{
  "slug": "minio",
  "name": "MinIO (AIStor)",
  "aliases": ["MinIO", "MinIO Object Store", "AIStor", "AIStor Free"],
  "vendor": { "name": "MinIO, Inc.", "slug": "minio-inc", "website": "https://www.min.io" },
  "homepage_url": "https://www.min.io/",
  "docs_url": "https://docs.min.io/aistor/",
  "repo_url": "https://github.com/minio/minio",
  "pricing_url": "https://www.min.io/pricing",
  "product_type": "application",
  "product_status": "renamed",
  "summary": "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",
  "description": "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encryption and replication in distributed mode.\n\nIn April 2026 MinIO archived the public repository and marked it as no longer maintained, directing users to AIStor Free, a standalone edition under a free license for community use, and AIStor Enterprise, a distributed edition sold as a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.\n\nFor 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.",
  "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"],
  "workflows": ["Provide an S3 endpoint on a local server for backups and data lakes", "Back a restic or rclone target with local disks", "Serve Parquet data lakes to DuckDB or Spark over S3"],
  "advantages": ["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"],
  "audiences": ["Self-hosters and homelabs needing S3 storage", "Data teams running on-premises object stores"],
  "alternatives": ["aws", "rclone"],
  "comparison_notes": "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.",
  "categories": [{ "slug": "backup-recovery", "primary": true, "label": "Object storage" }, { "slug": "data-catalogs" }],
  "tags": ["object-storage", "s3", "self-hosted", "go", "kubernetes", "source-available"],
  "use_cases": ["back-up-data", "store-data", "query-parquet-files"],
  "operating_systems": ["linux", "macos", "windows"],
  "execution_modes": ["self-hosted"],
  "interfaces": ["api", "cli", "web"],
  "deployment_models": ["on-premises"],
  "integrations": ["Amazon S3 API clients", "restic", "rclone", "DuckDB", "Apache Spark", "Kubernetes", "Apache Iceberg"],
  "data_formats": ["S3 objects", "Apache Iceberg tables"],
  "languages": ["Go"],
  "source_model": "mixed",
  "pricing_model": ["free", "enterprise"],
  "pricing_checked_at": "2026-11-02",
  "self_hostable": true,
  "sources": [
    { "url": "https://www.min.io/", "type": "official_site", "title": "MinIO", "supports": ["name", "summary", "vendor"], "checked_at": "2026-11-02" },
    { "url": "https://github.com/minio/minio", "type": "repository", "title": "minio/minio (archived)", "supports": ["product_status", "limitations", "description"], "checked_at": "2026-11-02", "note": "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." },
    { "url": "https://docs.min.io/aistor/", "type": "official_docs", "title": "AIStor Documentation", "supports": ["capabilities", "operating_systems"], "checked_at": "2026-11-02", "note": "States AIStor is licensed under the MinIO Software License." },
    { "url": "https://www.min.io/download", "type": "official_docs", "title": "Download AIStor", "supports": ["pricing_model"], "checked_at": "2026-11-02" },
    { "url": "https://www.min.io/pricing", "type": "pricing_page", "title": "MinIO Pricing", "supports": ["pricing_model"], "checked_at": "2026-11-02" }
  ],
  "confidence": "medium",
  "uncertainty_note": "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.",
  "discovery_method": "editorial-research",
  "depth": "standard",
  "editorial_status": "reviewed",
  "visibility": "public",
  "featured": false,
  "author": "batch-B2"
}