Mainsail 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.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Mainsail with
choose an app… Syncthing LocalSend copyparty Puter croc Spacedrive Nextcloud File Browser SeaweedFS
Compare MinIO with
choose an app… Immich Syncthing LocalSend Rclone copyparty Puter PhotoPrism croc Spacedrive Nextcloud File Browser Restic SeaweedFS Cloudreve Ente Photos DeepFace Magic Wormhole Snapdrop gallery-dl Kubo (IPFS) Ceph transfer.sh ProjectSend alt: Vert.sh File converter Seafile Duplicati Stalwart Kopia Color Thief BorgBackup darktable SFTPGo PairDrop ShareDrop Dufs Thumbor qrcp Nextcloud All-in-One Velero FilePizza OctoPrint ownCloud LibrePhotos CryptPad miniserve FileBrowser Quantum bup Conduit File Sync Backrest Resilio Sync alternative Onionshare wger Photoview closet GoToSocial NoNo upspin imaginary h5ai Tiny File Manager Send Google Photos Takeout Helper OpenCloud WebDAV Server Go Duplicacy Unison Flying Carpet CKAN SparkleShare elFinder Pingvin Share gocryptfs Kinto pgBackRest Syncthing Android Wrapper bitmagnet Nextcloud Desktop Sync slskd Updog Zipline FileGator PicoShare RcloneView gohttpserver Gokapi LubeLogger Chibisafe Mazanoke Syncthing-Fork Directory Lister Peergos Palmr Reitti CryFS Pydio Cells OpenCloud Files Enclosed git-annex ProjectSend Zenko CloudServer bittorrent-tracker Apaxy PsiTransfer Plik Firefox SyncStorage Nextcloud companion go-filecoin none WebDAV-Aria Syncany Sync-in HortusFox FreeFileSync Garage Linx Slink Sharry rmfakecloud Morphos server Picsur rsync.net alternative Stash NoDuplicate HomeHub Uguu rustypaste XBackBone Zen scanservjs Gossa Threema Web FileRise Pomf Readur Poznote Webtor QuickShare ownCloud Web DumbDrop Wingfit Local Content Share Cryptomator CLI 015 IFM mikochi Open Web Calendar ThinkDashboard Davros goploader Lufi Files Sharing Filebin Kleeja Z-Push PrivyDrop Flare Nephele File Drop Cryptomator Hub hash-calendar ZeroNote Pydio Cells Sync Shifter Passky Client Pydio Cells Client elixire Dropgate Server IPFS Podcasting Digirecord Feber FileRun GoSƐ Jirafeau LibreOffice pacebin Resilio Sync ResourceSpace Samba slcl Surfer Yetishare
Feature Mainsail MinIO Category File Sync & Storage File Sync & Storage License free AGPL-3.0 Language Vue Go Setup difficulty Easy Medium Min. RAM 512 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, one-click docker, kubernetes, binary GitHub stars ★ 2,193 ★ 61,387 First released 2022 2015 Replaces — Amazon S3
Why pick each one
Choose Mainsail if… Easy to set up — beginner-friendly First-class Docker support for quick deployment One-click install on common self-host platforms Active community (2.2k GitHub stars) Mainsail details Choose MinIO if… Excellent performance Drop-in S3 replacement Scales horizontally MinIO details
Frequently asked questions Is Mainsail or MinIO better? Neither is universally better. MinIO has the larger community, while Mainsail is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Mainsail and MinIO free and open-source? Yes. Mainsail is licensed under free and MinIO under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Mainsail and MinIO with Docker? Mainsail: yes. MinIO: yes.