# Backblaze B2 vs Amazon S3: which do AI models recommend for object storage, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, Object storage. Five of fourteen models named Backblaze B2 first on the direct prompt; three named Amazon S3. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/cloud/object-storage/backblaze-b2-vs-amazon-s3/

| | First-choice share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Models naming it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Backblaze B2 | 46% | #1 of 9 | 5% | 62 | 14 of 14 |
| Amazon S3 | 12% | #3 of 9 | 34% | 67 | 14 of 14 |

## The direct prompt, model by model

- Grok 4.20: backblaze b2 first (first choices: Backblaze B2) (alternatives: Cloudflare R2, Wasabi Object Storage)
- Mistral Small: backblaze b2 first (first choices: Backblaze B2) (alternatives: Amazon S3, Cloudian HyperStore)
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: backblaze b2 first (first choices: Backblaze B2) (alternatives: Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2)
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: backblaze b2 first (first choices: Backblaze B2, Wasabi Object Storage)
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: backblaze b2 first (first choices: Backblaze B2) (alternatives: Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, MinIO AIStor, Wasabi Object Storage)
- 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)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare R2) (alternatives: Backblaze B2, Wasabi Object Storage)
- Perplexity Sonar: neither first, one named (first choices: Google Cloud Storage) (alternatives: Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Wasabi Object Storage)
- Kimi K2: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare R2) (alternatives: Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Google Cloud Storage)
- Muse Glimmer 30B: neither first, one named (alternatives: Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, Wasabi Object Storage)
- Claude Haiku 4.5: neither named
- Llama 4 Maverick: neither named

## What the models said about Backblaze B2

- "Your downloads are much larger than your stored volume... model the excess before committing." (GPT-6 Luna, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "Some users mention limited regional redundancy (only US‑based by default)." (MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "they may lack integration with other services and can become more expensive" (Mistral Small, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "Backblaze B2 gives the best balance of transparent low storage pricing, broad S3 compatibility, free egress allowance and no minimum retention" (Muse Glimmer 30B, paraphrase prompt, first choice)
- "In practice most budget-limited companies start with Backblaze B2 for storage cost, and pair it with Cloudflare for free unlimited egress." (Muse Glimmer 30B, budget prompt, first choice)
- "The Best All-Rounder: Backblaze B2 ... widely considered the best balance between rock-bottom pricing and enterprise-grade stability." (Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt, first choice)

## What the models said about Amazon S3

- "Avoid hyperscalers (AWS/GCP/Azure) on tight budgets due to egress/API add-ons." (Grok 4.20, 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)

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.