MinIO Has a Free Object Storage Server — Self-Hosted S3-Compatible Storage

MinIO is an S3-compatible object storage server — run your own S3 on-premises or in the cloud.

What You Get for Free

• S3 API compatible — use any S3 SDK, tool, or library
• Single binary — one executable, no dependencies
• Bucket management — create, list, delete buckets
• Versioning — object versioning for data protection
• Lifecycle policies — auto-delete old objects
• Server-side encryption — AES-256, SSE-S3, SSE-KMS
• Replication — sync between MinIO instances
• Console UI — web dashboard for management
• Events — webhook notifications on object changes

Quick Start

# Run MinIO
docker run -p 9000:9000 -p 9001:9001 \
  -e MINIO_ROOT_USER=admin -e MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=password \
  minio/minio server /data --console-address ":9001"

# Use with boto3 (AWS SDK)
import boto3

s3 = boto3.client('s3',
    endpoint_url='http://localhost:9000',
    aws_access_key_id='admin',
    aws_secret_access_key='password'
)
s3.create_bucket(Bucket='my-bucket')
s3.upload_file('file.txt', 'my-bucket', 'file.txt')

Why Developers Switch from AWS S3

S3 egress fees add up fast and data leaves your control:

• Zero egress fees — data transfer is free on your infrastructure
• Data sovereignty — data stays in your datacenter/country
• S3 compatible — switch endpoint_url, keep all your code
• Cost predictable — storage cost = disk cost, nothing more

A startup paid $500/month in S3 egress fees serving video content. After MinIO on dedicated servers: same content delivery, zero egress fees, $150/month total (server rental).

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