# MinIO review (2026): is the free plan enough? > S3-compatible object storage software you run yourself Checked Nov 13, 2026 ยท graded Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA. MinIO makes AIStor, object storage software that speaks the S3 API and also covers Iceberg tables and SFTP, deployed on your own servers or cloud. It is aimed at engineering and data teams rather than people who want a file-sync app. The original open-source edition is described on the pricing page as end of life. - **Category:** File Storage & Sync - **Made by:** MinIO, Inc. (since 2014) - **Website:** https://www.min.io - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Not for you if you want a file-sync or sharing app. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 13, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 13, 2026, MinIO has a free plan. - **Pricing model:** Free plan - **Free plan:** AIStor Free: the full AIStor feature set on a single-node deployment, with community Slack and documentation support. Redistribution is prohibited. - **Free trial:** 60-day free trial of Enterprise Lite and Enterprise. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Free | $0 | Single-node deployment with community Slack and documentation support; no resiliency beyond one node. | | Enterprise Lite | Custom | Multi-node, horizontally scalable, for capacity under 400 TiB. Priced on request; optional direct-to-engineer support with a sub-5-day SLA. | | Enterprise | Custom | Multi-node with 24/7/365 direct-to-engineer support, a sub-4-hour SLA and dedicated onboarding. Priced on request. | Read from https://www.min.io/pricing on Nov 13, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with MinIO before buying. ## Key features - **S3-compatible object storage:** AIStor is described as fully S3-compatible, with S3 Express, an Iceberg catalog and SFTP also listed among its protocols. - **Replication:** The feature list names active-active, synchronous and asynchronous, multi-site, bucket and batch replication. - **Security:** Encryption, a key management server, a data firewall and immutability are listed, and the page shows FIPS 140-3, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 badges. - **Management:** An admin console, quality-of-service controls, lifecycle management, audit trail and Prometheus metrics are listed. - **Sized by usable capacity:** Subscription pricing follows usable storage capacity after erasure-code overhead, not raw disk. ## Good for - Engineering and data teams that need S3-compatible storage on their own hardware - Single-node development and small self-supported deployments on the free tier ## Worth knowing - Clustered, highly available deployments need a paid Enterprise Lite or Enterprise subscription; the free tier is single-node only. - No Enterprise Lite or Enterprise prices are published; both are quoted on request. - The pricing page says the original open-source MinIO edition (AGPLv3) is end of life with no fixes or security patches. - This is infrastructure software for operators, not a consumer file-sync or sharing app. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.2 out of 4**, graded Nov 13, 2026. MinIO sells AIStor, S3-compatible object storage for engineering and data teams. The free version is a single node with no resilience, clusters need quoted Enterprise subscriptions, and the pricing page calls the old open source edition end of life. - **Value for money: C.** The free tier is single-node and Enterprise Lite and Enterprise are quoted on request, so there is no price to compare. - **Free plan and trial: B.** Free single-node deployment with the full feature set and community support. Redistribution is prohibited, and there is a 60-day trial of the paid tiers. - **Features: C.** S3 API, replication, security and management for object storage. It is not a file-sync app, and clustering is paid. - **Ease of use: D.** Deployed on your own servers or cloud and run by operators. No store rating on record. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web console, S3 API and Kubernetes, Prometheus, NVIDIA and Databricks listed. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from MinIO's own pages on 13 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among file storage and sync services - MinIO's GPA of 2.2 is higher than 34 of the 91 other file storage and sync services we grade, and level with 9. - It stands best on free plan and trial (B, above 67 of 91) and worst on ease of use (D, above 0). The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/file-storage ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** Nothing MinIO does is plain enough to make in a weekend. The 3 things listed below take a company. - You could not: A file manager working directly on your disk. - You could not: It plugs into other products, NVIDIA, Databricks and Kubernetes among them, and has an API. - You could not: What a company asks for before it lets staff use something: SOC 2 and roles and permissions. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with NVIDIA, Databricks, Kubernetes, Prometheus **Tags:** Self-hostable, Public API, File management ## Alternatives - [Wasabi](https://toolgpa.com/tools/wasabi): S3-compatible cloud object storage at a flat per-TB rate. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/minio-vs-wasabi) - [Backblaze B2](https://toolgpa.com/tools/backblaze-b2): S3-compatible object storage billed per terabyte. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/backblaze-b2-vs-minio) - [Storj](https://toolgpa.com/tools/storj): Distributed S3-compatible object storage priced per terabyte. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/minio-vs-storj) - [Filebase](https://toolgpa.com/tools/filebase): S3-compatible object storage with IPFS pinning and free egress. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/filebase-vs-minio) - [Tigris](https://toolgpa.com/tools/tigris): S3-compatible object storage with no egress fees. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/minio-vs-tigris) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 13, 2026: - https://www.min.io/pricing - https://www.min.io - https://www.min.io/download - https://www.min.io/about Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/minio Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).