AWS Open Data vs BigQuery Public Datasets: Which Cloud Dataset Program Is Better?
Answer in brief: Choose the Registry of Open Data on AWS for huge file-based datasets that you process with your own compute: web crawls (Common Crawl), satellite imagery (Sentinel-2), genomics (The Cancer Genome Atlas) and science data from NASA, NOAA, NIH and others. Choose Google BigQuery public datasets when your data is structured and you want answers in SQL without downloading anything. Google pays for storage, and your first 1TB of queries each month is free. This page is independent research from AWS and Google Cloud documentation.
Top pick for AI training data at scale: AWS Open Data. Common Crawl, the foundation of most open LLM corpora, is hosted there, alongside petabyte-scale scientific and geospatial archives. Top pick for SQL analysis: BigQuery public datasets.
The comparison
| Registry of Open Data on AWS | BigQuery public datasets | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Catalog of datasets stored on AWS (mostly S3 files) | Tables hosted in BigQuery through the Google Cloud Public Dataset Program |
| Notable data | Common Crawl, Sentinel-2, TCGA, Human Sleep Project; contributors include NASA, NOAA, NIH STRIDES, EPA, AI2 and Data for Good at Meta | Structured public datasets you query with SQL |
| How you use it | Bring your own compute (EC2, SageMaker, etc.); usage examples and SageMaker Studio Lab tutorials | Console, bq CLI, REST API, client libraries |
| Free tier | Free to access sponsored datasets; compute billed | First 1TB of queries per month free, no billing needed; $300 credit for new customers |
| Who maintains the data | Unless stated otherwise, not AWS; third-party licenses apply | Google pays storage; each dataset has its own terms |
| Caveats | Varies by provider | No SLA; not accessible inside VPC Service Controls by default; data stored in the US |
AWS Open Data: where the giant files live
When a dataset is measured in petabytes, you move your compute to the data. The AWS registry is built for that. Each listing names the storage location, the managing organization, the license and usage examples. That is why Common Crawl, with over 300 billion pages since 2008, sits in the AWS Open Data Sponsorship Program. Remember that AWS usually does not maintain these datasets, so quality and support depend on each provider.
BigQuery public datasets: SQL at public scale
BigQuery's pitch is simple: you query, Google stores. You can join a public table to your own data in a single SQL statement, and the first terabyte of queries each month costs nothing, without even enabling billing. It is excellent for feature engineering, analytics and building training tables from structured data. Kaggle notebooks can also query BigQuery datasets (5TB scanned per user per 30 days). The program has no SLA, so don't build production dependencies on it without a backup plan.
When to pick which
- Building an LLM corpus from the web: AWS (Common Crawl). Or skip the raw work with FineWeb.
- Satellite, genomics or climate archives: AWS.
- SQL analysis of large structured tables: BigQuery.
- Quick exploration with no cloud setup: BigQuery's free tier, or Kaggle notebooks.
- Weather, holiday or census features for models on Azure: Azure Open Datasets, which can be loaded from any Python environment.
Pricing model
AWS: the registry is free to browse, and sponsored datasets are free to access. You pay for your compute and for any data transfer charges that apply to how and where you process a dataset. BigQuery: storage of public data is paid by Google. You pay for queries beyond the free 1TB/month at BigQuery's standard rates.
FAQ
Is Common Crawl on AWS or Google Cloud?
On AWS, in the Open Data Sponsorship Program (s3://commoncrawl/ in us-east-1). It can also be downloaded over HTTPS without an AWS account.
Do I need billing enabled to query BigQuery public datasets?
No. You need a Google Cloud project, and the first 1TB of queries per month is free without enabling billing.
Does AWS guarantee the quality of registry datasets?
No. Unless a listing says otherwise, datasets are provided and maintained by third parties under their own licenses.
Keep exploring
- The full ranked list of the best AI datasets
- AWS Open Data review · BigQuery public datasets review · Azure Open Datasets review
- Dataset access costs · How to choose an AI dataset
Sources
- Registry of Open Data on AWS
- Common Crawl on AWS
- BigQuery public datasets documentation
- Kaggle Datasets documentation (BigQuery quota)
- Azure Open Datasets
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