Magic Wormhole vs MinIO

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted file sync & storage options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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FeatureMagic WormholeMinIO
CategoryFile Sync & StorageFile Sync & Storage
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguagePythonGo
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM32 MB256 MB
Deploymentbinarydocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 22,792★ 61,387
First released20162015
ReplacesWeTransfer, AirDropAmazon S3

Why pick each one

Choose Magic Wormhole if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Mature project with 22.8k GitHub stars
  • Written in Python
Magic Wormhole details

Choose MinIO if…

  • Excellent performance
  • Drop-in S3 replacement
  • Scales horizontally
MinIO details

Frequently asked questions

Is Magic Wormhole or MinIO better?

Neither is universally better. MinIO has the larger community, while Magic Wormhole is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Magic Wormhole and MinIO free and open-source?

Yes. Magic Wormhole is licensed under MIT and MinIO under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Magic Wormhole and MinIO with Docker?

Magic Wormhole: check the project docs for container support. MinIO: yes.

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