Object storage software keeps files as objects in buckets behind an S3-style API, whether on hardware you run or in a cloud you rent.
This guide orders fourteen options by vendor size and independence, ninety-day setup effort, what a terabyte costs once requests and egress count, how data leaves again, and which kind of operator each product is built for.
Vendors can pay for more visibility on this website, for example a higher place in a ranking or more room on a page. Commercial relationships can also affect which products we feature and how prominently. Every vendor link is marked the same, whatever the arrangement behind it. How that works.
In short
What object storage software does
Object storage software keeps data as objects with metadata in flat buckets, reached through an S3-compatible API, and spreads copies or erasure-coded pieces over servers, so adding nodes adds capacity.
Setup effort, true cost, data portability, exit options and buyer fit are the five tests, applied in that order to every object storage tool here. Challengers hold places 1 to 3 wherever the category has them. Established brands begin at place 4. For why these five were chosen, and why nothing here gets a numeric score, see how we work.
Single-binary S3 store built to run across scattered machines
Ranked #1 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Self-hostablePricing on requestElsewhere
Garage's site frames it as storage for machines spread over the Internet, with a stated tolerance of 200 ms latency at 50 Mbps or more, so a cluster can span homes, offices and small datacentres without a dedicated backbone.
Named compatible software includes Nextcloud, Matrix, Mastodon, Rclone, PeerTube and Cyberduck. The AGPL-3.0 licence was read on the GitHub mirror. Funding credits run from 2021 to 2025, while the legal seat and form are not stated.
What stands out
AGPL-3.0
Self-hosted
3-zone replication
Where it costs you
No commercial support route is named, so incident help depends on the community and one contact address.
Each chunk is replicated across 3 zones, which multiplies raw disk needs compared with erasure-coded designs.
Right for
Associations and small teams running S3 storage over modest machines at several sites
Wrong for
Anyone who needs a vendor contract or published performance numbers
Not stated by the vendorSoftware licence only: AGPL-3.0, run on your own machines; the site lists no price
S3, POSIX, HDFS and Iceberg from one cluster with an Apache core
Ranked #2 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingElsewhere
Enterprise adds point-in-time recovery inside a configurable retention window, self-healing with bitrot scrubbing, S3 over RDMA, multi-tenancy with S3 rate limits and an OIDC admin UI. Kubernetes is covered by a Helm chart and a CSI driver.
One cluster serves S3 objects, POSIX files, HDFS and Iceberg tables, which suits mixed workloads but widens what an operator must learn. The company name is SeaweedFS Enterprise, reachable through a protected email link.
What stands out
Apache 2.0 core
Per-TB licence key
Helm and CSI
Where it costs you
The pricing page shows a dollar sign with no currency code and leaves the capacity basis unstated.
Support by email, Slack and Telegram promises answers within 24 hours on business days, not round-the-clock cover.
Right for
One cluster for objects, files and Iceberg tables at a published rate
Wrong for
Buyers who must name a legal entity and country before signing
Not stated by the vendorFree below 25 TB for dev and test with no feature gates; paid Enterprise published per TB, monthly or yearly
Distributed S3 cloud with separately licensed drive mounting
Ranked #3 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Published pricingElsewhere
Two paid tiers are listed: Standard at a per-TB storage rate plus egress, and Advanced as a per-TB licence plus egress, both with a monthly minimum. Standard also carries a 30-day minimum retention.
The Object Mount product mounts any object storage as a local drive, from a Teams plan that includes 500 GB of Storj storage to a bring-your-own-cloud plan with none. The lower-cost and lower-carbon figures are vendor claims.
What stands out
Distributed cloud
Egress billed per TB
Object Mount
Where it costs you
Standard bills any object under 50 KB as 50 KB, so millions of tiny files cost more than their size suggests.
Egress is charged per TB on both paid tiers, which adds up for read-heavy workloads.
Right for
Developers wanting hosted S3 storage at predictable per-TB rates with no hardware
Wrong for
Organisations required to keep storage on machines they control
Not stated by the vendorPublished per-TB storage and egress rates on two tiers, a 30-day trial, and per-licence Object Mount plans
Rust-written S3-compatible store positioned as a MinIO replacement
Ranked #4 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestElsewhere
Reed-Solomon erasure-coding profiles, IAM, encryption and audit features are configured by the user, and Kubernetes deployment runs through the RustFS Operator according to a blog post.
A disclaimer says it is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by MinIO, Inc. Production, migration and enterprise support all begin by contacting the team, and the only date given is a 2024 founding date in structured data.
What stands out
Apache 2.0
Written in Rust
MinIO migration
Where it costs you
No legal entity or address is published, so a purchaser cannot name the party behind a support request.
RDMA support and DPU offload are marked in progress, so neither can be planned around.
Right for
Users leaving MinIO who want S3 storage under a permissive Apache licence
Wrong for
Regulated buyers needing certified controls or a named vendor entity
Not stated by the vendorApache 2.0 download; no price shown, with production and migration support reached by contacting the team
AIStor object store with a single-node entry plan and quoted tiers
Ranked #5 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
On the pricing page, Enterprise Lite and Enterprise share a 60-day trial but differ in support: an optional response SLA under five days for Lite, and direct-to-engineer help around the clock with an SLA under four hours for Enterprise.
Its home page adds AIStor Memory for AI agents, an AI-Ready Lakehouse and OpenSharing support for Databricks. MinIO, Inc. lists an address in Redwood City, California, and names no parent company.
What stands out
Usable-capacity billing
AIStor
Single-node entry
Where it costs you
Quotes are priced on usable capacity, so the protection overhead you choose moves the bill while neither paid tier shows a rate.
The legal page declares the earlier community builds end-of-life, which strands anyone still running them.
Right for
Operators who want S3 object storage sized for AI pipelines under a support contract
Wrong for
Hobbyists needing multi-node resilience without buying a subscription
United StatesA single-node AIStor Free plan, then quoted Enterprise Lite and Enterprise subscriptions on usable capacity; 60-day trial
Hosted S3 storage billed per byte-hour with an egress allowance
Ranked #6 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Published pricingElsewhere
Transactions are split by class: Class A, B and C calls cost nothing on pay-as-you-go, while Class D calls cost a small amount per 10,000 after 2,500 free per day.
Annual commitments of one to five years are billed in full at contract start with the rate locked. B2 Neo claims up to 1 Tbps throughput, a vendor figure. The privacy policy URL returned an error when checked.
What stands out
Byte-hour billing
3x egress allowance
Overdrive tier
Where it costs you
Egress beyond three times average monthly storage is charged per GB, which matters for download-heavy archives.
Unlimited free egress sits in B2 Overdrive, which requires a multi-petabyte commitment.
Right for
Backup and archive owners wanting a published per-TB rate and light terms
Wrong for
Organisations wanting storage software to run in their own racks
Not stated by the vendorPublished per-TB monthly rate billed per byte-hour; capacity commitments of 1 to 5 years; first 10 GB always free
Hot cloud storage with S3 access and no egress or API fees
Ranked #7 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Published pricingElsewhere
Reserved Capacity starts at 25 TB with no upper limit and no single per-TB figure on the page, since price depends on capacity and term. The trial gives 100 GB for 30 days with a company email, or 10 GB for 14 days with a freemail address.
Features named include object-lock immutability, Covert Copy and Multi-User Authorization, and private cloud deployment is offered on request.
What stands out
No egress fees
90-day minimum
16 regions
Where it costs you
Pay-as-you-go keeps a 90-day minimum storage duration, so short-lived data is billed for the full period.
Reserved terms renew annually unless cancelled with 30 days notice, which someone must track.
Right for
Backup and media owners with steady, read-heavy data that stays put for months
Wrong for
Workloads that churn data daily and delete it within weeks
Not stated by the vendorPublished pay-as-you-go per-TB rate, or reserved capacity from 25 TB on 1, 3 or 5 year terms; trial offered
Block, file and object access on commodity hardware, one cluster
Ranked #8 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestElsewhere
RGW offers S3-compatible access, and a November 2026 blog covers Kafka bucket notifications with GSSAPI and OAuthBearer security. The most recent release shown is v20.2.5 Tentacle, the fifth minor release of its series.
The foundation has Diamond, Platinum, Gold, Silver and Associate tiers, and the legal address quoted belongs to the Linux Foundation, which the page does not call the registered seat.
What stands out
LGPL
Object, block and file
Cephadm
Where it costs you
No hosted or priced offering appears on the site, so support has to be sourced elsewhere.
The same cluster design covers block and file, which adds operating concepts an object-only team may never use.
Right for
Operators wanting object, block and file from a cluster they run themselves
Wrong for
Groups wanting buckets working within an afternoon
Not stated by the vendorLGPL-licensed software run by you; no price list, and foundation membership tiers carry no published rates
Apache storage for analytics with S3 and Hadoop interfaces
Ranked #9 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestElsewhere
Security covers Kerberos, ACLs with optional Apache Ranger integration, TLS and Transparent Data Encryption, alongside read-only bucket snapshots and volume or bucket quotas. Scale is claimed for deployments up to billions of objects and exabytes, without node or cluster limits.
Named integrations also include Flink, Iceberg, Impala, Prometheus and Grafana. Downloads and community links stand in for a sales route, and the Apache Software Foundation is named as the project's home.
What stands out
Apache 2.0
Hadoop ofs scheme
Ratis or erasure coding
Where it costs you
No commercial offering is listed, so a purchaser has to look elsewhere for a contract.
Ozone Manager, Storage Container Manager and Datanodes are separate components that must all be deployed and watched.
Right for
Analytics teams needing S3 and Hadoop access to the same data
Wrong for
Operators wanting a single-binary store with a vendor to call
Not stated by the vendorApache 2.0 software with no price list or commercial offering on the site
Eventually consistent object store from the OpenStack project
Ranked #10 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Self-hostablePricing on requestElsewhere
The docs list replication with a dedicated replication network, erasure code support, large object support, object versioning, temporary URLs, static websites and container-to-container sync.
Deployment is documented through a Deployment Guide, an Install Guide and an Administrator's Guide. No maximum object size is stated on the index page. OpenInfra says it is part of the nonprofit Linux Foundation, and no country or registered address appears.
What stands out
Apache 2.0
Storage policies
S3 middleware
Where it costs you
Eventual consistency is the documented model, so readers may briefly see older data after an update.
S3 access is listed as middleware, which makes it an added layer rather than the native interface.
Right for
Operators building archive-scale storage who accept eventual consistency
Wrong for
Shoppers expecting a priced, supported product with a named seller
Not stated by the vendorApache 2.0 software documented for self-hosted deployment; no price list or hosted offering named
S3-compatible software for any VM, private cloud or appliance
Ranked #11 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Self-hostablePricing on requestElsewhere
Integrations named on the site include AWS, NVIDIA, HPE, Lenovo, Microsoft, VMware, Veeam, Veritas, Commvault, Rubrik, Kasten, Splunk, Snowflake, Dremio and Cribl.
Direct GPU-to-object access is claimed through NVIDIA GPUDirect support, and hybrid use includes on-premises S3 with AWS Outposts. The legal entity is Cloudian, Inc. with a contact address in San Mateo, California, while the page names no headquarters country.
What stands out
Node-based scaling
GPUDirect
Appliance partners
Where it costs you
Budgeting starts from nothing, because the pricing address gave a 404.
Headquarters country and governing law are not named on the privacy page.
Right for
Enterprises wanting S3 storage that connects to Veeam, Commvault or Rubrik backups
Wrong for
Anyone needing list prices before contacting a salesperson
Not stated by the vendorNo price list found, since the pricing URL returned an error; a trial runs on any VM
Petabyte-scale file and object storage for service providers
Ranked #12 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestElsewhere
The multi-tenant S3 claim appears only on a service-provider industry page, not on the home page. RING is offered under licence rather than sale, and the legacy EULA treats Scality Group as the licensor.
Predictable performance and economics are the stated promise from petabytes up to exabytes. Only a 2026 copyright line appears and no parent company or acquisition.
What stands out
Scale-out
Service providers
French-law EULA
Where it costs you
Hosting model and S3 support go unstated on the home page, so both need confirming with the vendor.
A missing pricing page rules out any cost comparison before talks begin.
Right for
Service providers and sovereign cloud operators planning exabyte-scale capacity
Wrong for
Smaller shops that want to read a price and start today
Not stated by the vendorNo plans or prices found on the pages read; licensed under an order and EULA
Egress-free S3 storage tied into the Workers platform
Ranked #13 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingElsewhere
Storage costs 0.015 per GB-month on Standard and 0.01 on Infrequent Access. The monthly free allowance covers 10 GB-month, 1 million Class A and 10 million Class B requests, on Standard storage only.
Features include an Iceberg-compatible catalog, progressive migration from existing S3 buckets and public bucket support. The company is Cloudflare, Inc. according to its press releases, and the Infrequent Access class is priced lower per GB-month but higher per request.
What stands out
Zero egress fees
Workers integration
Iceberg catalog
Where it costs you
Writes and listings count as Class A operations, billed per million and at double the rate on Infrequent Access.
No hosting outside the Cloudflare network is described, which ties storage to one platform.
Right for
Web applications serving public assets to large audiences from Workers code
Wrong for
Anyone who needs storage running on their own machines
Not stated by the vendorPublished per-GB-month rates for two storage classes plus request charges; a monthly free tier covers Standard storage
Appliance and software object storage from Dell with WORM lock
Ranked #14 of 14 in Best Object Storage Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestElsewhere
Stated capacities run from 12 to 576 TB raw per X560 node, 46 TB to 2.9 PB per XF960 node, and 432 TB to 3.26 PB per X7700 node. Features include erasure coding, replication, an S3 Vector Store, a RAG Connector and RDMA acceleration.
Azure Blob Storage integration is mentioned in the FAQ. The Community Edition download has no stated price, and no headquarters country appears on the legal page.
What stands out
Dell appliances
ObjectLock WORM
Contact Sales
Where it costs you
No price is listed for any model, so every comparison starts with a sales conversation.
The appliance ranges are sized in racks of nodes, with the X7700 reaching 22.8 PB raw per rack, far beyond a small deployment.
Right for
Enterprises standardising on Dell hardware that need WORM and regulatory retention
Wrong for
Buyers seeking an independent vendor or a published price
Not stated by the vendorQuoted: every model says Contact Sales; labs, a demo and a Community Edition download are offered
Object storage software keeps data as objects with metadata in flat buckets, reached through an S3-compatible API, and spreads copies or erasure-coded pieces over servers, so adding nodes adds capacity. These are the questions that actually differ between vendors, in the order we would ask them.
01
Decide whether you need a published price
8 vendors on this page sell by quote, while 6 publish a pricing model you can read today: SeaweedFS, Storj, MinIO, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, Cloudflare R2.
02
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
Check the vendor's home market (Elsewhere 13, North America 1), because that is where subpoenas and data requests arrive first, whatever region holds your files.
Object storage software: which bill is yours, capacity or traffic?
Start by writing down how many terabytes you store, how many you read back each month and how many small objects you hold, because the vendors here meter different things. Backblaze B2 bills per byte-hour and allows egress up to three times stored data. Wasabi advertises no egress or API fees but keeps a 90-day minimum storage duration.
Cloudflare R2 charges nothing for Internet egress and bills requests in Class A and Class B. Storj bills egress per TB and rounds objects under 50 KB up to 50 KB. SeaweedFS charges per TB of a licence key you run yourself. Model one realistic month on each before looking at features.
Total stored, monthly reads and the count of small objects
Minimum storage duration and minimum monthly fees per vendor
Whether egress and request classes are billed separately
Garage, SeaweedFS and Ceph: how big a cluster do you want to run?
Self-run software trades licence cost for operating hours, and the three projects sit at very different points on that scale. Garage ships as one Linux binary with a stated floor of one gigabyte of memory and sixteen of disk, which suits small sites. SeaweedFS adds POSIX, HDFS and Iceberg access, plus a paid Enterprise edition with 24-hour business-day support.
Ceph delivers object, block and file from one cluster through Cephadm, yet nothing on its site offers a hosted or supported route. Count the people who will replace drives, upgrade nodes and answer the pager, then pick the smallest design that covers your interfaces. A volunteer-funded project such as Garage will not give you a service level, so write down what an outage is worth before choosing.
Interfaces you need beyond S3, such as POSIX files or block
Named people for upgrades, drive swaps and on-call
Who answers when a node fails, and how quickly
MinIO, RustFS and the end-of-life question for community builds
MinIO's legal page says its open-source products are end-of-life as of September 2025, which changes the risk for anyone who deployed them years ago. The paid path is AIStor, with a single-node entry plan, Enterprise Lite below 400 TiB and Enterprise above it, all priced on usable capacity. RustFS positions itself as a drop-in alternative with migration tooling and an Apache 2.0 licence, but names no legal entity or owner.
Apache Ozone and OpenStack Swift also carry Apache 2.0 yet come from foundations. Decide whether a maintained codebase, a named seller or a permissive licence matters most to you, and write that order down before comparing any benchmark claims, since the throughput figures here come from vendors themselves.
Which version you run today and its maintenance status
Whether a named legal entity must stand behind support
Licence terms that apply to redistribution inside your product
Cloudian HyperStore, Scality RING and Dell ObjectScale: forcing out a quote
These three sell to large estates, and none of them shows a usable price. Cloudian's and Scality's pricing pages could not be read when checked, and Dell sends every ObjectScale model to Contact Sales. Ask each for a written quote with raw and usable capacity, node counts, support hours and renewal terms.
Cloudian lists a trial on any VM, Dell offers a Community Edition download and labs, and Scality's home page leaves hosting and S3 support unstated, so confirm both in writing. Compare appliance sizes against your growth plan, since Dell's X7700 reaches 22.8 PB raw per rack, and ask Cloudian which integrations your backup software actually needs. Keep every answer in one document so later renewals have a baseline.
A written quote naming raw versus usable capacity
Hosting model and S3 support confirmed in writing
Trial or lab access before any purchase order
What goes wrong most often when buying object storage software
Treating Wasabi's missing egress fee as a total price and forgetting its 90-day minimum storage charge on data that churns.
Choosing Ceph for plain buckets, then discovering the cluster carries block and file concepts the team never needed.
Leaving earlier MinIO community builds in production after the legal page declared them end-of-life.
Counting Storj or Cloudflare R2 storage rates only, while small-object rounding and per-million request charges decide the real bill.
07
Frequently asked questions
7 answers
What is the best object storage software in 2026?
First of 14 on this page is Garage. Garage comes from the Deuxfleurs organisation, which credits public funding from NLnet and NGI programmes on its site. It ships as one Linux binary, copies each chunk into three zones and states minimums of 1 GB RAM and 16 GB of disk.
That makes it the lightest entry here. Missing are the absence of any vendor support offer or price list, and no stated cluster-size ceiling to plan against.
Which object storage tools publish their pricing?
6 of the 14, with the pricing model each one publishes:
SeaweedFS: Free below 25 TB for dev and test with no feature gates; paid Enterprise published per TB, monthly or yearly.
Storj: Published per-TB storage and egress rates on two tiers, a 30-day trial, and per-licence Object Mount plans.
MinIO: A single-node AIStor Free plan, then quoted Enterprise Lite and Enterprise subscriptions on usable capacity; 60-day trial.
Backblaze B2: Published per-TB monthly rate billed per byte-hour; capacity commitments of 1 to 5 years; first 10 GB always free.
Wasabi: Published pay-as-you-go per-TB rate, or reserved capacity from 25 TB on 1, 3 or 5 year terms; trial offered.
Cloudflare R2: Published per-GB-month rates for two storage classes plus request charges; a monthly free tier covers Standard storage.
Everything else on the list is priced on request.
Is there a free object storage tool?
SeaweedFS, MinIO, Cloudflare R2 can be used for free, either as a free plan or a self-hosted edition.
Where are these object storage software vendors established?
In 2 countries across 2 regions: Elsewhere 13, North America 1.
Garage: Not stated by the vendor.
SeaweedFS: Not stated by the vendor.
Storj: Not stated by the vendor.
RustFS: Not stated by the vendor.
MinIO: United States.
Backblaze B2: Not stated by the vendor.
Wasabi: Not stated by the vendor.
Ceph: Not stated by the vendor.
Apache Ozone: Not stated by the vendor.
OpenStack Swift: Not stated by the vendor.
Cloudian HyperStore: Not stated by the vendor.
Scality RING: Not stated by the vendor.
Cloudflare R2: Not stated by the vendor.
Dell ObjectScale: Not stated by the vendor.
Which object storage tools can you host yourself?
Garage, OpenStack Swift, Cloudian HyperStore. The other 11 are hosted by the vendor only.
What should you use instead of Garage?
Look at SeaweedFS (made for One cluster for objects, files and Iceberg tables at a published rate) and Storj (made for Developers wanting hosted S3 storage at predictable per-TB rates with no hardware), which hold places two and three.
Who should not buy Garage?
Anyone who needs a vendor contract or published performance numbers. No commercial support route is named, so incident help depends on the community and one contact address..
If your object storage software product belongs among these 14, tell us what it does and who it is for. Inclusion is an editorial call; what a listing is and is not is set out under software advice.
