Self-hosted alternatives to Amazon S3
Want object storage without handing your data to Amazon S3? These 4 self-hosted apps run on your own server. Cheapest estimated hosting starts at about $5/month.
About Amazon S3: AWS object storage service.
| App | Health | Stars | License | Docker | RAM (est.) | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SeaweedFS | Active | 35.9k | Apache-2.0 | – | 1 GB | $5/mo |
| Zenko CloudServer | Active | 2k | Apache-2.0 | ✓ | 1 GB | $5/mo |
| GarageHQ | Active | 179 | AGPL-3.0 | ✓ | 1 GB | $5/mo |
| s3-orchestrator | Active | 44 | MIT | ✓ | 1 GB | $5/mo |
The options in detail
1. SeaweedFS
Distributed file system supporting WebDAV, S3 API, FUSE mount, HDFS, etc, optimized for lots of small files, and easy to add capacity.
Active Last commit 2026-11-05. Latest release 4.52 (2026-11-02). Needs roughly 1 GB RAM. How to run it →
2. Zenko CloudServer
Implementation of the Amazon S3 protocol on the front-end and backend storage capabilities to multiple clouds, including Azure and Google.
Active Last commit 2026-11-04. Latest release 9.5.2 (2026-10-27). Needs roughly 1 GB RAM. How to run it →
3. GarageHQ
Geo-distributed, S3‑compatible storage service that can fulfill many needs.
Active Last commit 2026-10-23. 6 releases in the past year. Latest release v2.5.0 (2026-10-24). Needs roughly 1 GB RAM. How to run it →
4. s3-orchestrator
Storage orchestration layer presenting many cloud providers as a single S3 endpoint, keeping N copies across them with read failover, plus optional per-backend byte, request, ingress and egress limits, zstd compression and envelope encryption.
Active Last commit 2026-11-04. 10+ releases in the past year. Latest release v0.178.3 (2026-10-29). Needs roughly 1 GB RAM. How to run it →
Why self-host instead of Amazon S3?
- Own your data — it lives on a server you control, with backups you decide on.
- Predictable cost — a small VPS often replaces per-seat pricing for a whole team or family.
- No lock-in — open-source licenses let you keep running the software even if a vendor disappears.
The trade-off: you are responsible for updates, backups and security. Pick an app marked Active (a commit in the last 90 days) and with Docker support for the easiest ride.
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Other alternatives guides
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