Smelt Cloud vs Cloudflare R2
Cloudflare R2 broke the egress cartel by making data transfer free, and it remains an excellent serverless object store. Where Smelt differs is the storage rate itself: committed dedicated capacity costs a fraction of R2's per-gigabyte rate, and we match its free egress.
Cloudflare R2 figures verified Jun 15, 2026
| Dimension | Cloudflare R2 | Smelt Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Storage price | $15 / TB-month ($0.015/GB) | Vault ~$0.49 / TB-month · Molten ~$4 / TB-month (3-yr effective) |
| Egress | Free | Free |
| Pricing model | Per-GB rented monthly, serverless | Dedicated capacity on owned hardware |
| Class A operations | $4.50 / million | No per-operation billing on dedicated nodes |
| Flash tier / IOPS | Single serverless tier | All-flash Molten — millions of native NVMe IOPS |
| Best for | Spiky, serverless, scale-to-zero workloads | Committed capacity, large datasets, hot + cold tiers |
Comparisons match the closest Cloudflare R2 configuration by cores and memory (compute) or by cost per terabyte (storage), and normalize for included storage and egress. Specs for both sides are shown so you can judge the fit.
Smelt Cloud as a Cloudflare R2 alternative
If you are evaluating Smelt Cloud as a Cloudflare R2 alternative, the trade is simple. R2 is serverless and bills purely on usage; Smelt is dedicated capacity on owned hardware. You give up scale-to-zero, and in return committed storage drops by roughly an order of magnitude per terabyte while egress stays free. For large or steady datasets, that is the better deal; for spiky serverless workloads, R2 is still excellent.
Same free egress
R2's signature advantage is free egress. Smelt matches it — we own the network and transit — so the comparison comes down to the storage rate and the workload shape.
A fraction of the per-terabyte cost
At roughly $0.49 per terabyte-month for bulk and $4 for all-flash, committed Smelt capacity undercuts R2's $15 per terabyte-month by an order of magnitude once you are storing at scale.
A real flash tier
R2 is one serverless tier. Smelt splits hot and cold: all-flash Molten for IOPS-bound workloads, HDD Vault for petabyte bulk, on the same platform.
Where Cloudflare R2 is the better fit
R2 is serverless and scales to zero with no commitment, billed purely on what you use, and it sits inside Cloudflare's global edge with zero operational overhead. For spiky, unpredictable, or small workloads, R2 is excellent and likely lower-cost. Smelt wins on committed capacity at scale, where owning the drives beats renting them.
Questions, answered.
Does Smelt charge for egress like the big clouds?
No. Like Cloudflare R2, Smelt charges nothing for egress. We operate our own network and transit.
Does Smelt cost less than R2?
For committed capacity at scale, yes — by roughly an order of magnitude on storage per terabyte. For small or spiky serverless workloads that scale to zero, R2's usage-based model may cost less. The crossover depends on your data volume and access pattern.
Is Smelt storage S3-compatible like R2?
Yes — object storage is exposed over an S3-compatible API.
- Cloudflare R2 pricing — verified Jun 15, 2026
Cloudflare R2 and other names are trademarks of their respective owners. Smelt Cloud is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Cloudflare R2. Figures shown are the competitor's public list prices as of the dates above and may change; Smelt figures are effective rates described in our documentation. This comparison is provided for informational purposes.
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