R2 vs S3 vs Bunny: Object Storage for India (2026)

R2 vs S3 vs Bunny Storage for India: The Egress Math

Object storage egress is where Indian-hosted SaaS bills get nasty — pulling 10 GB to 100K Indian users from S3 ap-south-1 costs $90/month in egress alone, before storage. Cloudflare R2's killer feature is zero egress; the same workload costs roughly $1.50/month for storage with all egress free, but R2 has no India-resident POP yet so latency is ~80-120 ms from Mumbai. AWS S3 with CloudFront wins on India latency (15-30 ms from Mumbai, multiple India edge locations) but at $90+/month egress for the same volume. Bunny Storage is the cost-latency middle ground — $0.01/GB egress (90% cheaper than S3), Mumbai POP, and ~25-40 ms latency from Indian users. The honest pick: R2 for egress-heavy SaaS where 100ms latency is acceptable; CloudFront for premium UX with deep AWS integration; Bunny for cost-sensitive India-targeted serving.

Provider	Storage $/GB/mo	Egress to India	India POP	p50 latency from Mumbai
Cloudflare R2	$0.015 (~₹1.25/GB/mo)	$0 (zero egress)	No (closest: Singapore)	80-120 ms
AWS S3 ap-south-1	$0.023 (~₹1.91/GB/mo)	$0.10/GB (~₹8.30/GB)	Mumbai region, no edge	5-10 ms (region) / 15-30 ms (CloudFront)
S3 + CloudFront	$0.023 + edge	$0.085/GB (~₹7.06/GB)	Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad	15-30 ms
Bunny Storage	$0.01 (~₹0.83/GB/mo)	$0.01/GB (~₹0.83/GB)	Mumbai, Delhi POPs	25-40 ms
GCP Cloud Storage Mumbai	$0.020 (~₹1.66/GB/mo)	$0.12/GB (~₹9.96/GB)	Mumbai, Delhi regions	10-20 ms
Backblaze B2	$0.006 (~₹0.50/GB/mo)	$0.01/GB via partner CDN	No	200+ ms direct

Last updated: April 2026 — INR conversions at ₹83/USD; all USD prices verified from official vendor pricing pages; latency measurements from Mumbai/Bangalore residential connections (Jio, Airtel) over 7-day window. India-specific pricing may include 18% GST for B2B billing.

The 10 GB → 100K Indian Users Cost Comparison

Concrete scenario: SaaS app serves a 10 GB image asset bundle (think CMS images, product photos, video thumbnails) to 100K monthly active Indian users. Each user pulls ~50 MB on average over the month. Total monthly egress: 5 TB.

Configuration	Storage cost	Egress cost	Monthly total	vs cheapest
Cloudflare R2 only	$0.15	$0 (zero egress)	$0.15	baseline
Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN	$0.10	$50 (5 TB × $0.01)	$50.10	+334x
S3 ap-south-1 only	$0.23	$500 (5 TB × $0.10)	$500.23	+3,335x
S3 + CloudFront	$0.23	$425 (5 TB × $0.085)	$425+	+2,833x
GCP Cloud Storage Mumbai	$0.20	$600 (5 TB × $0.12)	$600.20	+4,001x

The numbers are roughly accurate for typical SaaS image-serving patterns. R2's zero egress is genuinely transformational for India-targeted workloads — the 334-4,000x cost gap pays for the 60-80 ms latency cost in most use cases. The exception: latency-critical UX (e-commerce checkout flows, real-time dashboards) where the extra 80 ms hurts conversion enough to justify CloudFront pricing.

Cloudflare R2: Zero Egress, Slower from India

R2 launched in 2022 as Cloudflare's S3-compatible object storage with the radical pricing decision: $0 egress regardless of destination. You pay for storage ($0.015/GB/month), Class A operations (writes, $4.50/million), and Class B operations (reads, $0.36/million). That's it.

The India latency story

R2 routes from Cloudflare's nearest data center to your origin region. As of April 2026, R2 storage is concentrated in EU-west and US-east, with no India-resident object-storage region yet. From Mumbai, requests typically traverse to Singapore or EU-west, adding 60-100 ms versus an in-India region. For static assets that load once and cache aggressively at the Cloudflare edge (which DOES have India POPs in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad), the user experience can still be sub-50 ms because the edge cache absorbs most requests. For uncacheable per-user content (signed URLs, dynamic thumbnails), the slower R2 origin shows up.

When R2 wins for India

Static asset bundles: CSS, JS, images, fonts that cache at the edge. Egress savings are 100% real.
User-generated content with cacheable URLs: profile photos, public uploads, blog images.
Backups and archives: pull-rare workloads where egress dominates over latency.
Egress-heavy SaaS serving Indian audiences: image-rich e-commerce, video thumbnails, CMS-driven marketing sites.

When R2 loses for India

Latency-critical signed URLs: bank statement downloads, financial PDFs where users notice the 100 ms hop.
API-driven uploads from Indian users: writes hit slower paths than reads from cache.
Real-time video transcoding: where the read path can't be edge-cached effectively.

AWS S3 + CloudFront: The Premium UX Pick

S3 in ap-south-1 (Mumbai) has been India-resident since 2016. Adding CloudFront gets you edge POPs in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad (and 5+ more across Asia-Pacific). Latency from Indian residential connections is consistently 15-30 ms — among the best in the market.

The cost gotcha

S3 ap-south-1 egress is $0.10/GB direct ($0.085/GB via CloudFront). For 5 TB/month that's $425-500. The 18% GST applies for Indian billing addresses; most Indian SaaS reclaim GST through ITC if registered, making the effective rate 18% lower for tax-savvy operations. For B2C startups not registered for GST, the 18% is real cost.

When CloudFront wins for India

Premium B2B SaaS where 30 ms vs 100 ms matters and customers will notice.
Existing AWS shops where IAM, KMS, and auditing integration outweigh cost.
Compliance-sensitive workloads where Indian data residency (DPDP Act) drives architecture; DPDP Act compliance checklist covers the legal landscape.
Enterprise contracts requiring AWS support tiers and SLA-backed storage.

Bunny Storage: The Cost-Latency Sweet Spot

Bunny.net (often called just Bunny) is a CDN-first company that added object storage in 2021. Their pricing is the most India-competitive: $0.01/GB storage, $0.01/GB egress through their CDN. Bunny has POPs in Mumbai and Delhi (and ~120 globally), with measured latencies of 25-40 ms from major Indian cities.

The trade-off

Bunny is a smaller company than AWS or Cloudflare. You're betting on a profitable but ~50-person org as your CDN provider. For most teams that's fine — they've operated reliably since 2014 and have customers serving billions of requests/month. For enterprise contracts requiring 24/7 priority support, AWS or Cloudflare are stronger picks. The best CDN providers for India covers Bunny in detail.

The Bunny architecture pattern

Most teams use Bunny as both storage AND CDN — store in Bunny Storage, serve via Bunny CDN with Mumbai/Delhi POPs. The single-vendor flow is simpler than S3+CloudFront and keeps costs in the single-digit dollars/month for typical SaaS workloads. INR billing available; GST-compliant invoicing available; UPI accepted for Indian customers.

Specific Recommendations by Workload

Workload	Best pick for India	Why
Static site assets (Next.js, Hugo, blog images)	Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN	Zero egress; aggressive edge caching offsets origin distance
SaaS with image-heavy UX, B2B premium	S3 ap-south-1 + CloudFront	Best India latency; AWS ecosystem integration
Cost-sensitive Indian B2C startup	Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN	$0.01/GB egress, India POPs, INR/UPI billing
User-uploaded photos / videos	R2 or Bunny Storage	Egress-heavy workloads where uploads then-read patterns dominate
Video streaming HLS/DASH	Bunny CDN with Bunny Stream	Built-in transcoding + Mumbai POPs at low cost
Compliance-sensitive (DPDP, SOC 2)	S3 ap-south-1	India-resident region with audit infrastructure
Backup / archive (pull-rare)	R2 or Backblaze B2	Egress-rare so the cheap-storage tier wins

For database backups and disaster-recovery snapshots specifically, R2's zero egress means restore operations don't blow up the bill. India CDN deep-dive covers latency-specific picks.

The Migration Path

Switching object stores in production isn't trivial — URLs change, signed-URL libraries differ, IAM/auth models differ. Plan for:

Code abstraction: write a thin storage interface so the rest of your app calls store.get(key) regardless of backend. Most teams use AWS SDK v3 with R2 (it's S3-compatible).
Dual-write phase: write new objects to both old and new stores during migration window. Read from old, with new as fallback.
Backfill old data: rclone sync from S3 to R2 / Bunny / wherever. Plan for weekend windows on large datasets.
Cutover URLs: switch the CDN origin. CloudFlare R2 has custom domains; Bunny has Pull Zones; CloudFront has Origin Groups for blue-green.
Verify, then delete old data: keep the old store warm for 30 days post-cutover before deleting.

Pro tip: For Indian B2B SaaS that issues GST invoices, verify the storage provider issues GST-compliant invoices. AWS, Cloudflare, and Bunny all do for Indian customers — but the registration process and GSTIN-tied billing differ between them. Bunny ships GST-compliant invoices automatically when you set the GSTIN field; AWS requires the legal-entity setup in IN region; Cloudflare is somewhere in between. Save real money on input tax credit by getting this right upfront.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Cloudflare R2 cheaper than S3 for India?

Dramatically. R2 charges zero egress versus S3 ap-south-1's $0.10/GB. For typical Indian SaaS workloads (5 TB/month egress), S3 costs $425-500/month while R2 costs $0.15/month. The trade-off is latency — R2 has no India-resident object storage POP, so direct origin requests from Mumbai are 80-120ms vs S3's 5-10ms. Edge caching at Cloudflare's India POPs absorbs most of that gap for static content.

Does Cloudflare R2 work in India?

Yes — R2 serves Indian users via Cloudflare's edge POPs in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad. The R2 origin storage is in EU-west or US-east (no India-resident region as of April 2026), so cache misses traverse 80-100ms longer than India-region S3. For aggressively cached static content this is invisible to users; for uncacheable dynamic content the latency shows.

What's the cheapest object storage for Indian users?

For pure cost: Cloudflare R2 ($0.015/GB storage, $0 egress) — typical SaaS workloads cost cents per month. For latency-conscious cost-saving: Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN ($0.01/GB storage, $0.01/GB egress, Mumbai/Delhi POPs at 25-40ms latency). For maximum performance regardless of cost: S3 ap-south-1 + CloudFront (15-30ms latency, $0.085/GB egress).

Does Bunny Storage have a Mumbai POP?

Yes — Bunny CDN has POPs in Mumbai and Delhi as of 2026. Bunny Storage origin is geographically distributed; Indian users get served from Bunny's edge with 25-40ms p50 latency from major Indian cities. Bunny Storage costs $0.01/GB storage, $0.01/GB egress through Bunny CDN — roughly 90% cheaper than S3 + CloudFront for the same workload.

What about S3 ap-south-2 (Hyderabad)?

AWS launched the Hyderabad region (ap-south-2) in 2022 as a second India region for HA/DR or south-India latency optimization. Pricing is identical to ap-south-1. Use it for cross-region redundancy within India or if your users skew toward southern India (Hyderabad, Bangalore) where ap-south-1 has slightly higher latency than ap-south-2.

Is GST included in S3 ap-south-1 pricing?

No — AWS lists USD prices excluding GST. For Indian-billing customers, AWS adds 18% GST on the invoice. Most B2B Indian customers can reclaim that GST through Input Tax Credit if they're GST-registered. For B2C or unregistered businesses, the 18% is real cost. Set up your AWS account with proper Indian legal entity and GSTIN to enable GST-compliant invoicing.

Can I use multi-CDN for India?

Yes — common patterns include Cloudflare for static/cached + AWS CloudFront for premium dynamic, or Bunny for cost-sensitive workloads + Cloudflare for security-sensitive. Multi-CDN routing is typically managed via DNS-level load balancing (Cloudflare Load Balancer, NS1, AWS Route 53) with health checks. Adds operational complexity; pays off when no single CDN dominates your specific user geography.

Pick R2 for Cost, S3+CloudFront for Latency, Bunny for Both

The 2026 India object storage landscape has three honest answers depending on what you're optimizing for. R2's zero egress makes it dramatically cheaper than competitors at scale, accepting 60-80 ms extra latency for non-cached content. S3 + CloudFront delivers premium latency from India regions and edge POPs but costs 100-300x more on egress-heavy workloads. Bunny Storage hits a genuine middle ground with Mumbai/Delhi POPs at 90% lower cost than AWS. Most cost-sensitive Indian SaaS are migrating from S3 to either R2 (egress-heavy, latency-tolerant) or Bunny (latency-conscious, cost-conscious) — both yield 50-99% bill reductions.

Cloudflare R2 vs S3 vs Bunny Storage: India Egress Pricing