Amazon DynamoDB vs Amazon S3: What are the differences?

Developers describe Amazon DynamoDB as "Fully managed NoSQL database service". All data items are stored on Solid State Drives (SSDs), and are replicated across 3 Availability Zones for high availability and durability. With DynamoDB, you can offload the administrative burden of operating and scaling a highly available distributed database cluster, while paying a low price for only what you use. On the other hand, Amazon S3 is detailed as "Store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web". Amazon Simple Storage Service provides a fully redundant data storage infrastructure for storing and retrieving any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.

Amazon DynamoDB belongs to "NoSQL Database as a Service" category of the tech stack, while Amazon S3 can be primarily classified under "Cloud Storage".

Some of the features offered by Amazon DynamoDB are:

• Automated Storage Scaling – There is no limit to the amount of data you can store in a DynamoDB table, and the service automatically allocates more storage, as you store more data using the DynamoDB write APIs.
• Provisioned Throughput – When creating a table, simply specify how much request capacity you require. DynamoDB allocates dedicated resources to your table to meet your performance requirements, and automatically partitions data over a sufficient number of servers to meet your request capacity. If your throughput requirements change, simply update your table's request capacity using the AWS Management Console or the Amazon DynamoDB APIs. You are still able to achieve your prior throughput levels while scaling is underway.
• Fully Distributed, Shared Nothing Architecture – Amazon DynamoDB scales horizontally and can seamlessly scale a single table over hundreds of servers.

On the other hand, Amazon S3 provides the following key features:

• Write, read, and delete objects containing from 1 byte to 5 terabytes of data each. The number of objects you can store is unlimited.
• Each object is stored in a bucket and retrieved via a unique, developer-assigned key.
• A bucket can be stored in one of several Regions. You can choose a Region to optimize for latency, minimize costs, or address regulatory requirements. Amazon S3 is currently available in the US Standard, US West (Oregon), US West (Northern California), EU (Ireland), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Asia Pacific (Sydney), South America (Sao Paulo), and GovCloud (US) Regions. The US Standard Region automatically routes requests to facilities in Northern Virginia or the Pacific Northwest using network maps.

"Predictable performance and cost" is the top reason why over 53 developers like Amazon DynamoDB, while over 589 developers mention "Reliable" as the leading cause for choosing Amazon S3.

Airbnb, Spotify, and Netflix are some of the popular companies that use Amazon S3, whereas Amazon DynamoDB is used by Netflix, Medium, and Lyft. Amazon S3 has a broader approval, being mentioned in 3235 company stacks & 1615 developers stacks; compared to Amazon DynamoDB, which is listed in 444 company stacks and 187 developer stacks.