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File Storage · head to head

Ceph vs Cloudflare R2

Ceph logo

Ceph

File Storage

Open source distributed storage providing object, block and file from one cluster

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Cloudflare R2 logo

Cloudflare R2

File Storage

S3-compatible object storage that charges nothing for egress to the internet

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Ceph ceph assumes an operator who understands placement groups, CRUSH rules and recovery tuning, so organisations without dedicated storage staff routinely end up with a cluster that works until the first failure and then does not.; Cloudflare R2 there is no archive tier below Infrequent Access, so genuinely cold data costs roughly ten to fifteen times what it would cost in a deep archive class and there is nowhere cheaper to lifecycle it to.
  • They diverge on capability: Ceph covers RADOS object store, Cloudflare R2 covers Zero egress billing.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Ceph and Cloudflare R2 actually diverge.

Attributes where Ceph and Cloudflare R2 differ
AttributeCephCloudflare R2
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feePer gigabyte stored per month
PlatformsLinuxWeb, API

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (File Storage).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Ceph

  • RADOS object store
  • RADOS Gateway
  • RBD block devices
  • CephFS
  • CRUSH placement
  • Erasure coded pools

Only in Cloudflare R2

  • Zero egress billing
  • S3 API compatibility
  • Worker binding
  • Jurisdictional restriction
  • Infrequent Access tier
  • Custom domain serving

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Ceph

  • Backing a private cloud where virtual machine disks, shared filesystems and an S3 endpoint all need the same hardwarenot Cloudflare R2
  • Growing past the point where a proprietary array upgrade costs more than a rack of commodity serversnot Cloudflare R2
  • Research and media environments with petabytes of data and staff who can operate storagenot Cloudflare R2
  • Providing an S3 endpoint on premises with multi site replication under your own controlnot Cloudflare R2

Cloudflare R2

  • Serving a large media or asset library to the public where transfer out, not storage, is the dominant costnot Ceph
  • Hosting a container or artefact registry that thousands of CI runners pull from every daynot Ceph
  • Distributing model weights or open datasets that are downloaded far more often than they are updatednot Ceph
  • Moving off S3 specifically to stop paying data transfer charges on a read heavy bucketnot Ceph

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Ceph

  • Ceph assumes an operator who understands placement groups, CRUSH rules and recovery tuning, so organisations without dedicated storage staff routinely end up with a cluster that works until the first failure and then does not.
  • Small clusters are inefficient: three way replication means a third of raw capacity is usable, and erasure coding needs enough failure domains to be safe, so the economics only work above a certain size.
  • Recovery and rebalancing generate heavy internal traffic, so a failed disk can degrade client latency across the cluster unless backfill is throttled correctly beforehand.
  • Upgrades must follow a strict daemon order across monitors, managers, OSDs and gateways, and a mistake in that order on a live cluster is difficult to reverse.
  • Because it is self hosted, every byte served to the internet is transit you pay for on your own links, so the free licence does not mean free egress and bandwidth planning becomes your problem rather than the providers.

Cloudflare R2

  • There is no archive tier below Infrequent Access, so genuinely cold data costs roughly ten to fifteen times what it would cost in a deep archive class and there is nowhere cheaper to lifecycle it to.
  • Class A operations are billed at 4.50 USD per million, so a workload that writes millions of small objects can spend more on operations than on the storage those objects occupy.
  • Infrequent Access carries both a retrieval fee and a thirty day minimum storage duration, so data that is deleted or re-read sooner ends up more expensive than if it had stayed on Standard.
  • You choose a location hint rather than a region, so you cannot prove to an auditor which datacentre holds an object unless you use a jurisdiction restricted bucket, and jurisdictions are limited.
  • Support level follows your Cloudflare account plan rather than the storage spend, so a team on a low tier account gets ticket support with no storage specific SLA, and an R2 incident is a Cloudflare incident you cannot fail over from because the free egress only exists inside Cloudflare.

Pricing, plan by plan

Ceph

Free
  • CephFree
    • Full functionality, no capacity limit
    • Object, block and file interfaces
    • Community support via mailing list and Slack

Cloudflare R2

Free
  • Free tierFree
    • 10 GB stored per month
    • 1 million Class A operations
    • 10 million Class B operations
  • Standard$0.015/month
    • Per gigabyte stored per month
    • 4.50 USD per million Class A operations
    • 0.36 USD per million Class B operations
  • Infrequent Access$0.01/month
    • Per gigabyte stored per month
    • Per gigabyte data retrieval fee
    • Thirty day minimum storage duration

Which should you pick?

Choose Ceph if

  • You need rados object store.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux.
  • You also want rados gateway.
Ceph review

Choose Cloudflare R2 if

  • You need zero egress billing.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want s3 api compatibility.
Cloudflare R2 review

Questions people ask

Is Ceph or Cloudflare R2 better?
Neither clearly leads. Ceph starts at Free and Cloudflare R2 at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Ceph or Cloudflare R2?
Ceph starts at Free and Cloudflare R2 at Free.
Does Ceph or Cloudflare R2 run on more platforms?
Ceph runs on Linux. Cloudflare R2 runs on Web, API.
Can I use Ceph for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Ceph best used for?
Ceph is most often used for backing a private cloud where virtual machine disks, shared filesystems and an s3 endpoint all need the same hardware, growing past the point where a proprietary array upgrade costs more than a rack of commodity servers, research and media environments with petabytes of data and staff who can operate storage, providing an s3 endpoint on premises with multi site replication under your own control. Of those, backing a private cloud where virtual machine disks, shared filesystems and an s3 endpoint all need the same hardware and growing past the point where a proprietary array upgrade costs more than a rack of commodity servers are not what Cloudflare R2 is typically brought in for.
What can Ceph do that Cloudflare R2 cannot?
Ceph covers RADOS object store, RADOS Gateway, RBD block devices, CephFS. Cloudflare R2 covers Zero egress billing, S3 API compatibility, Worker binding, Jurisdictional restriction.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Ceph: How many nodes do I need to start?

Three is the practical minimum for a replicated cluster with real fault tolerance, and most production advice starts at five once you account for maintenance windows.

Cloudflare R2: Is egress really free, with no hidden transfer charge?

Yes for data served out of R2 to the internet. You still pay per operation for the requests that serve it, and if you pull data into R2 from another provider you pay that provider the egress on the way in.

Ceph: Is it faster than a SAN?

Not on single stream latency. It wins on aggregate throughput and on growing without a forklift upgrade, which is a different property from raw speed.

Cloudflare R2: How does the total cost compare with S3 for a public download bucket?

Storage is more expensive per terabyte than S3 Infrequent Access, but S3 charges roughly 90 USD per terabyte served. Any bucket that serves more than about a fifth of its stored volume each month is cheaper on R2.

Ceph: Can I buy support?

Yes. IBM sells IBM Storage Ceph and SUSE and others have offered supported builds; the upstream project itself is free.

Cloudflare R2: Can I use R2 without using the rest of Cloudflare?

Yes, it works through the plain S3 API from anywhere. You lose the Worker binding and the free CDN caching in front of it, which is where a lot of the practical benefit sits.

Ceph: Should I use it just for S3?

If object is all you need, a dedicated object store is simpler to run. Ceph earns its complexity when you need block and file as well.

Cloudflare R2: Does R2 have a cold archive class like Glacier?

No. Infrequent Access is the coldest tier, at two thirds of the Standard rate plus retrieval fees.

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