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MinIO (AIStor)

Renamed

by MinIO, Inc. · Application · also known as MinIO, MinIO Object Store, AIStor, AIStor Free

S3-compatible object storage server; the AGPL community edition was archived in April 2026 and succeeded by MinIO's AIStor Free and AIStor Enterprise editions

MixedFreeEnterpriseSelf-hostedSelf-hostable
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Checked Nov 2, 2026

Overview

MinIO is an S3-compatible object storage server from MinIO, Inc., long used to provide an S3 API on local disks, in Kubernetes and as a backup or data-lake target for tools such as restic, rclone and DuckDB. The community edition, written in Go and released under AGPL-3.0, was the usual way to self-host it: a single binary served buckets from one or more drives, with erasure coding, versioning, encryption and replication in distributed mode.

In April 2026 MinIO archived the public repository and marked it as no longer maintained, directing users to AIStor Free, a standalone edition under a free license for community use, and AIStor Enterprise, a distributed edition sold as a subscription with support. The AIStor documentation describes a single system serving objects over S3, tables over Iceberg and files over SFTP, licensed under the MinIO Software License, and lists installation on Kubernetes, Linux, containers, macOS and Windows.

For new deployments this means the open-source path has ended: the archived AGPL code still builds but will not receive fixes, and AIStor Free is proprietary. Teams that require open-source object storage are evaluating alternatives, while existing MinIO users must plan a migration or accept the new terms.

Editorial note on uncertainty. license_spdx omitted: the archived community code is AGPL-3.0 but the current AIStor products use the proprietary MinIO Software License. Status set to renamed because the community edition is discontinued and the vendor points to AIStor as successor.

Capabilities

  • S3-compatible object storage API
  • Erasure coding, versioning, object locking and server-side encryption
  • Distributed mode across nodes and drives (archived community edition; Enterprise in AIStor)
  • Iceberg table and SFTP file access in AIStor
  • Kubernetes, Linux, container, macOS and Windows installation
  • Console UI and mc command-line client

Typical workflows

  1. Provide an S3 endpoint on a local server for backups and data lakes
  2. Back a restic or rclone target with local disks
  3. Serve Parquet data lakes to DuckDB or Spark over S3

Strengths

  • Broad S3 API compatibility
  • Single-binary deployment
  • Free standalone edition still offered

Limitations

  • Community AGPL edition archived and unmaintained since April 2026
  • AIStor Free is proprietary; distributed features require Enterprise
  • Migration planning required for existing open-source users

Prerequisites

  • Linux, macOS, Windows or Kubernetes host with local storage

Who it is for

  • Self-hosters and homelabs needing S3 storage
  • Data teams running on-premises object stores

Alternatives & comparison

Amazon S3 is the hosted original whose API MinIO implements; it removes operations but keeps data off-premises. rclone is a client that can serve a directory over S3 for light use and transfer data between MinIO and other stores, not a storage server with erasure coding.

  • Amazon Web Services

    Amazon's public cloud with hundreds of usage-billed services spanning compute (EC2, Lambda), storage (S3), databases (RDS), networking, AI (Bedrock) and analytics

    ProprietaryUsage-based
  • rclone

    Command-line program to sync, copy, mount and serve files across dozens of cloud storage providers and protocols, with optional client-side encryption

    Open sourceOpen source
Compare MinIO (AIStor) with its alternatives →

Sources & verification

Primary sources consulted for this record. Claims are tied to the fields each source supports; the automated link checker re-verifies every URL on a schedule.

  • Official documentation
    AIStor Documentation

    https://docs.min.io/aistor

    Supports: capabilities, operating_systems

    States AIStor is licensed under the MinIO Software License.

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Official documentation
    Download AIStor

    https://www.min.io/download

    Supports: pricing_model

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Official site
    MinIO

    https://www.min.io/

    Supports: name, summary, vendor

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Pricing page
    MinIO Pricing

    https://www.min.io/pricing

    Supports: pricing_model

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Repository
    minio/minio (archived)

    https://github.com/minio/minio

    Supports: product_status, limitations, description

    Repository archived by the owner on 2026-04-25 and marked no longer maintained; README points to AIStor Free and AIStor Enterprise. Archived code is AGPL-3.0.

    checked Nov 1, 2026
Confidence
Medium
Reviewed
Nov 1, 2026
Links
Broken · Nov 2, 2026

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