Storage Lens | Free vs Paid.

 

Here's twtech clear comparison between the Free and Paid (Advanced) tiers of Amazon S3 Storage Lens:

 S3 Storage Lens: Free vs Paid (Advanced) Metrics

Feature	Free Tier	Advanced Tier (Paid)
Cost	Free	Pay-per-request based on object count and activity
Metrics Count	~15 metrics	35+ metrics
Metric Categories	Usage metrics only	Usage + Activity metrics
Data Granularity	Account-level, bucket-level	Account, bucket, prefix, Region, and storage class level
Historical Data Retention	14 days	Up to 15 months
CSV Export to S3	Yes	Yes
CloudWatch Integration	No	Yes (for alarms and dashboards)
Request Activity (e.g., GET, PUT)	❌	✅
Data Transfer Metrics (bytes downloaded/uploaded)	❌	✅
HTTP Status Code Errors (4xx, 5xx)	❌	✅
Latency Metrics	❌	✅
Recommendations (Optimization & Best Practices)	Basic	Advanced, with AI-generated suggestions
Multiple Dashboard Support	Single dashboard	Multiple dashboards across org/account

When to Use Each

 Use Free Tier if:

• twtech needs basic storage usage tracking (e.g., storage size, object count).
• twtech is tracking growth and want a high-level overview.
• twtech doesn’t need request-level insights.

 Use Advanced Tier if:

• twtech needs detailed access patterns and request analysis.
• twtech is troubleshooting performance issues (e.g., latency, error rates).
• twtech is managing storage at scale across many accounts/regions.
• twtech needs historical trends for forecasting or audits.