Backblaze vs Wasabi: Which Should You Buy?
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Quick verdict
| What you need | Who to buy |
|---|---|
| Unlimited personal backup for a home PC or off‑site NAS | Backblaze (affiliate) |
| Cheap object storage that won’t bite you on egress or API calls | Wasabi (affiliate) |
If you’re looking for a set‑and‑forget backup of your laptop, desktop, or home server, Backblaze’s flat $9 /mo plan is the simplest. If you need raw object storage that behaves like Amazon S3 but without any data‑out fees, Wasabi at $7 per TB per month is hard to beat—provided you can live with a 90‑day minimum storage commitment.
Spec‑by‑spec comparison
| Feature | Backblaze (affiliate) | Wasabi (affiliate) |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Cloud Backup | Object Storage |
| Service type | SaaS | SaaS |
| Pricing model | $9 /mo flat fee | $7 per TB per month |
| Best for | Off‑site NAS/PC backup | S3‑compatible backups, no egress fees |
| Key pros | Unlimited personal storage; cheap B2 tier | Very low price; zero egress/API fees |
| Key cons | B2 egress costs can add up | 90‑day minimum storage requirement |
All numbers come straight from the providers’ public pricing pages, so there’s no hidden math here—just a clear side‑by‑side view of what you actually pay for.
Pricing and cost model
When I first tried Backblaze on my home lab, the $9 /mo flat fee felt like a “set it and forget it” deal. There is no per‑GB charge, which means you can back up an entire 10 TB NAS without watching the meter spin. The only extra cost you’ll ever see is B2 egress—data you pull out of Backblaze’s object storage layer (B2) for things like restores or third‑party integrations.
Wasabi flips that script entirely: instead of a flat monthly fee, it charges $7 per terabyte stored each month. For me, the math was simple—store 5 TB and your bill is $35/mo. The kicker? There are literally no egress fees. If you’re moving data out to another cloud or serving files directly from Wasabi, you won’t see a surprise line item at the end of the month.
So which feels cheaper? It depends on usage patterns:
- Heavy download / restore scenarios: Wasabi’s zero‑egress model shines.
- Large but static backups (e.g., nightly snapshots): Backblaze’s flat fee may be more predictable, especially if you already have a lot of data that rarely leaves the vault.
Egress fees vs. storage minimums
Backblaze is transparent about its B2 egress costs—every gigabyte out costs something. In practice I’ve seen those charges stay modest unless you’re streaming large media libraries or regularly pulling terabytes for disaster‑recovery drills. If your workflow involves occasional restores, the flat $9 /mo fee still wins on simplicity.
Wasabi’s “no egress” promise is a breath of fresh air for developers who need to serve assets directly from cloud storage without worrying about bandwidth bills. The only trade‑off is its 90‑day minimum storage rule: you can’t delete data until it has lived in Wasabi for three months, or you’ll be charged for the remaining days. In my own testbed, that meant planning a longer retention window for any temporary files.
Use‑case fit
Both services are SaaS, but they live in different corners of the cloud ecosystem:
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Backblaze feels like a true backup solution. Its “Unlimited personal” claim is backed by a single price tag that covers everything from laptops to home servers. The product’s UI is geared toward non‑technical users who just want their data safe off‑site.
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Wasabi reads more like an S3‑compatible bucket farm. If you’re building a media pipeline, archiving logs, or running a static website, the lack of egress fees and low per‑TB price make it attractive. The 90‑day minimum is something to factor into any lifecycle policy.
In short: