# Amazon S3 vs Google Cloud Storage: which do AI models recommend for object storage, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, Object storage. Three of fourteen models named Amazon S3 first on the direct prompt; one named Google Cloud Storage. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/cloud/object-storage/amazon-s3-vs-google-cloud-storage/

| | First-choice share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Models naming it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon S3 | 12% | #3 of 9 | 34% | 67 | 14 of 14 |
| Google Cloud Storage | 2% | #7 of 9 | 21% | 47 | 14 of 14 |

## The direct prompt, model by model

- GPT-5.4 mini: amazon s3 first (first choices: Amazon S3) (alternatives: Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage)
- MiniMax M2.5: amazon s3 first (first choices: Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage) (alternatives: Backblaze B2, Google Cloud Storage, Wasabi Object Storage)
- GPT-6 Luna: amazon s3 first (first choices: Amazon S3) (alternatives: Azure Blob Storage, Cloudflare R2, Google Cloud Storage)
- Perplexity Sonar: google cloud storage first (first choices: Google Cloud Storage) (alternatives: Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Wasabi Object Storage)
- Mistral Small: neither first, one named (first choices: Backblaze B2) (alternatives: Amazon S3, Cloudian HyperStore)
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: neither first, one named (first choices: Backblaze B2) (alternatives: Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2)
- Kimi K2: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare R2) (alternatives: Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Google Cloud Storage)
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: neither first, one named (first choices: Backblaze B2) (alternatives: Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, MinIO AIStor, Wasabi Object Storage)
- Muse Glimmer 30B: neither first, one named (alternatives: Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, Wasabi Object Storage)
- Claude Haiku 4.5: neither named
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: neither named (first choices: Cloudflare R2) (alternatives: Backblaze B2, Wasabi Object Storage)
- Grok 4.1 Fast: neither named (first choices: Backblaze B2) (alternatives: Cloudflare R2, Wasabi Object Storage)
- Llama 4 Maverick: neither named
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: neither named (first choices: Backblaze B2, Wasabi Object Storage)

## What the models said about Amazon S3

- "Avoid hyperscalers (AWS/GCP/Azure) on tight budgets due to egress/API add-ons." (Grok 4.1 Fast, budget prompt, hard negative)
- "Traditional hyperscalers like AWS S3 are incredibly powerful but often punish growing mid-sized companies with unpredictable API transaction fees and steep "egress taxes"" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, paraphrase prompt, soft negative)
- "Be cautious if… You're comparing only the per-GB storage price. Requests, retrievals, transfers, replication, and archive-tier rules can also affect the bill" (GPT-6 Luna, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "Best for: Enterprise workloads, S3-native applications... AWS S3, Azure Blob, and GCS offer the most comprehensive feature sets" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, comparative prompt, first choice)
- "If you want one answer without more context: choose Amazon S3 unless your company is already standardized on Azure or GCP." (GPT-5.4 mini, direct prompt, first choice)
- "The industry standard. Most third-party tools default to S3 compatibility because it has the largest ecosystem" (Qwen 3.7 Flash, comparative prompt, first choice)

## What the models said about Google Cloud Storage

- ""avoid or be cautious about ... those with high egress fees or minimum retention periods, such as GCS and Azure Cold"" (Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt, hard negative)
- "Avoid hyperscalers (AWS/GCP/Azure) on tight budgets due to egress/API add-ons." (Grok 4.1 Fast, budget prompt, hard negative)
- "Outages: Frequent minor incidents; e.g., Google Cloud had prolonged regional degradations" (Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "the best default choice is usually Google Cloud Storage" (Perplexity Sonar, direct prompt, first choice)
- "Known for high-performance internal networking and strong support for large-scale data analytics and machine learning pipelines" (Qwen 3.7 Flash, comparative prompt, alternative)
- "If the company is already using or planning to use Google Cloud services, Google Cloud Storage is a seamless choice." (Llama 4 Maverick, paraphrase prompt, alternative)

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category. Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category. Published under CC BY 4.0; the output is the models' output, and nothing here is a recommendation by the index.