What is the best open-source alternative to Amazon S3?

The best open-source alternative to Amazon S3 depends on the use case. The highest-PopScore candidates on GitPop are minio, seaweedfs, garage.

Is Amazon S3 open source?

No, Amazon S3 is a closed-source product by Amazon Web Services, Inc.. The open-source alternatives on this page are listed by GitPop PopScore (momentum, activity, and noise-filtered).

3 candidates

Open source alternatives to Amazon S3

Object storage with HTTP APIs, lifecycle rules, and event notifications. · Amazon Web Services, Inc.

Pricing: Pay-as-you-go from $0.023/GB/mo

S3 is the default object store, but most apps don't need the full AWS footprint. Self-hostable S3-compatible storage in 2026 is dominated by MinIO (high-performance, S3-API-compatible) and SeaweedFS (fast, distributed). MinIO is the most direct S3 replacement; SeaweedFS is the right pick when you need a small-footprint, distributed object store on commodity hardware.

The 3 candidates, ranked by PopScore

#01minio/minio
High-performance S3-compatible object store. The most direct S3 replacement in 2026, with Kubernetes-native modes.
GitHub
#02seaweedfs/seaweedfs
Fast distributed object store with S3 API. The right pick when you want a small-footprint, commodity-hardware-friendly replacement for S3.
GitHub
#03garagehq/garage
Geographically-distributed S3-compatible object store. The right pick for self-hosting across multiple small servers.
GitHub

Related alternatives

Looking for a side-by-side comparison of two open-source projects? The compare matrix has 60+ "X vs Y" pages. Looking for a curated "best of" list for a specific category? See Best AI tools 2026 (and the 7 other category editions).