--- description: Learn more about Amazon S3 price, benefits, and disadvantages for businesses in South Africa. Read reviews from verified users and discover similar tools. image: https://gdm-localsites-assets-gfprod.imgix.net/images/capterra/og_logo-e5a8c001ed0bd1bb922639230fcea71a.png?auto=format%2Cenhance%2Ccompress title: Amazon S3 Price, Reviews & Features - Capterra South Africa 2026 --- Breadcrumb: [Home](/) > [Cloud Storage Software](/directory/31310/cloud-storage/software) > [Amazon S3](/software/174285/amazon-s3) # Amazon S3 Canonical: https://www.capterra.co.za/software/174285/amazon-s3 Page: 1 / 46\ Next: [Next page](https://www.capterra.co.za/software/174285/amazon-s3?page=2) > Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is a cloud-based object storage that allows users to store and retrieve data from anywhere. > > Verdict: Rated **4.7/5** by 1120 users. Top-rated for **Likelihood to recommend**. ----- ## Overview ### Who Uses Amazon S3? Designed for businesses of all sizes, it is an object storage solution that helps store data, manage access controls, track inventory, monitor storage, accelerate bulk data transfers, and more. ## Quick Stats & Ratings | Metric | Rating | Detail | | **Overall** | **4.7/5** | 1120 Reviews | | Ease of Use | 4.3/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Customer Support | 4.4/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Value for Money | 4.5/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Features | 4.6/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Recommendation percentage | 90% | (9/10 Likelihood to recommend) | ## About the vendor - **Company**: Amazon Web Services (AWS) - **Location**: Seattle, US - **Founded**: 2006 ## Commercial Context - **Pricing model**: Per Feature (Free Trial) - **Pricing Details**: Pay only for what you use. There is no minimum fee. - **Target Audience**: Self Employed, 2–10, 11–50, 51–200, 201–500, 501–1 000, 1 001–5 000, 5 001–10 000, 10 000+ - **Deployment & Platforms**: Cloud, SaaS, Web-based - **Supported Languages**: English - **Available Countries**: United States ## Features - Access Controls/Permissions - Data Storage Management - Encryption - File Transfer - Version Control ## Integrations (2 total) - AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) - Amazon VPC ## Category - [Cloud Storage Software](https://www.capterra.co.za/directory/31310/cloud-storage/software) ## Alternatives 1. [Google Drive](https://www.capterra.co.za/software/161425/drive) — 4.8/5 (28628 reviews) 2. [OneDrive](https://www.capterra.co.za/software/161304/onedrive) — 4.5/5 (12885 reviews) 3. [Google Workspace](https://www.capterra.co.za/software/168389/google-workspace) — 4.7/5 (17732 reviews) 4. [iCloud](https://www.capterra.co.za/software/204717/icloud) — 4.6/5 (1992 reviews) 5. [Dropbox](https://www.capterra.co.za/software/143068/dropbox-business) — 4.5/5 (21716 reviews) ## Reviews ### "Solid choice for AWS-native storage and Terraform backends" — 5.0/5 > **Bibhishan** | *25 September 2026* | Information Technology & Services | Recommendation rating: 9.0/10 > > **Pros**: The reliability and simplicity of the core service stand out most. Whether I'm storing application data, build artifacts, or Terraform state, S3 just works consistently without needing constant babysitting. The integration with the rest of the AWS ecosystem is seamless too — IAM policies for access control, encryption options, and native Terraform backend support mean it fits naturally into an existing AWS-based infrastructure without needing a separate storage solution or vendor. > > **Cons**: Versioning and lifecycle rule management is more cumbersome than it should be. When we enabled versioning on the bucket holding our Terraform state (to protect against accidental state corruption or bad applies), managing the lifecycle rules to clean up old versions without accidentally deleting something we needed took more trial and error than expected. > > I've been using AWS S3 for over two years now across two main use cases in our DevOps workflow: storing project-related data and files, and maintaining Terraform state files as our infrastructure-as-code setup has grown. S3 has been a dependable backbone for both. For general project data storage, the durability and availability guarantees mean I never have to think about whether files will be there when needed, and access via the AWS CLI, SDKs, or console is straightforward for day-to-day operations. ----- ### "Powerful and versatile, perhaps not so "Simple" Storage Solution" — 4.0/5 > **Connor** | *09 April 2026* | Media Production | Recommendation rating: 8.0/10 > > **Pros**: A powerful file sharing solution included in the AWS suite of services and tools. It provides a platform that, using extended functionality (APIs, SSH, web console, etc) provides a plethora of various mediums for interfacing with files (or, 'objects') in this respect. Being part of the AWS platform means that there is almost infinite redundancy, functionality for global regional accessibility, and many more other admin settings/configs that can expand on the baseline service. > > **Cons**: As with all AWS services; nothing is as straight forward as they would have you believe from the name ("Simple" storage solution is perhaps an exaggeration). Dependencies can/do include additional configurations such as region locking (Unless you want to get fancy with advanced settings and integrating other services); IAM permissions and access keys for access (How you configure this really is use case dependent); etc - Also worth mentioning that unless you are already familiar with AWS and their suite, expect to spend a good few hours going through and navigating the platform to understand the interconnectivity between functions and services. A final note to mention that trying to specifically find an easy readable guide on best practices is a bit like finding a needle in a haystack - difficult and likely to be difficult to extrapolate for your use case (especially when integrating it with more AWS solutions). > > As with all AWS; the learning curve is more of a wall than a gentle gradient. And, following suit on the above statement - spending 100 hours on the platform configuring and setting up absolutely doesn't guarantee that you'll be setting things up best practice first thing moving forward - there are always new updates; subtle changes and new ways of working that will have you frustrated and realising you "should've/could've/woud've" ; but now it's live and in production you can't\! For all of it's miseries and hair pulling from a configuration standpoint however, the platform absolutely works seemlessly once it's set up properly and never seems to have issues with downtime, latency, or general availability. This extends from our personal experience where we have all manner of different interfaces accessing and managing the objects within S3; from end users using file connect clients to access and download/upload objects; to third party solutions accessing via API and interpreting objects in all manner of formats for automations and project managers to interface with. ----- ### "The Best Online Storage for digital assets" — 5.0/5 > **Ekpono** | *22 September 2026* | Translation & Localization | Recommendation rating: 10.0/10 > > **Pros**: As a software developer, using Amazon S3 to store your digital assets is inevitable when you are in the AWS ecosystem. The customization and permission/control over your access available on S3 is very good. You can use s3 SDK to upload and manage access of your files easily. > > **Cons**: As far S3 is concerned, the learning curve to know what is accessible to use and complexity of permissions issue is my least favourite bit of the service. > > After using S3 to store documents, files and digital assets. S3 stands out to be the best storage service available for both technical and none technical users. I would highly recommend using S3 ----- ### "Smashed Potato" — 4.0/5 > **Damian** | *28 February 2026* | Information Technology & Services | Recommendation rating: 6.0/10 > > **Pros**: Very vercitile and easy to use storage system, which become small standard in the industry. With very easy way to implement it inside applications. > > **Cons**: I think overall pricing, comparing to other providers which implemented same "s3 compatible" storage system ----- ### "Industry Standard Cloud Storage" — 5.0/5 > **Verified Reviewer** | *08 April 2026* | Biotechnology | Recommendation rating: 7.0/10 > > **Pros**: It is perfect for our cloud storage needs, it is scalable, and we only pay for what we use. It is also easy to set up S3 buckets for our clients to deliver them large datasets. We use Amazon athena and other apps which mean that everything is linked together well. It is a backbone service for our company. > > **Cons**: There is a bit of a learning curve for non-developers, when I first started I wasn't too sure how to access files etc, and was scared to make big changes as didn't want to mess something else\! Also, sometimesI'm not too keen to be locked into the Amazon ecosystem, as we are at the mercy of their pricing models. > > Overall, it is a key cloud storage platform for our company. It is durable, secure, and an industry standard. It's great for storing, sharing and dumping large and datasets, which is vital for our workflow. ----- Page: 1 / 46\ Next: [Next page](https://www.capterra.co.za/software/174285/amazon-s3?page=2) ## Links - [View on Capterra](https://www.capterra.co.za/software/174285/amazon-s3) ## This page is available in the following languages | Locale | URL | | de | | | de-AT | | | de-CH | | | en | | | en-AE | | | en-AU | | | en-CA | | | en-GB | | | en-IE | | | en-IL | | | en-IN | | | en-NZ | | | en-SG | | | en-ZA | | | es | | | es-AR | | | es-CL | | | es-CO | | | es-CR | | | es-DO | | | es-EC | | | es-MX | | | es-PA | | | es-PE | | | fr | | | fr-BE | | | fr-CA | | | fr-LU | | | it | | | ja | | | nl | | | nl-BE | | | pt | | | pt-PT | | | sv | | ----- ## Structured Data