Side by side
Lustre vs Quobyte
Both stand on distributed file system software. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.
Choose Lustre if you need a self-hosted, Linux-based parallel file system for high-throughput HPC storage at scale. Look elsewhere if your design depends on Lustre itself replicating data across storage servers or shrinking OST file systems online.
Visit Lustre
Choose Quobyte if your organization needs a unified storage platform for large-scale workloads, with broad storage interfaces and controls for policy, security, and monitoring. The Free Edition has a 150 TB ceiling; organizations considering Enterprise Edition need to contact the maker for commercial pricing.
Visit QuobyteThe facts
| Lustre | Quobyte | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Not published | Not published |
| Runs on | Linux, Self-hosted | API, Linux, Mac, Self-hosted, Web, Windows |
| Lowest paid plan | Not published | Free or on request |
| Plans published | None | 1 |
| Maker | Not published | Not published |
| Website | lustre.org | quobyte.com |
| On distributed file system software | #14 of 32 | #10 of 32 |
Lustre: what it does well
- Open-source and free to use.
- Can present hundreds of petabytes to thousands of clients.
- Supports Ethernet, InfiniBand, Intel Omni-Path, and other fabrics.
- Offers ldiskfs and OpenZFS storage back ends.
- Includes inter-node failover and encryption.
What to know first
- Lustre itself does not replicate data objects across storage servers.
- Servers require Lustre-specific e2fsprogs packages.
- Online shrinking of OST file systems is not supported.
Quobyte: what it does well
- Free Edition supports up to 150 TB of storage forever.
- Supports POSIX, NFS, S3, HDFS, and MPI-IO access.
- Policy engine manages redundancy, tiering, encryption, caching, and quality of service.
- Provides Kubernetes CSI and Helm deployment options.
- Exports Prometheus metrics and includes a Grafana dashboard.
What to know first
- Free Edition is capped at 150 TB of storage.
- Enterprise Edition pricing is custom and requires contacting storage experts for a demo.
- The listed platform is designed for enterprise and research scale storage infrastructure.
Alternatives to Lustre Alternatives to Quobyte The whole list