MinIO vs Garage
Both are alternatives to Amazon S3. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as Garage vs MinIO — same comparison, one verdict.
MinIO and Garage are closely matched on ownership (92 vs 95) — this one comes down to pricing and to which trade-offs below you can live with.
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.
Garage
Object storage for geographically scattered, unreliable hardware.
Garage is a lightweight S3-compatible store built by Deuxfleurs for a case the others handle badly: nodes spread across different homes and cities on ordinary connections, where latency is high and machines come and go. It is deliberately small, has no single point of failure, and runs on hardware you would not consider adequate for object storage. AGPL-3.0. It is the most niche entry here and it earns its place by being the honest answer for community and self-hosted infrastructure rather than a datacentre.
Side by side
10 points of comparison, every one read from a verified field. Green marks the side that wins a row outright. A dash means we do not hold that fact — never that it is zero.
| MinIO | Garage | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty ScoreOur transparent 0–100 composite for data ownership and exit cost. | 92 | 95 |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first data | Yes | Yes |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Pricing | Free and open source. Commercial licence and support available from MinIO Inc. | Free and open source. Designed for commodity and second-hand hardware. |
| RAM to run it wellThe figure that actually matters, not the vendor's minimum. | 4 GB | — |
| Realistic running costWhat the box costs each month if you run it yourself. | $15–40/mo for a few TB on block storage, against S3 pricing that is cheaper per GB but charges for every request and every byte out | — |
| Setup timeHonest first-install estimate, not the marketing quickstart. | 1 hour single-node, a day for a distributed set | — |
| Ongoing maintenanceThe part nobody budgets for. | Moderate. Drive failures are your problem now, and so is capacity planning. | — |
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
Garage
Strengths
- +Built for geographically distributed nodes on unreliable links
- +Extremely light — runs on hardware other stores refuse
- +No single point of failure by design
- +AGPL-3.0 with genuinely community governance
Trade-offs
- −Smallest project here by a wide margin
- −Fewer S3 API features implemented than MinIO
- −Not aimed at high-throughput single-datacentre workloads
- −Very small community if you get stuck
Which one fits you
The trade-offs above, turned into a decision. Find the line that describes your team.
Choose MinIO
if s3-compatible API — most applications need one endpoint changed.
Choose Garage
if a lower exit cost matters more to you than any single feature, and built for geographically distributed nodes on unreliable links.
Neither, yet
if both carry a real cost you should weigh first — aGPL-3.0 needs reading if you distribute a product containing it, and smallest project here by a wide margin. If either of those is a dealbreaker for your team, the shortlist is wrong rather than the choice.
What it takes to run these yourself
Real requirements and honest running costs, not the vendor quickstart.
MinIO vs Garage — common questions
Is MinIO a better fit than Garage for object storage?
It depends on what you are optimising for, and the honest split is this: Garage scores 95 to MinIO's 92 on data ownership and exit cost, so it is the safer choice if you care about being able to leave. MinIO earns its place on a different axis — s3-compatible API — most applications need one endpoint changed. Neither is a wrong answer for every team; the table above is the actual comparison.
What happens if we want to switch later?
MinIO keeps its data local or in open formats, so leaving is an export rather than a negotiation. Garage is still self-hostable, so the files stay on your server either way — but it is not local-first by design, so check what its export produces before you rely on it.
Can I self-host MinIO or Garage?
Both can be self-hosted. The difference is what it costs you in time rather than whether it is possible — see the setup and maintenance rows above.
Are MinIO and Garage both alternatives to Amazon S3?
Yes — both appear in our Amazon S3 comparison, which is why they are worth putting side by side. People usually arrive here already having decided to move off Amazon S3 and now choosing between the two replacements, which is a narrower and much easier question.
Related alternative guides
Facts verified 2026-08-04. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.