7 Cloud Providers With Free Egress

Egress traffic is the data leaving a cloud environment toward the internet, another region, or another provider. Most hyperscalers bill it per gigabyte, and AWS publishes a $0.09 per GB rate in pricing examples after a 100 GB monthly free allowance. That adds up quickly for media platforms, SaaS APIs, and backup workloads.

You have alternatives. Several providers now sell compute, object storage, and bare metal with bundled or genuinely free egress, and the EU Data Act will phase out switching-related egress fees by January 12, 2027. The sections below cover how each one works and where it fits.

#What is free egress traffic?

Free egress traffic refers to outbound data transfer that you do not pay for per gigabyte. Inbound (ingress) data is almost always free across providers, so the conversation centers on what happens when applications, backups, or end users pull data back out.

Three patterns dominate the market:

• Genuinely unlimited zero-egress storage, where every byte that leaves a bucket carries no transfer charge.

• Bundled traffic caps on compute instances, where each server includes a defined monthly allowance with low overage rates.

• Ratio-based free egress, where the free allowance scales with stored data, such as three times the average monthly storage.

The framing matters because pricing pages can read very differently in practice. A 100 GB monthly free tier disappears within a single afternoon for a video site or a busy API. A 100 TB bundled allowance on a bare metal dedicated server, in contrast, covers most production workloads without ever triggering an overage line item.

#Why AWS egress fees are so expensive

The structure of AWS egress pricing reflects a deliberate commercial design rather than the underlying cost of bandwidth. The AWS S3 pricing page and the AWS EC2 on-demand pricing page both document data transfer out to the internet as billed in volume tiers that aggregate across services.

The confirmed elements of the model:

• First 100 GB per month: free outbound data transfer to the internet, pooled across AWS services like EC2 and S3, excluding China and GovCloud regions.

• Standard internet egress rate: AWS pricing examples reference a $0.09 per GB rate for data transfer out from S3 in Europe (Ireland) to the internet.

• Above 500 TB per month: AWS directs customers to contact sales for custom pricing.

• EU customers: may request reduced data transfer rates for eligible use cases under the European Data Act, by contacting AWS Customer Support.

• Migration off AWS: AWS offers eligible customers free data transfer out to the internet when they move all of their data off AWS or all of their data off a particular AWS service.

Rate tiers take into account aggregate usage across Amazon EC2, S3, Glacier, RDS, Redshift, SageMaker, SES, SimpleDB, SQS, SNS, DynamoDB, Storage Gateway, CloudShell, and CloudWatch Logs combined.

The strategic logic often cited for these rates is data gravity. Once a workload's primary data resides in a region, moving it elsewhere becomes so expensive that most teams stay put.

Regulators have taken notice. The EU Data Act requires cloud providers to phase out switching-related egress charges entirely by January 12, 2027. Providers in scope can only charge customers for direct switching costs in the meantime.

#How free egress cloud providers work

With those structural pressures in mind, the next question is how the alternatives actually fund their networks without the egress markup. Free egress providers reach the same outcome through different commercial structures, and understanding the structure matters before you sign up.

Four mechanisms dominate the market:

• Zero-rated object storage charges nothing for outbound traffic from buckets, regardless of volume.

• Bundled compute traffic includes a defined monthly allowance with each server, billed at low per-TB overage rates.

• Ratio-based free egress ties the free allowance to stored data, such as three times the average monthly storage.

• Partner network arrangements waive transfer fees between specific providers, such as the Cloudflare Bandwidth Alliance.

You can use Cloudflare R2 as the headline example of the zero-rated model. You pay for storage and per-operation requests, but every download is free. The R2 pricing documentation confirms there are no charges for egress bandwidth on any storage class.

You can use Hetzner, OVHcloud, or Cherry Servers' dedicated servers for the bundled compute model. A monthly fixed-rate server includes a defined egress allowance, and traffic above that allowance incurs a per-TB rate ranging from a fraction of a dollar to a few dollars.

Backblaze B2 illustrates the ratio-based model. According to the Backblaze B2 pricing page, all B2 Cloud Storage users receive free egress up to 3x their average monthly storage, with additional egress billed at $0.01 per GB.

Partner CDN arrangements close the loop for content-heavy applications. The Cloudflare Bandwidth Alliance waives transfer fees between members, so a B2 origin or a Cherry Servers bare-metal node served through the Cloudflare CDN incurs no transfer cost on either leg.

#Key factors to evaluate in free egress alternatives

Selecting an alternative is not just a question of which line on the pricing page reads "$0." Each model has trade-offs, and the right choice depends on workload shape, geography, and operational needs.

Six factors most often determine whether a free egress provider actually saves you money in production. To make each one easier to apply, the questions below are paired with concrete example scenarios so you can quickly locate your workload.

#How does your egress relate to your stored data?

Read the small print on what counts as free.

• For a 1 TB backup bucket that downloads 100 GB per month, almost any model will do.

• For a 500 GB image library that delivers 5 TB per month to end users, ratio-based egress (Backblaze B2) and 1:1 caps (Wasabi) become limiting, and zero-rated egress storage (Cloudflare R2) or pooled bare-metal traffic (Cherry Servers) are better fits.

• For a 50 TB media archive accessed mainly through restore drills, B2 comfortably falls within the 3x ratio.

#How much per-operation traffic does your application generate?

Zero egress is only useful if the rest of the bill stays sensible.

• An application performing 1 million writes a month barely registers on R2's $4.50 per million Class A rate.

• A search-heavy application with 50 million reads a month adds $18 per month at R2's $0.36 per million Class B rate.

• A pure backup workload with a few thousand operations per month sits inside any provider's free tier.

#Do you need S3 API compatibility?

Most modern backup tools, software development kits (SDKs), and command-line utilities speak the S3 API. Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, and Hetzner Object Storage all expose S3-compatible endpoints, so migration is usually a configuration change rather than a code rewrite.

#Where do your users sit relative to the provider's points of presence?

Free egress is less useful if your users sit far from the provider's data centers.

• Cloudflare's network spans 330 cities across 120+ countries, according to its infrastructure update.

• Cherry Servers operates data centers in Lithuania, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, the United States, and Singapore.

• Hetzner runs Falkenstein, Nuremberg, Helsinki, Hillsboro Oregon, Ashburn Virginia, and Singapore sites, which support cost-sensitive workloads in those regions.

#What compliance posture does the workload require?

Workloads subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) need a provider that keeps data within a defined jurisdiction. For example, OVHcloud holds SecNumCloud qualification from ANSSI and HDS certification for healthcare data hosting.

#How mature does the operational tooling need to be?

Smaller providers move faster on pricing but sometimes have rougher edges in monitoring, support, and Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Confirm published SLAs and support channels before migrating production traffic.

#Top free egress traffic cloud alternatives to AWS

The providers below cover the bulk of real-world workloads where AWS egress costs become a meaningful budget line. Each one approaches the problem differently, so the descriptions that follow focus on who uses each platform, what it does well, and where it begins to break down.

#Cherry Servers

You can use Cherry Servers' bare-metal dedicated servers, virtual private servers, and virtual dedicated servers, with bundled monthly traffic that varies by product. The Cherry Servers bandwidth documentation:

• Dedicated servers: 100 TB per month.

• Dedicated server outlet plans: 30 TB per month.

• Cloud VPS: 1 TB per month (up to 5 TB on higher-tier plans) .

• Storage VPS: 10 to 35 TB per month.

• Cloud VDS, ARM VDS, Premium VDS, Performance VDS: 10 to 20 TB per month.

Overage costs approximately $0.56 per TB outside Singapore and approximately $1.91 per TB in Singapore. Per the same documentation, traffic pools across all servers in a project, so a 100 TB bare-metal allowance can absorb spikes from a smaller VPS in the same project without triggering overage. Singapore is treated as a separate pool due to regional carrier rates.

Cherry Servers is also a Cloudflare Bandwidth Alliance partner, which means traffic from a Cherry Servers origin to Cloudflare's network is fully waived for shared customers, per Cloudflare's Bandwidth Alliance announcement.

The platform fits live streaming origins running on AMD EPYC dedicated servers, blockchain RPC nodes serving Solana or Ethereum traffic, GPU AI inference workloads, large WordPress publishers, and SaaS platforms with predictable monthly egress.

Cherry Servers is less suitable for workloads that require true zero-egress object storage with no compute requirements.

#Cloudflare R2

You can use Cloudflare R2 as S3-compatible object storage with no egress bandwidth charges. The Cloudflare R2 pricing documentation lists Standard storage at $0.015/GB-month, with separate operation rates.

Per-operation pricing:

• Class A operations (writes, lists): $4.50 per million.

• Class B operations (reads): $0.36 per million.

• Free tier each month: 10 GB-month storage, 1 million Class A operations, and 10 million Class B operations.

R2 also offers an Infrequent Access storage class at $0.01 per GB-month with a 30-day minimum storage duration and a $0.01 per GB data retrieval fee. R2 fits AI inference output stores, public asset hosting, video-on-demand origins, and any workload where data exits the bucket more often than it sits idle.

R2 stops being economical when an application generates very high request volumes, where operation fees can exceed what an equivalent VPS plus self-hosted MinIO would cost at that scale.

#Backblaze B2

You can use Backblaze B2 for object storage at $6.95 per TB per month, with the first 10 GB always free. Per the Backblaze B2 pricing page, the free outbound transfer covers up to 3x the average monthly stored data, and egress beyond that costs $0.01 per GB.

Backblaze offers unlimited free egress when downloading to or through partner CDN and compute services. The pricing page lists Fastly, Cloudflare, bunny.net, CacheFly, CoreWeave, Equinix Metal, Vultr, and phoenixNAP.

You also get an S3-compatible API and Object Lock for compliance and ransomware protection. B2 fits backups for managed service providers, compliance archives, large media libraries served by the Cloudflare CDN, and Veeam or rclone-driven backup pipelines.

B2 is a poor fit for hot-access workloads where downloads consistently exceed three times stored data, and the application cannot route through one of these partner networks.

#Wasabi

You can use Wasabi for Hot Cloud Storage at $6.99 per TB per month ($0.0068 per GB) with no per-request charges. The Wasabi pricing FAQ lists three constraints worth reading closely:

• 1 TB monthly minimum billing, even when storing less.

• 90-day minimum storage retention for pay-as-you-go customers, with deleted objects billed for the remaining days.

• Free egress within a 1:1 ratio, where monthly downloads cannot exceed active storage volume.

Wasabi suits long-retention compliance archives, video production cold storage, off-site backup repositories, and any workload where stored data exceeds outbound transfer. The platform offers S3 compatibility and immutable storage with configurable retention.

The provider struggles with high-churn data subject to the 90-day floor and with workloads where users repeatedly stream or distribute content stored in Wasabi.

#Bunny.net

You can use Bunny.net to pair edge-replicated object storage with one of the cheapest content delivery networks (CDNs) on the market. Per the Bunny storage pricing page:

• Standard HDD tier: $0.01 per GB for the first two regions and $0.005 per GB for additional regions, up to 9 regions.

• Edge SSD tier: $0.02 per GB per region, up to 15 regions.

• API egress: free.

CDN delivery rates from the Bunny CDN pricing page are split into two networks. The Standard Network across 119 points of presence charges $0.01 per GB in Europe and North America, $0.03 per GB in Asia and Oceania, $0.045 per GB in South America, and $0.06 per GB in the Middle East and Africa.

The Volume Network across 10 points of presence charges $0.005 per GB for the first 500 TB, $0.004 per GB from 500 TB to 1 PB, and $0.002 per GB from 1 PB to 2 PB.

Bunny fits independent video creators, e-learning platforms, software distribution sites, and WordPress publishers who need predictable bandwidth pricing.

Bunny is the wrong choice for storage-heavy workloads with low delivery, where Cloudflare R2 or Backblaze B2 costs less for the storage layer alone.

#Hetzner

You can use Hetzner for low-cost virtual machines and dedicated servers. The Hetzner Cloud page lists data centers in Falkenstein, Nuremberg, Helsinki, Hillsboro, Oregon, Ashburn, Virginia, and Singapore.

According to the Hetzner traffic documentation, the monthly traffic for servers with 10 Gbit uplinks is 20 TB, with no bandwidth limitation, and overage is billed at $1.20 per TB.

Hetzner also runs an S3-compatible Object Storage product. Per the Hetzner Object Storage page, the base price includes 1 TB of storage and 1 TB of egress traffic, with excess charged on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Hetzner fits cost-conscious indie developers, small SaaS teams, EU-focused content sites, internal tooling, and development environments where in-house Linux experience exists.

Hetzner falls short for organizations that need a US presence beyond Hillsboro and Ashburn, or managed services beyond email and ticket-based response.

#OVHcloud

You can use OVHcloud for bare metal servers, public cloud compute, and S3-compatible object storage. The platform's compliance posture is one of the strongest in the European market.

Operational characteristics worth noting:

• Data centers across Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific.

• SecNumCloud qualification from the French Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) for sovereign-grade workloads.

• HDS certification for healthcare data hosting since 2019.

• ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO/IEC 27701 certifications across most cloud solutions.

OVHcloud supports regulated public-sector workloads, healthcare backups requiring HDS certification, and hybrid cloud designs that mix bare-metal with public cloud compute.

Look elsewhere if your team wants hourly billing on bare metal without commitment or rapid sub-30-minute provisioning, where Cherry Servers or Vultr fit better.

#Cost comparison: AWS vs free egress providers

A side-by-side comparison clarifies how much these models diverge in production. The scenario below assumes a workload that stores 1 TB of data and transfers 5 TB outbound per month, a typical profile for a moderately busy SaaS API or a small video-on-demand library. All numbers use each provider's officially published rates.

Each option fits a different workload shape, and the summary below captures both the headline fit and the specific scenarios that suit each one:

• Cloudflare R2 wins on simplicity and unconditional free egress at any volume. It works particularly well for AI inference output stores, public asset hosting, and any workload where data exists the bucket more often than it sits idle.

• Backblaze B2 with Cloudflare CDN is the cheapest path for content delivery with a partner CDN in front. The combination suits image hosts, software distribution mirrors, and media libraries that already serve through Cloudflare's network.

• Wasabi wins on raw storage cost when retention is long, and the egress ratio stays below 1:1. Backups, compliance archives, and cold media that live on disk for months or years all fit comfortably inside its policy.

• Cherry Servers wins when the workload is compute-heavy, and the egress just needs to be predictable and bundled. Video transcoding pipelines, blockchain RPC nodes, and GPU AI training jobs all fall into this profile.

#Why Cherry Servers is a strong alternative for free egress

You can use Cherry Servers when the workload needs both compute and predictable, generous outbound traffic in the same product. The platform bundles 100 TB of monthly traffic into most dedicated servers, with allowances pooling across a project, so a single overage line item is rare in practice.

Cherry Servers' high-bandwidth server line covers several common bandwidth-heavy workloads:

• Video transcoding pipelines and media delivery origins on AMD EPYC or Intel Xeon Gold processors.

• Blockchain RPC nodes and Web3 infrastructure.

• GPU-accelerated AI inference and training workloads with sustained outbound traffic.

• High-throughput databases and analytics platforms moving data between on-premises and cloud.

You can use Cloud VPS and Cloud VDS lines for lighter web and application hosting on the same network. Traffic pooling keeps the per-byte cost predictable as the project grows.

For specific hardware requirements that pre-built plans do not match, custom dedicated server builds are available.

Three operational details matter for teams making the move from AWS:

• EU facilities in Lithuania, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden simplify the GDPR side of any migration.

• Pooled bandwidth across all servers in a project keeps per-byte costs predictable, with Singapore handled as a separate pool.

• Cloudflare Bandwidth Alliance membership waives outbound transfer fees from a Cherry Servers origin to Cloudflare's network, removing a significant cost layer for any workload fronted by Cloudflare CDN.

The combination makes Cherry Servers a sensible fit for teams looking to avoid AWS egress fees without sacrificing the operational predictability they expect from a production cloud platform. For a broader perspective on bare-metal options, the Cherry Servers bare-metal cloud providers comparison covers the wider competitive landscape.

#Final thoughts

The most consequential decision in any move away from AWS egress is matching the workload shape to the provider's billing model. A bandwidth-heavy storage workload belongs on Cloudflare R2 or a Backblaze B2 plus Cloudflare CDN combination, where the egress side of the bill goes to zero. A backup-heavy workload fits well with Backblaze B2 or Wasabi, where storage is cheap, and egress is within generous quotas.

From there, a compute-heavy workload with predictable outbound traffic fits Cherry Servers, Hetzner, or OVHcloud, where the server price already covers the bandwidth, and overage stays measured in low single-digit dollars per terabyte rather than tens of dollars per gigabyte.

Geography sets the second layer of the decision. A globally distributed audience benefits from Cloudflare's edge or OVHcloud's worldwide footprint. A European-focused workload often runs cheapest on Hetzner or Cherry Servers' EU regions. The supporting decisions, such as compliance posture, support quality, and API maturity, then narrow the field further.

Around all of that, the regulatory backdrop is shifting in your favor. The EU Data Act will eventually remove egress as a vendor-lock mechanism for in-scope providers serving EU customers, with switching charges fully prohibited from January 12, 2027. Until then, choosing the right alternative now is the cleanest way to avoid bandwidth becoming an unexpected line item on next month's bill.