Five options for teams running object storage inside a cluster, evaluated on Kubernetes integration, resource footprint, multi-site replication, license terms, and operational overhead.
MinIO
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| K8s integration | 8 / 10 |
| Multi-site replication | 4 / 10 |
| Resource footprint | 4 / 10 |
| Ops overhead | 5 / 10 |
| License clarity | 4 / 10 |
- Kubernetes operator exists and handles day-two operations like expansion and upgrades
- Documentation is thorough; large community with most operational questions already answered
- In 2024 MinIO relicensed from Apache 2 to BUSL-1.1 (Business Source License), which prohibits competing commercial use and converts to AGPL after four years — the project is effectively dead for most self-hosted use cases where the license previously made it attractive
- The last Apache 2 release (AGPL-era builds) is still in use at many sites but receives no upstream security fixes
- Multi-site replication was added after the fact and shows it — works, but feels bolted on
- Resource appetite makes it a poor fit when storage nodes are shared with application workloads
The right call when throughput is the primary concern and you have dedicated storage infrastructure with real IOPS behind it.
Ceph / Rook
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| K8s integration | 7 / 10 |
| Multi-site replication | 8 / 10 |
| Resource footprint | 2 / 10 |
| Ops overhead | 2 / 10 |
| License clarity | 8 / 10 |
- Rook operator wraps Ceph well enough that direct Ceph configuration is no longer required
- Unified block, filesystem, and object storage from a single cluster is a genuine advantage when you need all three
- Minimum viable three-node cluster consumes upward of 8 GB RAM before any workloads run
- Failure modes are numerous and tend to surface as subtle performance problems rather than obvious errors
- Deep Ceph expertise is effectively a prerequisite for running this in production without surprises
Stay on Rook if you already have a Ceph investment and need block and filesystem access alongside object storage; hard to justify for teams that only need S3.
SeaweedFS
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| K8s integration | 5 / 10 |
| Multi-site replication | 5 / 10 |
| Resource footprint | 7 / 10 |
| Ops overhead | 5 / 10 |
| License clarity | 7 / 10 |
- Handles high file counts and small objects particularly well
- Apache 2 license is clean and unambiguous for commercial use
- Kubernetes support relies on third-party Helm charts with inconsistent maintenance across versions
- Multi-datacenter replication model is more involved to configure than the problem warrants
- Less operational tooling and community support than MinIO or Ceph at equivalent scale
Worth evaluating for workloads dominated by small files, but the Kubernetes story needs more investment before it belongs in a production cluster alongside maintained operators.
Zenko / Cloudserver
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| K8s integration | 6 / 10 |
| Multi-site replication | 8 / 10 |
| Resource footprint | 4 / 10 |
| Ops overhead | 4 / 10 |
| License clarity | 5 / 10 |
- Works well as an abstraction layer when you need a single S3 endpoint over multiple backends or cloud providers
- Multi-site story is strong for the gateway use case specifically
- Production deployment adds hard dependencies on Kafka and MongoDB — two more systems to operate and monitor
- Mixed licensing across components adds ambiguity that the Apache 2 core alone does not resolve
- Overhead is difficult to justify unless the multi-cloud gateway is the actual requirement
A reasonable choice if the specific problem is abstracting over multiple existing backends; not the right fit if you are building a storage tier from scratch.
Garage ✦ recommended
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| K8s integration | 8 / 10 |
| Multi-site replication | 9 / 10 |
| Resource footprint | 9 / 10 |
| Ops overhead | 8 / 10 |
| License clarity | 9 / 10 |
- Single static binary with no runtime dependencies — nothing to install beyond the process itself
- Zone-aware placement is built into the cluster layout model, not added as an afterthought
- Idle footprint on a three-node cluster sits around 128 MB RAM, making it viable on edge nodes and shared hardware
- AGPL license with no commercial carve-outs, BSL clauses, or enterprise-tier feature gates
- Helm chart is actively maintained and the configuration model stays legible under operational pressure
- Failure modes are narrow enough that a single engineer can own the storage layer without treating it as a full-time job
The recommendation for most Kubernetes deployments, particularly those spanning more than one physical location or running on hardware where memory is shared with application workloads. It does exactly what it promises with very little ceremony.
Criteria comparison
| MinIO | Ceph/Rook | SeaweedFS | Zenko | Garage | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| K8s integration | Operator exists | Rook operator | Helm, patchy | Helm, complex | Clean Helm |
| Multi-site | Added late | Native | Manual setup | Gateway model | Built into layout |
| Min. footprint | ~2 GB RAM | 8+ GB RAM | ~512 MB RAM | Needs Kafka/Mongo | ~128 MB RAM |
| License | BUSL-1.1 (relicensed 2024) | LGPL / Apache | Apache 2 | Apache 2 core, mixed | AGPL, consistent |
| Ops model | Moderate | High — deep Ceph knowledge | Moderate | Moderate plus deps | Low — clear failure modes |
For teams with an existing Ceph investment or a hard throughput requirement and dedicated storage nodes, MinIO and Rook remain legitimate choices. For everyone else, Garage earns its recommendation.
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