What is RustFS used for?

RustFS is an S3-compatible, distributed object storage system written in Rust and released under the Apache-2.0 license. It is a good fit for self-hosted S3 storage for big data pipelines, migrating from MinIO or Ceph and object storage for AI training data.

Is RustFS open source?

Yes. RustFS is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at rustfs/rustfs and is written mainly in Rust.

Yes. RustFS is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host RustFS?

Yes. RustFS can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is RustFS an alternative to?

RustFS is an open-source alternative to Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage and Backblaze B2. Other open-source alternatives to Amazon S3 include SeaweedFS and Ceph.

Is RustFS actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to RustFS was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is 1.0.0, published on 16 September 2026. The project has 34k stars on GitHub.

RustFS: open-source alternative to Amazon S3

About RustFS

RustFS is a distributed object storage system built in Rust. It offers S3 API compatibility for supported features, and is meant to coexist with, or take over from, platforms like MinIO and Ceph that also speak the S3 API. The project is open source under the Apache 2.0 license and highlights that this avoids the restrictions of AGPL-licensed alternatives.

The feature list includes a scalable, fault-tolerant distributed architecture, an S3 compatibility matrix that tracks current coverage, and native support for the OpenStack Swift API and Keystone authentication. It is tuned for data lakes, AI and big data workloads, and the README says it was designed for easy deployment and management. A status legend marks features as available, preview or planned, so check the documentation for the current state of each capability before relying on it.

Key features

S3 API compatibility with published matrix
Distributed, fault-tolerant architecture
OpenStack Swift API support
Keystone authentication integration
Aimed at data lake and AI workloads
Written in Rust under Apache 2.0

Good fit for

→Self-hosted S3 storage for big data pipelines
→Migrating from MinIO or Ceph
→Object storage for AI training data

Built with: Rust
Tags: object-storage; s3; rust; distributed-storage; minio-alternative; data-lake; self-hosted; cloud-native

RustFS: questions and answers

What is RustFS used for?: RustFS is an S3-compatible, distributed object storage system written in Rust and released under the Apache-2.0 license. It is a good fit for self-hosted S3 storage for big data pipelines, migrating from MinIO or Ceph and object storage for AI training data.
Is RustFS open source?: Yes. RustFS is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at rustfs/rustfs and is written mainly in Rust.
Is RustFS free?: Yes. RustFS is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host RustFS?: Yes. RustFS can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is RustFS an alternative to?: RustFS is an open-source alternative to Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage and Backblaze B2. Other open-source alternatives to Amazon S3 include SeaweedFS and Ceph.
Is RustFS actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to RustFS was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is 1.0.0, published on 16 September 2026. The project has 34k stars on GitHub.