MinIO Has a Free S3-Compatible API You Can Self-Host Anywhere

#minio #s3 #storage #devops

MinIO is an S3-compatible object storage server you can run anywhere — laptop, server, or Kubernetes. Same AWS S3 API, zero cloud cost.

Setup

docker run -p 9000:9000 -p 9001:9001 \
  -e MINIO_ROOT_USER=admin \
  -e MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=password123 \
  minio/minio server /data --console-address ":9001"

Use with AWS SDK

import { S3Client, PutObjectCommand, GetObjectCommand, ListObjectsV2Command } from '@aws-sdk/client-s3';

const s3 = new S3Client({
  endpoint: 'http://localhost:9000',
  region: 'us-east-1',
  credentials: { accessKeyId: 'admin', secretAccessKey: 'password123' },
  forcePathStyle: true
});

// Upload
await s3.send(new PutObjectCommand({
  Bucket: 'my-bucket',
  Key: 'photos/cat.jpg',
  Body: fileBuffer,
  ContentType: 'image/jpeg'
}));

// Download
const { Body } = await s3.send(new GetObjectCommand({
  Bucket: 'my-bucket',
  Key: 'photos/cat.jpg'
}));

// List objects
const { Contents } = await s3.send(new ListObjectsV2Command({
  Bucket: 'my-bucket',
  Prefix: 'photos/'
}));

Presigned URLs

import { getSignedUrl } from '@aws-sdk/s3-request-presigner';

const uploadUrl = await getSignedUrl(s3, new PutObjectCommand({
  Bucket: 'uploads',
  Key: `user-${userId}/${filename}`
}), { expiresIn: 3600 });
// Give this URL to the client for direct upload

Event Notifications

# Webhook on new uploads
mc event add myminio/my-bucket arn:minio:sqs::1:webhook \
  --event put --suffix .jpg

Why This Matters

S3 compatible: All AWS S3 tools and SDKs work unchanged
Self-hosted: No cloud bills, no data leaving your network
Fast: Designed for high-performance workloads
Kubernetes native: Operator for production clusters

Need custom storage solutions or data pipeline tools? I build developer tools. Check out my web scraping actors on Apify or reach out at spinov001@gmail.com for custom solutions.

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