabiBackblaze B2Held

Two alternatives

Cloudflare R2, Wasabi

against: Amazon S3, DigitalOcean SpacesAmazon S3

Four alternatives

Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, Google Cloud Storage

Backblaze B2

Two alternatives

Cloudflare R2, IDrive e2

against: Amazon S3, Wasabino first choiceagainst: DigitalOcean Spaces, Gcore, Hetzner Object Storage, IDrive e2, Linode Object Storage, Scaleway Object Storage, Vultr Object Storage, Wasabi

Mistral SmallAmazon S3, Azure Blob Storage

Three alternatives

Google Cloud Storage, IBM Cloud Object Storage, Scality

Backblaze B2Changed

Two alternatives

Ceph, Cloudian

Amazon S3

Eight alternatives

Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, DigitalOcean Spaces, Google Cloud Storage, IBM Cloud Object Storage, MinIO, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage

IDrive e2, Storj

Two alternatives

Backblaze B2, DigitalOcean Spaces

against: Wasabino first choiceagainst: Azure Blob Storage, DigitalOcean Spaces, Google Cloud Storage, Linode Object Storage, Vultr, Wasabi

DeepSeek V4 FlashBackblaze B2, Cloudflare R2

One alternative

Wasabi

against: Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud StorageBackblaze B2Changed

One alternative

Cloudflare R2

against: Amazon S3, WasabiAmazon S3, Cloudflare R2

Six alternatives

Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, DigitalOcean Spaces, Google Cloud Storage, MinIO, Wasabi

Backblaze B2

Two alternatives

Cloudflare R2, Wasabi

against: Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storageno first choiceagainst: DigitalOcean Spaces, Hetzner Object Storage, IBM Cloud Object Storage, IDrive e2, Linode Object Storage, OVHcloud, Scaleway Object Storage, Storj, Vultr, Wasabi

Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceBackblaze B2Changed

Two alternatives

Cloudflare R2, Cloudian

no first choiceCloudflare R2

Three alternatives

Backblaze B2, Bunny Storage, Hetzner Object Storage

no first choiceagainst: Azure Blob Storage, DigitalOcean Spaces, Google Cloud Storage, Linode Object Storage, Vultr, Wasabi

Qwen 3.7 FlashWasabi

Two alternatives

Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage

Backblaze B2Changed

One alternative

Cloudflare R2

against: WasabiAmazon S3

Four alternatives

Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, Google Cloud Storage

Cloudflare R2

Two alternatives

Backblaze B2, IDrive e2

against: Amazon S3no first choiceagainst: Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Filecoin, Google Cloud Storage, IDrive Business, Storj, Wasabi

Kimi K2Cloudflare R2

Four alternatives

Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, MinIO, Wasabi

Cloudflare R2Held

Two alternatives

Backblaze B2, Wasabi

Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2

Five alternatives

Azure Blob Storage, DigitalOcean Spaces, Google Cloud Storage, IDrive e2, Wasabi

Cloudflare R2

Three alternatives

Backblaze B2, IDrive e2, Storj

no first choice

Six alternatives

Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Cloudflare R2, Impossible Cloud, MinIO, Wasabi

against: Azure Blob Storage, Cloudflare R2, DigitalOcean Spaces, Google Cloud Storage, Linode Object Storage, Vultr, Wasabi

GLM 4.7 FlashXAzure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2

Two alternatives

Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage

Cloudflare R2Changed

Two alternatives

Backblaze B2, Wasabi

against: MinIOno first choiceagainst: TigrisBackblaze B2

Three alternatives

Cloudflare R2, Hetzner Object Storage, Wasabi

no first choiceagainst: Alibaba Cloud OSS, Cloudflare R2, DigitalOcean Spaces, Hetzner Object Storage, Wasabi

MiniMax M2.5Amazon S3, Wasabi

Three alternatives

Azure Blob Storage, DigitalOcean Spaces, Google Cloud Storage

no first choiceChangedAmazon S3, Cloudflare R2

Three alternatives

Backblaze B2, DigitalOcean Spaces, MinIO

Backblaze B2

Two alternatives

Bunny Storage, Cloudflare R2

against: Wasabino first choiceagainst: Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, DigitalOcean Spaces, Gcore, Hetzner, Linode Object Storage, Scaleway, Vultr, Wasabi

Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record

Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.

Prompt	Model	Version string	Time (UTC)	Searched	Sources	Latency
Direct recommendation	Claude Haiku 4.5	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	2026-09-17 10:38	no	0	5 s
Direct recommendation	GPT-5.4 mini	`gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17`	2026-09-17 11:50	yes	3	5 s
Direct recommendation	Gemini 3.5 Flash	`gemini-3.5-flash`	2026-09-17 09:46	yes	16	28 s
Direct recommendation	Perplexity Sonar	`sonar`	2026-09-17 11:53	yes	20	5 s
Direct recommendation	Grok 4.1 Fast	`spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex`	2026-09-17 13:00	yes	37	19 s
Direct recommendation	Mistral Small	`mistral/mistral-small via mistral`	2026-09-17 10:25	yes	9	9 s
Direct recommendation	DeepSeek V4 Flash	`deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks`	2026-09-17 11:31	yes	20	21 s
Direct recommendation	Llama 4 Maverick	`meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock`	2026-09-17 11:29	yes	5	3 s
Direct recommendation	Qwen 3.7 Flash	`alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba`	2026-09-17 12:04	yes	10	119 s
Direct recommendation	Kimi K2	`moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita`	2026-09-17 10:33	yes	15	38 s
Direct recommendation	GLM 4.7 FlashX	`zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai`	2026-09-17 10:56	yes	20	60 s
Direct recommendation	MiniMax M2.5	`minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax`	2026-09-17 10:47	yes	7	35 s
Paraphrase	Claude Haiku 4.5	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	2026-09-17 12:17	no	0	4 s
Paraphrase	GPT-5.4 mini	`gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17`	2026-09-17 13:02	yes	3	5 s
Paraphrase	Gemini 3.5 Flash	`gemini-3.5-flash`	2026-09-17 12:32	yes	17	26 s
Paraphrase	Perplexity Sonar	`sonar`	2026-09-17 12:39	yes	17	6 s
Paraphrase	Grok 4.1 Fast	`spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex`	2026-09-17 11:24	yes	26	14 s
Paraphrase	Mistral Small	`mistral/mistral-small via mistral`	2026-09-17 10:01	yes	5	5 s
Paraphrase	DeepSeek V4 Flash	`deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks`	2026-09-17 10:38	yes	9	13 s
Paraphrase	Llama 4 Maverick	`meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock`	2026-09-17 13:44	yes	5	3 s
Paraphrase	Qwen 3.7 Flash	`alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba`	2026-09-17 11:26	yes	15	46 s
Paraphrase	Kimi K2	`moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita`	2026-09-17 12:56	yes	12	31 s
Paraphrase	GLM 4.7 FlashX	`zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai`	2026-09-17 09:46	yes	26	66 s
Paraphrase	MiniMax M2.5	`minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax`	2026-09-17 13:48	no	0	51 s
Comparative	Claude Haiku 4.5	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	2026-09-17 10:40	yes	9	9 s
Comparative	GPT-5.4 mini	`gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17`	2026-09-17 12:52	yes	9	8 s
Comparative	Gemini 3.5 Flash	`gemini-3.5-flash`	2026-09-17 12:27	yes	11	21 s
Comparative	Perplexity Sonar	`sonar`	2026-09-17 11:20	yes	20	9 s
Comparative	Grok 4.1 Fast	`spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex`	2026-09-17 12:36	yes	28	16 s
Comparative	Mistral Small	`mistral/mistral-small via mistral`	2026-09-17 10:18	yes	5	8 s
Comparative	DeepSeek V4 Flash	`deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks`	2026-09-17 09:23	yes	14	19 s
Comparative	Llama 4 Maverick	`meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock`	2026-09-17 11:26	yes	5	2 s
Comparative	Qwen 3.7 Flash	`alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba`	2026-09-17 13:23	yes	10	27 s
Comparative	Kimi K2	`moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita`	2026-09-17 12:03	yes	10	29 s
Comparative	GLM 4.7 FlashX	`zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai`	2026-09-17 10:36	yes	13	89 s
Comparative	MiniMax M2.5	`minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax`	2026-09-17 09:38	yes	5	21 s
Budget constrained	Claude Haiku 4.5	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	2026-09-17 14:02	no	0	6 s
Budget constrained	GPT-5.4 mini	`gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17`	2026-09-17 11:25	no	0	3 s
Budget constrained	Gemini 3.5 Flash	`gemini-3.5-flash`	2026-09-17 10:03	yes	17	20 s
Budget constrained	Perplexity Sonar	`sonar`	2026-09-17 10:04	yes	20	5 s
Budget constrained	Grok 4.1 Fast	`spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex`	2026-09-17 09:42	yes	44	18 s
Budget constrained	Mistral Small	`mistral/mistral-small via mistral`	2026-09-17 09:28	yes	5	4 s
Budget constrained	DeepSeek V4 Flash	`deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks`	2026-09-17 13:57	yes	9	11 s
Budget constrained	Llama 4 Maverick	`meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock`	2026-09-17 10:27	yes	5	2 s
Budget constrained	Qwen 3.7 Flash	`alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba`	2026-09-17 13:30	yes	5	20 s
Budget constrained	Kimi K2	`moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita`	2026-09-17 13:16	yes	5	16 s
Budget constrained	GLM 4.7 FlashX	`zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai`	2026-09-17 13:41	yes	30	37 s
Budget constrained	MiniMax M2.5	`minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax`	2026-09-17 13:13	yes	10	31 s
Scale constrained	Claude Haiku 4.5	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	2026-09-17 10:53	no	0	6 s
Scale constrained	GPT-5.4 mini	`gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17`	2026-09-17 11:32	no	0	6 s
Scale constrained	Gemini 3.5 Flash	`gemini-3.5-flash`	2026-09-17 12:09	no	0	16 s
Scale constrained	Perplexity Sonar	`sonar`	2026-09-17 11:06	yes	20	9 s
Scale constrained	Grok 4.1 Fast	`spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex`	2026-09-17 10:19	yes	14	10 s
Scale constrained	Mistral Small	`mistral/mistral-small via mistral`	2026-09-17 13:39	no	0	7 s
Scale constrained	DeepSeek V4 Flash	`deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks`	2026-09-17 13:56	yes	29	31 s
Scale constrained	Llama 4 Maverick	`meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock`	2026-09-17 10:09	yes	5	2 s
Scale constrained	Qwen 3.7 Flash	`alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba`	2026-09-17 10:01	no	0	41 s
Scale constrained	Kimi K2	`moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita`	2026-09-17 12:16	yes	15	32 s
Scale constrained	GLM 4.7 FlashX	`zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai`	2026-09-17 13:15	no	0	33 s
Scale constrained	MiniMax M2.5	`minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax`	2026-09-17 11:39	yes	9	18 s
Negative framing	Claude Haiku 4.5	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	2026-09-17 09:59	no	0	3 s
Negative framing	GPT-5.4 mini	`gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17`	2026-09-17 11:10	yes	3	6 s
Negative framing	Gemini 3.5 Flash	`gemini-3.5-flash`	2026-09-17 13:57	yes	18	25 s
Negative framing	Perplexity Sonar	`sonar`	2026-09-17 10:53	yes	20	7 s
Negative framing	Grok 4.1 Fast	`spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex`	2026-09-17 13:22	yes	39	18 s
Negative framing	Mistral Small	`mistral/mistral-small via mistral`	2026-09-17 11:41	yes	5	6 s
Negative framing	DeepSeek V4 Flash	`deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks`	2026-09-17 12:31	yes	30	25 s
Negative framing	Llama 4 Maverick	`meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock`	2026-09-17 12:19	yes	7	4 s
Negative framing	Qwen 3.7 Flash	`alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba`	2026-09-17 10:49	yes	5	35 s
Negative framing	Kimi K2	`moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita`	2026-09-17 11:31	yes	15	59 s
Negative framing	GLM 4.7 FlashX	`zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai`	2026-09-17 10:04	yes	29	63 s
Negative framing	MiniMax M2.5	`minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax`	2026-09-17 13:05	yes	15	41 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings

AWS read as Amazon S3

Amazon Web Services read as Amazon S3

Azure read as Azure Blob Storage

Azure Blob read as Azure Blob Storage

Backblaze read as Backblaze B2

DigitalOcean read as DigitalOcean Spaces

GCP read as Google Cloud Storage

Google Cloud read as Google Cloud Storage

IBM read as IBM Cloud Object Storage

Linode read as Linode Object Storage

Oracle read as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage

Oracle Cloud read as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage

Unresolved, counted raw

Alibaba Cloud OSS (Object Storage Service)

Arweave

Dell Object Storage

Leviia

OVHcloud Object Storage

Seagate

Discontinued, still offered

No shut-down product was recommended here.

Object storage

By buyer segment

01The standing

Recommended versus criticized

02What they warned about

03What they cite

Sites the answers cite

Pages the answers cite

04How they answered

05The record

Normalization in this category

Also in cloud and infrastructure