Technology

MinIO

Summary

What it is

An open-source, S3-compatible object storage server designed for high performance and self-hosted deployment.

Where it fits

MinIO is the primary open-source alternative to AWS S3. It enables organizations to run the same S3 workloads on-premise, at the edge, or in any cloud — breaking vendor lock-in while keeping the S3 API contract.

Misconceptions / Traps

  • MinIO implements the S3 API but is not AWS S3. Some AWS-specific features (S3 Select, S3 Inventory) may not be available or behave differently.
  • MinIO provides strict read-after-write consistency by default — stronger than historical AWS S3 behavior.

Key Connections

  • implements S3 API — full S3-compatible interface
  • enables Lakehouse Architecture — can serve as the storage layer
  • solves Vendor Lock-In — S3-compatible self-hosted alternative
  • constrained_by Lack of Atomic Rename — same S3 API limitation applies
  • LanceDB indexes MinIO — vector search over MinIO-stored data

Definition

What it is

An open-source, S3-compatible object storage server designed for high performance and self-hosted deployment.

Why it exists

Organizations need S3-compatible storage they can run on their own infrastructure — on-premise, at the edge, or in any cloud — without depending on a single vendor.

Primary use cases

Self-hosted data lakes, on-premise lakehouse storage, CI/CD artifact storage, S3-compatible development and testing environments.

Relationships

Outbound Relationships

implements
constrained_by

Inbound Relationships

indexes

Resources