Garage
Open-source, lightweight S3-compatible distributed object storage server designed for self-hosting.
HN commenters recommend it as a simple, self-hosted S3-compatible alternative to MinIO,123 used for local development and multi-node clusters.456 Caveats raised include the missing built-in GUI,78 poor performance with many small writes,9 and doubts about its fit for single-node use.10
Why people recommend it
MinIO alternative · 3
Commenters describe it as a popular replacement they chose or migrated to after leaving MinIO.
“Garage is a popular alternative to Minio.”
“settled on Garage. It lacked the GUI, but felt about the same complexity as minio.”
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“I recently migrated my projects from MinIO to Garage”
Multi-node design · 3
Runs well as a multi-node cluster and suits hyper-converged setups where reads stay local when possible.
“I love garage. I think it has applications beyond the standard self host s3 alternative.”
“settled on Garage. It lacked the GUI, but felt about the same complexity as minio.”
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“To me seems unsuitable for single-node use at this point.”
Simple setup · 3
It ships as a single binary that is easy to run under systemd or Docker.
“for those looking for a simple and reliable self hosted S3 thing, check out Garage”
“I use this for booting up S3-compatible buckets for local development and testing”
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“settled on Garage. It lacked the GUI, but felt about the same complexity as minio.”
Local dev testing · 2
Used to spin up persistent S3-compatible buckets for local development and test environments.
“I use this for booting up S3-compatible buckets for local development and testing”
“I use garage but the main issue i have is the mandatory random keys”
Reliability · 2
Described as a solid tool that has been working great.
“for those looking for a simple and reliable self hosted S3 thing, check out Garage”
“I use this for booting up S3-compatible buckets for local development and testing”
Caveats and dissent
No GUI · 3
There is no built-in web UI; a web interface is available separately.
“settled on Garage. It lacked the GUI, but felt about the same complexity as minio.”
“for those looking for a simple and reliable self hosted S3 thing, check out Garage”
Show 1 more
“To me seems unsuitable for single-node use at this point.”
Small-write performance · 1
One home-lab user saw poor performance with many small writes compared with RustFS.
“it's those small writes that was making garagefs perform so badly”
Single-node fit · 1
One commenter considers it unsuitable for single-node use at this point.
“To me seems unsuitable for single-node use at this point.”
Random keys · 1
Mandatory random access keys prevent hardcoding credentials in a dev compose file.
“I use garage but the main issue i have is the mandatory random keys”
Often compared with
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Garage – An S3 object store so reliable you can run it outside datacenters 3 mentions
- Ask HN: Is there any good open-source alternative to MinIO? 2 mentions
- Healthchecks.io Now Uses Self-Hosted Object Storage 2 mentions
- MinIO is now in maintenance-mode 2 mentions
- Alternatives to MinIO for single-node local S3 1 mention
- ZeroFS vs. Amazon S3 Files 1 mention
Data: garage.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 13
“settled on Garage. It lacked the GUI, but felt about the same complexity as minio.”
“it's those small writes that was making garagefs perform so badly”
“Seems there are other options, too, e.g. Garage [5].”
“To me seems unsuitable for single-node use at this point.”
“For S3 self-hosters check out Garage, who are developing with NLnet funding”
“I recently migrated my projects from MinIO to Garage”
“I use garage but the main issue i have is the mandatory random keys”
“take a look at https://garagehq.deuxfleurs.fr/”
“I use this for booting up S3-compatible buckets for local development and testing”
“Is Garage only really useful if you specifically want to expose an S3 drop in compatible API, or does it also provide other benefits over syncthing?”
“I love garage. I think it has applications beyond the standard self host s3 alternative.”
“Garage is a popular alternative to Minio.”
“for those looking for a simple and reliable self hosted S3 thing, check out Garage”