Buckets vs CS Browser (formerly S3 Browser) in 2026

Verified 13 Oct 2026. This page is written by the team that makes Buckets. We have tried to be fair. Check the vendor's pricing page for current editions and terms. If something here is out of date, email buckets@serverlesscreed.com.

S3 Browser was renamed CS Browser in October 2026. If you are searching for "S3 Browser alternative", this is the same product under a new name. It has been the default S3 client for many Windows users for years. Its vendor also makes TntDrive, which mounts S3 as a Windows drive.

Buckets is a cross-platform desktop app for Amazon S3, CloudFront and S3-compatible storage.

At a glance

	Buckets	CS Browser (S3 Browser)
Price	14-day trial, then $5/month, $49/year, $99 lifetime, or Team at $49/seat/year (3-seat minimum)	Free edition; Pro is $49.99
Platforms	Windows (x64, through Microsoft Store or a direct installer), macOS (Apple silicon), and Linux (x64, arm64)	Windows
Mount as a drive	Virtual Drive, which needs rclone and WinFsp (Windows) installed separately	TntDrive, a separate product from the same vendor
AWS sign-in	IAM Identity Center (SSO) with automatic token refresh, saved profiles, AssumeRole, and a multi-account dashboard	See the vendor's documentation
CloudFront	Distributions, invalidations with a cost preview, Origin Access Control, signed URLs and cookies, CloudFront Functions, and folder-to-site publishing	See the vendor's documentation
Cost visibility	Cost preview before billable operations, Cost Explorer, Storage Lens, storage-class analysis	See the vendor's documentation
Recovery	Time Travel restores a prefix to an earlier point using retained versions	See the vendor's documentation

We only list CS Browser features we could verify. For everything else, its own documentation is the authority.

Choose CS Browser if…

• You work only on Windows and want a free tool. The free edition costs nothing. Buckets has no free tier after its 14-day trial.
• You already rely on TntDrive for a mapped S3 drive, or your team has standardized on the tool.
• You want a long-established Windows product with a large existing user base.

Choose Buckets if…

• Your team uses Mac or Linux as well as Windows. One app and one license works across all three; each seat covers 2 machines.
• You sign in through IAM Identity Center or switch between many AWS accounts. Buckets runs the SSO device flow itself, refreshes tokens automatically, and switches between saved accounts in one click.
• You manage CloudFront. Buckets handles Origin Access Control, invalidations with a cost preview, signed URLs and cookies, CloudFront Functions, and deploying a local folder to a private bucket behind CloudFront.
• You want guardrails.
  • Billable operations show an estimate and the permissions they need before they run.
  • Profiles can be set to read-only.
  • Profiles whose names look like production default to read-only.
• You need recovery and governance. Buckets includes Time Travel, Object Lock and retention, Batch Operations, a sampling security and PII scanner, and IaC export. Time Travel can only use the version history S3 kept.

Privacy

The Buckets desktop app has no analytics or crash-reporting SDK. AWS requests go directly from your computer to AWS. Our Trust Center lists every network connection the app makes, and it also notes that the direct Windows installer is not yet code-signed. The Microsoft Store edition is signed by Microsoft.

Sources

• CS Browser / S3 Browser editions and pricing, checked 13 Oct 2026
• Buckets facts: pricing, documentation, Trust Center

Download the 14-day trial and compare both on the bucket you use every day.