SeaweedFS

SeaweedFS is a self-hosted distributed storage system for teams that need object, file and table access in one cluster. It is most compelling for operators managing diverse or very large data collections. Its broad protocol support is a strong draw, but production use requires a paid capacity license and support costs extra.

Overview

SeaweedFS serves S3 objects, Iceberg tables and POSIX files, with access through S3, POSIX mounts, HDFS-compatible access, an Iceberg REST catalog and WebDAV. The maker says it scales linearly from gigabytes to petabytes and supports billions of files, giving it scope for deployments that may outgrow a modest file store. That flexibility comes with the work of running a distributed system, so it is a better fit for teams prepared to manage their own storage infrastructure than for those seeking a simple hosted service.

Key features

The built-in Iceberg catalog supports querying with Spark, Trino, Dremio and DuckDB. That combination is useful when analytics workflows need table-catalog access alongside object and file storage. S3 features include versioning, lifecycle rules, immutability and cross-region replication, covering several common object-storage requirements in the same system.

Enterprise recovery controls are a meaningful operational advantage. Admins can restore deleted files from the Admin UI during a configurable retention window; the free 25 TB trial caps that window at one hour. Point-in-time recovery can rewind a folder, bucket or object to a selected moment, including undoing deletes and overwrites, with a preview before applying changes. Enterprise also repairs missing or corrupted erasure-coding shards and checks shards against checksums to detect silent corruption.

Enterprise erasure coding can be customized to a 20+4 ratio with 1.2× storage overhead. Its Admin UI supports OIDC sign-in and role mapping, with examples including Keycloak, Okta, Azure AD and Microsoft ADFS. These controls matter most for deployments where recovery, storage efficiency and identity management are operational priorities; they are part of Enterprise rather than the free development and testing allowance.

Pricing

SeaweedFS is freemium, but its free options do not cover production use. Community support costs nothing for any cluster size and includes GitHub issues and discussions plus public documentation, with no guaranteed response time. Development and testing also costs nothing under 25 TB and is limited to non-production use.

Production deployments need a capacity license regardless of size. The monthly license is $2 a month, billed Pay as you go; the yearly license is $20 a year, billed Simplified billing, with a stated saving of about 17%. Both charge on used storage including replication or erasure-coding overhead, so capacity planning should account for that overhead rather than raw data alone.

Support is optional and purchased separately from the capacity license. Essential support costs $2,000 a year for clusters up to 100 TB, with private email, a 5-business-day response and one advisory hour per month. Small Production support costs $5,000 a year for up to 250 TB, with a 3-business-day response, two advisory hours monthly and an annual configuration review. Growth support costs $15,000 a year for up to 1 PB, with a 2–3-business-day response, four advisory hours monthly, upgrade guidance and deployment assistance.

Standard support costs $40,000 a year for multi-petabyte deployments, adding private Slack and email, a 1-business-day response, eight advisory hours monthly, and architecture and deployment assistance. Critical support costs $85,000 a year for revenue-bearing workloads, with a 1-hour P1 response, private Slack, email and Zoom, direct engineering escalation and up to 12 advisory hours monthly. Enterprise 5 PB+ has custom volume pricing, volume discounts, and custom contracts and invoicing. If an Enterprise license expires, SeaweedFS says it falls back to the open-source implementation and data remains accessible, but self-healing features are disabled.

Platforms

SeaweedFS supports API access and Linux, macOS and Windows, with self-hosted deployment. The deployment guide offers an official repository binary and the chrislusf/seaweedfs-enterprise container image.

Who it's for

SeaweedFS suits infrastructure and data teams that want one self-hosted cluster to serve object, file and Iceberg workloads at substantial scale, and that can budget for production licensing. It is less suitable for hobby or production users who need a no-cost deployment, or teams that require included, guaranteed support: the free development allowance is capped at 25 TB and production requires a paid license, while support is a separate purchase.

Pros and cons

• Pros: Multiple storage interfaces share one cluster, including S3, POSIX, HDFS-compatible access, Iceberg REST and WebDAV, useful for mixed workloads.
• Pros: The Iceberg catalog works with Spark, Trino, Dremio and DuckDB, bringing catalog access into the storage platform.
• Pros: Enterprise offers file recovery, point-in-time rollback and erasure-shard repair, with specific safeguards for deletes, overwrites and corruption.
• Cons: Production use requires a paid capacity license even at small scale, so the free development plan is not a production on-ramp.
• Cons: Support costs from $2,000 a year in addition to licensing, and community support has no guaranteed response time.
• Cons: If an Enterprise license expires, data remains accessible but self-healing features stop, making renewal relevant to resilience planning.

Alternatives

MooseFS is worth considering if its free Community plan, with a single active master and single-parity erasure coding, better matches a no-cost deployment. Ceph is a free option for teams seeking open-source distributed storage, though block storage requires a running Ceph cluster. Hadoop Distributed File System fits teams preferring a no-charge, self-hosted cluster under Apache License 2.0.

JuiceFS offers a self-hosted Community Edition with GitHub and Discord community support, while OpenAFS is an open-source distributed filesystem. Quobyte may suit teams whose needs fit its free edition's 150 TB storage cap. XtreemFS is another free, open-source BSD-licensed choice. BeeGFS is also an alternative to compare.

Browse more options in Distributed File System Software, Storage Replication Software and Software-Defined Storage Software.

Verdict

Choose SeaweedFS if you need a self-hosted platform that brings object, file and Iceberg access together and can justify its production license. Its breadth and Enterprise recovery controls are the main reasons to choose it; look elsewhere if production must remain free or if support needs to be bundled with licensing.