Rabata.io: Where It Fits and Where It Doesn't
What Rabata Actually Is
Section titled "What Rabata Actually Is"Rabata.io is an S3-compatible object storage provider from RCS Technologies (UK) with two products: Hot Storage, general-purpose object storage at $0.01/GB/month in us-east-1, designed for applications, media, and frequently accessed data, and Backup, bulk archival storage at $49/10TB flat in eu-west-2, intended for backups, disaster recovery, and cold data. Both use standard AWS SigV4 authentication, work with any S3 SDK or CLI, and require no code changes to migrate from AWS S3. You swap the endpoint and credentials.
That is the entire product. No compute layer, no managed databases, no dashboard file browser: you cannot preview or view objects through Rabata's web UI, so you need an S3 client or a tool like Blober to actually see what's in your buckets. Just storage with an S3 API.
What the Benchmarks Show
Section titled "What the Benchmarks Show"Rabata published benchmarks using MinIO warp v1.0.7 (released January 2025, now superseded by v1.5.0) on a Debian 13 VM in us-east-1 with 8 concurrent threads in September 2025. The methodology is public.
According to their numbers, Rabata wins upload speed by a small margin (1,462 MB/s vs AWS's 1,444) and mixed operations by 2.3x over AWS. It loses on downloads to both Backblaze (2,075 MB/s) and AWS (1,816), and loses small object throughput to iDrive e2 (962 ops/s vs 696).
The mixed operations number is the most relevant for production workloads. Real applications read, write, list, stat, and delete concurrently. Rabata scored 2.3x higher than AWS S3 in that test.
These are same-region tests (us-east-1 to us-east-1). Performance from other geographies is unknown, and Rabata only operates in two regions. The runs are 30 seconds to 10 minutes with 8 threads, so they measure burst, not sustained multi-TB daily throughput over months. The warp version used (v1.0.7, January 2025) was already 8 months old at the time of testing and is now over a year outdated, and newer versions may produce different results. AWS S3 publishes 99.999999999% durability. Rabata publishes no durability SLA, and their terms include a broad "as is" disclaimer with zero liability for data loss.
The Real Use Case
Section titled "The Real Use Case"Rabata fits a specific profile:
Write-heavy S3 workloads that need to stay cheap. If you're ingesting backup pipelines, media uploads, log aggregation, or AI training data, and your bottleneck is upload throughput plus cost, Rabata's upload speed at $0.01/GB is competitive, roughly 57% less than AWS's $0.023/GB first-tier pricing (AWS discounts at volume).
The Backup tier at $49/10TB ($0.0048/GB) is priced below Backblaze B2 ($6.95/TB, ~$0.007/GB) and Wasabi ($6.99/TB, ~$0.007/GB, increasing to $7.99/TB in July 2026). Wasabi enforces a 90-day minimum retention. Rabata's Backup tier has no documented minimum retention, but note: egress is capped at 2x your storage amount and billing is in 10TB increments rounded up: store 1TB and you pay for 10TB.
GDPR-compliant EU storage. The eu-west-2 Backup tier gives you EU data residency, which Rabata calls out explicitly. Worth noting: Rabata's parent company (RCS Technologies) operates under UK law, not EU law. Hetzner also offers EU-based S3-compatible storage with three EU regions (NBG1, FSN1, HEL1) versus Rabata's single EU region. For European companies that need S3-compatible storage with data residency guarantees, both are worth evaluating.
No-friction evaluation. 30-day trial, no credit card required per Rabata's signup page.
Where It Doesn't Fit
Section titled "Where It Doesn't Fit"- Download-heavy workloads. If you're serving content to users, Backblaze B2 (2,075 MB/s downloads, ~$0.007/GB) or Cloudflare R2 ($0.015/GB storage, zero egress, weak throughput but free delivery) are better choices depending on whether you're optimizing for speed or cost.
- Global distribution. Two regions. If you need worldwide low-latency access, this is not the product.
- Enterprise compliance requirements. No published durability SLA, no SOC 2 mention, limited public track record, benchmarks not independently verified.
- Ecosystem depth. No lifecycle policies, no event notifications, no cross-region replication, no versioning (or at least none documented), no dashboard file browser. AWS S3 has all of these. Rabata does not.
Where It Sits Competitively
Section titled "Where It Sits Competitively"Based on Rabata's own benchmarks (no independent verification available), they offer three things at once that no other single provider does:
- Fastest mixed workload performance in their published benchmarks
- Simple pricing at $0.01/GB with $0.01/GB egress (Backup tier: egress capped at 2x storage)
- No-barrier trial with no credit card required
AWS is faster on downloads but 2-3x more expensive. Backblaze is comparable on storage (~$0.007/GB) but slower on uploads. Cloudflare R2 has zero egress but performs 3-8x worse. Wasabi has no egress fees but enforces 90-day minimums. iDrive wins on small objects but falls behind on mixed workloads.
If your workload is "ingest data via S3 API, store it cheaply, occasionally read it back," Rabata is worth testing. If your workload needs more features, more regions, or a long track record, look elsewhere.
Using Rabata with Blober
Section titled "Using Rabata with Blober"Blober supports Rabata.io as a native provider. Connect with your access key and secret key, and Blober detects your buckets across both regions (Hot Storage and Backup). You can use Rabata as a source or destination in any workflow: migrate to it from AWS S3, sync from Dropbox, back up from Google Drive, or download files from Rabata to your local machine. Since Rabata's dashboard has no built-in file browser, Blober is one of the easiest ways to actually see and manage what's in your buckets.
What Blober supports with Rabata:
- Browse: list buckets and objects across both regions (something Rabata's own dashboard doesn't offer)
- Upload: write files to Hot Storage or Backup buckets
- Download: pull files from Rabata to local storage or stream to another provider
- Copy/Move: transfer objects between buckets
- Delete: remove objects
Blober handles the region routing automatically. If a bucket lives in eu-west-2, operations go through the eu-west-2 endpoint. No manual configuration needed.
For setup details, see the Rabata.io provider documentation.
