[7] Buckets can be managed using the console provided by Amazon S3, programmatically with the AWS SDK, or the REST application programming interface.

[8][9] Requests are authorized using an access control list associated with each object bucket and support versioning[10] which is disabled by default.

[18] The broad adoption of Amazon S3 and related tooling has given rise to competing services based on the S3 API.

[41] Amazon S3 provides a durability guarantee of 99.999999999% (referred to as "11 nines"), primarily addressing data loss from hardware failures.

However, this guarantee does not extend to losses resulting from human errors (such as accidental deletion), misconfigurations, third-party failures and subsequent data corruptions, natural disasters, force majeure events, or security breaches.

Customers are responsible for monitoring SLA compliance and must submit claims for any unmet SLAs within a designated timeframe.

In cases of data loss due to hardware failure attributable to Amazon, the company does not provide monetary compensation; instead, affected users may receive credits if they meet the eligibility criteria.