For Amazon S3 request rates, what's the difference between prefixes and nested folders? How many prefixes can I have in an S3 bucket?

A partitioned prefix in a bucket can support 3,500 PUT/COPY/POST/DELETE or 5,500 GET/HEAD requests per second. There is no limit to the number of prefixes you can have in a bucket. In comparison, a folder is a concept supported by the Amazon S3 console as a way to group and organize files. The folder structure might not necessarily indicate what is considered a partitioned prefix to support request rates.

The difference between a prefix and a folder is the significance of the "/" character. For folders, the / character signifies the next subfolder or object name. For prefixes, / is just another character and it doesn't indicate where a partition will be.