Prompt
I'm building a web app that needs shared file storage for uploads, what should I use?
Latest observation
For shared file storage in a web app, the best default choice is usually object storage rather than a local disk or shared filesystem.
Good options
- AWS S3 — most common choice, very reliable, huge ecosystem
- Google Cloud Storage (GCS) — great if you're on GCP
- Azure Blob Storage — best fit on Azure
- MinIO — if you want S3-compatible storage you can self-host
Why object storage?
It works well for:
- multiple app instances / containers
- uploads and downloads from different servers
- durability and backups
- scaling without managing a shared filesystem
When to use a shared filesystem instead
Use something like:
- EFS (AWS), Filestore (GCP), Azure Files, or NFS if your app needs:
- POSIX-style file access
- file locking
- reading/writing files like a normal filesystem
Typical recommendation
For most web apps:
- Upload directly to S3/GCS/Blob Storage
- Store file metadata in your database
- Serve files via signed URLs or a CDN
What to avoid
- Local disk on one server if you have multiple app instances
- using the database as file storage unless files are tiny and there’s a strong reason
If you tell me your cloud provider and whether you need POSIX-style access or just upload/download storage, I can recommend the best exact service.
Observation history
How did Obsurfable measure this prompt?
Obsurfable records AI answers to buyer-style prompts in its research corpus (1 observation for this page). Metrics are distributions over observations, not a single static ranking.
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OpenAI,
ChatGPT,
Google,
Gemini,
Google AI Mode,
Anthropic,
Claude,
Perplexity,
Grok,
DeepSeek,
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Copilot,
Meta AI,
Qwen.
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