MinIO vs Cloudflare R2
Both are alternatives to Amazon S3. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as Cloudflare R2 vs MinIO — same comparison, one verdict.
MinIO
TOP PICKThe S3 API on your own hardware — same calls, no egress bill.
MinIO is a high-performance object server that speaks the S3 API closely enough that most applications need only a changed endpoint. Run it on a spare machine, a rack, or across a cluster; it handles erasure coding, versioning and encryption. AGPL-3.0, around 61k stars. For anyone whose objection to S3 is the egress bill rather than the storage price, this removes it entirely — the data is on hardware you already pay for. AGPL is the caveat: read it before you embed MinIO in a product you distribute.
Cloudflare R2
S3-compatible with zero egress fees — the direct answer to the complaint.
R2 is Cloudflare's object store and its defining feature is a deliberate attack on S3's pricing: storage around $0.015 per GB per month and no egress charges whatsoever. For anything read frequently over the internet — media, assets, public datasets — that single difference can turn a four-figure monthly bill into a two-figure one. It is S3-API compatible, so migration is largely a config change. It is proprietary and hosted, which is the honest trade, and it makes Cloudflare rather than Amazon the party you depend on.
Side by side
| MinIO | Cloudflare R2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 92 | 40 |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Local-first | Yes | No |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary (hosted service) |
| Pricing | Free and open source. Commercial licence and support available from MinIO Inc. | About $0.015/GB/month storage. No egress charges. Free tier included. Checked 2026-08-04. |
MinIO is Macrostack's recommended Amazon S3 alternative, so it's our pick here.
MinIO
Strengths
- +S3-compatible API — most applications need one endpoint changed
- +No egress charges at all, because the data never leaves your network
- +Genuinely fast; used for high-throughput analytics workloads
- +Erasure coding, versioning and encryption built in
Trade-offs
- −AGPL-3.0 needs reading if you distribute a product containing it
- −You own durability now — replication and backups are your design
- −No Glacier equivalent for cheap cold archive
- −Recent licensing and feature changes have unsettled some users
Cloudflare R2
Strengths
- +Zero egress fees — the single biggest cost difference in this category
- +S3-compatible API, so migration is mostly configuration
- +Cheaper storage than S3 as well
- +Integrates with Cloudflare Workers and the CDN
Trade-offs
- −Proprietary and hosted — you have swapped one vendor for another
- −Fewer surrounding services than S3's ecosystem
- −No deep-archive tier comparable to Glacier
- −Ties you into Cloudflare's platform decisions
Related alternative guides
Facts verified 2026-08-04. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.