Hetzner Storage Box vs Amazon S3
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Hetzner Storage Box and Amazon S3.
Quick Verdict
4.1/5
Hetzner Storage Box
0 reviews
4.1/5
Amazon S3
0 reviews
Both Hetzner Storage Box and Amazon S3 are equally rated at 4.1/5. Hetzner Storage Box is a managed online storage service offering 1 TB to 20 TB capacity with access via SFTP, SCP, rsync, Samba/CIFS, WebDAV and HTTPS, plus native BorgBackup, Restic and Rclone support. Built for developers, small businesses and content creators needing cost-effective backup and file hosting. AWS S3 stores and retrieves unlimited amounts of data via a simple web interface. Built for developers, enterprises, and anyone needing reliable, durable cloud storage with pay-as-you-go pricing.
Hetzner Storage Box Affordable managed online storage with SFTP, rsync, WebDAV and Samba access |  Amazon S3 Scalable object storage for any data size or type | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.1 (0 reviews) | 4.1 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | paid | pay-as-you-go (per GB-month + per 1,000 requests + retrieval/transfer) |
| Starting price | From $3.2/mo | From $0.023/mo✓ |
| Best for | European teams and developers who need cheap, predictable backup storage or file hosting over standard file protocols, especially as a Borg/Restic target for Hetzner workloads. | Teams building on AWS who need durable, API-stable object storage for backups, data lakes, static content and archives — and who value tooling compatibility over the lowest per-GB rate |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | — |
| RAM | — | — |
| Storage | 1,024 GB | — |
| Bandwidth | — | — |
| SLA uptime | — | 99.9% |
| Data-center count | 2 | — |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ✓ | |
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | Falkenstein (DE)Helsinki (FI) | 39 AWS regions / 123-124 AZs |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | eu datacentergdpr compliant | free tiers3 compatibleapi accessus datacentereu datacenterapac datacenterterraform provider |
| Visit Hetzner Storage Box → | Visit Amazon S3 → | |
Hetzner Storage Box
Pros
- + Predictable flat pricing: 1 TB from €3.20/month up to 20 TB for €40.60/month, with hourly billing and no retrieval or request fees
- + Unlimited traffic and free transfers to Hetzner Cloud and dedicated products at the same location
- + Protocol breadth: SFTP/SCP/rsync/WebDAV/Samba plus first-class BorgBackup, Restic and Rclone support
- + 10–40 snapshots included per tier with a scheduler, 100 sub-accounts, no minimum contract, cancel immediately
- + German/Finnish storage (GDPR-friendly) on Hetzner's own ISO 27001:2022 certified infrastructure
Cons
- - No S3 API and no NFS on Hetzner's published protocol list — cloud-native tooling needs workarounds
- - Data is not mirrored to other servers: RAID plus checksums only, so snapshots are the sole built-in recovery
- - 10 concurrent connections per box and a 20 TB ceiling per box; no per-user quotas or documented encryption at rest
- - No published throughput figures and no product-level SLA or credits
- - Email support only for this product line
Amazon S3
Pros
- + Designed for 11 nines durability with cross-AZ replication by default and strong read-after-write consistency
- + The S3 API is the industry standard — code written in 2006 still works, and third-party compatibility is everywhere
- + 23x cost ladder from Standard down to Glacier Deep Archive at $0.00099/GB-month, with lifecycle automation
- + Deepest storage feature set available: versioning, Object Lock, replication, inventory, event notifications, access management
Cons
- - Egress at $0.09/GB and per-request pricing produce surprise bills for chatty or restore-heavy workloads
- - IA and Glacier classes add retrieval fees and latency — the restore path must be priced separately
- - Policy configuration (bucket policies, IAM, Block Public Access, KMS keys) is complex and historically error-prone
- - SLA (99.9%/99.0%) is far below the durability figure — availability and durability are different promises
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