The Canadian S3 alternative.
Three US companies own about 85% of Canada's public cloud market. The harder question is not whether a Canadian option exists, it is how to pick one without trading a US lock-in for a worse one.
If you are reading this, you have probably already decided you want object storage under Canadian jurisdiction. The harder question is how to choose without trading a US lock-in for a Canadian one, paying more for less, or signing up for a migration you cannot reverse.
This guide covers what matters when you evaluate a Canadian S3 alternative, how the real options compare, and how to move your data without downtime. We build one of these products, so treat it as a vendor's guide written in the open. The comparison table includes our competitors with real numbers. Where Storm is not the right answer, we say so.
The gap is not an accident of better engineering. It is the result of default choices, made one storage bucket at a time, and it is reversible the same way.
Why look for a Canadian S3 alternative at all
Data on US infrastructure sits under US law, including lawful-access regimes that reach across borders. Storing in Canada keeps your data, and your audit trail, under Canadian jurisdiction by default.
Compare residencyUSD-billed storage moves with the exchange rate, and metered egress turns a quiet month into a surprise invoice. Pricing in CAD, in fixed blocks, is a number you can forecast.
Compare pricingA proprietary API or an exit fee turns "we might leave" into "we can't." S3 compatibility on an open engine means the door you came in through stays open behind you.
Migration pathThe comparison
Pricing confirmed May/Jun 2026, per TB per month. USD figures converted at ~1.37 for context only.
| Provider | Residency | Storage /TB/mo | Egress | Minimums | Open engine | Agent + upstream |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Storm Buckets | Canada | $9 CAD | 3x free, then throttle | $1 / 100 GB block | ✓ Garage | ✓ Pulse + merged PRs |
| The Object Store | Canada | $9 CAD (1 TiB incl.) | 3x free, then $0.00878/GiB | 1 TiB / $9 floor | ✗ | ✗ |
| eazyBackup (e3) | Canada | $9 CAD (1 TB min) | No egress fee | 1 TB / $9 floor | ✗ | ✗ |
| FullHost | Canada | $30 CAD ($0.03/GB) | $0.02/GB | None | ✗ | ✗ |
| Backblaze B2 | USA | ~$8.20 ($6 USD) | 3x free, then $0.01/GB | None | ✗ | ✗ |
| Wasabi | USA | ~$9.60 ($6.99 USD) | Zero (fair-use) | 1 TB + 90-day | ✗ | ✗ |
| Cloudflare R2 | USA | ~$20.50 ($15 USD) | Zero | None | ✗ | ✗ |
| AWS S3 Standard | USA | ~$31.50 ($23 USD) | ~$0.09 USD/GB | None | ✗ | ✗ |
The Canadian options cluster around $9 CAD per terabyte, which is the honest floor for sovereign hardware run in discrete units. The US engines look cheaper on the storage line until egress, minimums, or the exchange rate move the real number.
Storm is the only row that ships an open engine and an open agent. The storage runs on Garage, and the management agent (Pulse) is public, with our fixes sent back upstream. Nothing in the path is a black box you have to trust on faith.
No row here is "the cheapest." Cheapest is a race that ends in a crippled service. The point of the table is to show what you actually get for the price, and where it lives.
What to look for in a Canadian S3 provider
01 Where the data lives, and who can reach it
Residency is not just the storage region. Ask where the control plane, the backups, and the access logs live, and which legal regime can compel them. A Canadian bucket behind a US control plane is not fully Canadian.
02 Pricing you can forecast
A bill you can predict has three properties:
- Fixed unit, fixed currency. Blocks in CAD, not per-byte in USD.
- Egress that cannot surprise you. A throttle is recoverable; a metered overage is an invoice you find out about later.
- Free operations. Uploads and API calls should not move your bill with request count.
03 S3 compatibility and a real migration path
"S3-compatible" should mean your existing tools work unchanged and your data can leave the same way it arrived. If migrating out needs a special export, it is not really compatible.
04 Durability, stated honestly
Ask for the replication model in plain terms. Storm's Standard tier is single-zone, RAID6-backed, RF1. That is a real, stated guarantee, not a string of nines that hides a single point of failure. Match the tier to how much the data would hurt to lose.
05 An open, auditable stack
Open source is not a slogan, it is the ability to verify. The engine and the agent that touch your data should be inspectable, and the audit log should be yours to read in real time.
How to migrate from S3, B2, or Wasabi
Migration is rclone, dry-run first, verified after. The same tool moves data in and out, which is the whole point of staying S3-compatible.
$ rclone config
$ rclone copy source:bucket storm:bucket --dry-run
$ rclone copy source:bucket storm:bucket --progress
$ rclone check source:bucket storm:bucket
Cut over once rclone check is clean. If you
ever want to leave, the same four commands run in the other direction. No
export ticket, no exit fee.
Frequently asked
Is Storm Buckets actually S3-compatible?
Yes. Storage runs on Garage, an open-source S3-compatible engine. Standard tools and SDKs work against it. Garage publishes its S3 compatibility matrix so you can confirm coverage before you commit.
Where is my data stored?
On Canadian hardware, operated by Storm in Canada. Your objects and your audit log stay under Canadian jurisdiction.
How much does it cost?
Two fixed monthly blocks, priced in CAD: a 100 GB Playground block at $1 CAD, and a 1 TB Production block at $9 CAD. Uploads, API operations, and creating buckets and keys are always free.
What about egress fees?
Your monthly egress allowance is 3x your total capacity. Cross it and reads are throttled, never billed. There is no surprise transfer invoice.
Can I migrate away later?
Yes. Because the API is S3-compatible, the same rclone command that moves data in moves it out. No proprietary format, no exit fee.
Canadian-hosted object storage, priced in CAD.
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