Garage vs SeaweedFS
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted file sync & storage options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Garage
Lightweight S3-compatible distributed object store
VS
SeaweedFS
Fast distributed storage for blobs and files
| Feature | Garage | SeaweedFS |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Category | File Sync & Storage | File Sync & Storage |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Rust | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,600 | ★ 34,927 |
| First released | 2021 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Amazon S3, Dropbox | Amazon S3 |
What are Garage and SeaweedFS?
Garage
Garage is a distributed object storage service designed for self-hosting across multiple geographic locations. It implements the S3 API and prioritizes resilience over raw performance.
- S3-compatible API
- Geo-distributed replication
- Low resource footprint
SeaweedFS
SeaweedFS is a simple and highly scalable distributed file system that stores billions of files quickly. It offers an S3-compatible API and supports tiered cloud storage.
- Stores billions of small files
- S3-compatible API
- Cloud tiering support
Garage vs SeaweedFS: key differences
Garage is written in Rust, while SeaweedFS is built with Go. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Garage versus Apache-2.0 for SeaweedFS. SeaweedFS is the more established project (first released 2015), while Garage arrived in 2021. SeaweedFS has the considerably larger community, at 34,927 GitHub stars versus 1,600.
Why pick each one
Choose Garage if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.6k GitHub stars)
- Written in Rust
Choose SeaweedFS if…
- Scales to billions of files
- S3-compatible API
- Fast small-file storage
Watch out for
- Complex cluster architecture
- Ops expertise required
Frequently asked questions
Is Garage or SeaweedFS better?
Neither is universally better. SeaweedFS has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Garage and SeaweedFS free and open-source?
Yes. Garage is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and SeaweedFS under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Garage and SeaweedFS with Docker?
Garage: yes. SeaweedFS: yes.