Our take
Activeregular commits- Activity
- 53
- Community
- 72
- Issues
- 21
- Pull requests
- no data
- More contributors than 78% of the projects we track
Garage is an actively developed option for self-hosted, geographically distributed S3 storage, but its lack of a release in the past year is worth weighing before adoption.
Good fit if
- You want S3-compatible object storage that you operate across your own locations.
- Rust is an acceptable runtime requirement for your deployment and maintenance setup.
- You can use AGPL-3.0 software and are comfortable managing a distributed storage service.
Look elsewhere if
- You need a recent tagged release as a prerequisite for production adoption.
- You want a hosted service or do not want to operate storage nodes yourself.
- AGPL-3.0 does not fit your distribution or licensing requirements.
All health signals
| Last commit | 2026-11-07 (3 days ago) |
|---|---|
| Commits, last 90 days | 100+ |
| Releases, last 12 months | 0 |
| Contributors | 100+ (top contributor: 65% of commits) |
| Issues closed, last 90 days | 0 |
| Project age | 4 years |
Checked on 2026-11-11 with the GitHub API.
Overview
Garage is a Rust-built, S3-compatible distributed object storage service for small-to-medium self-hosted deployments. It is designed for clusters whose nodes may be in different physical locations, replicating data across them so the storage service can remain available when some servers are unreachable.
Its focus is lightweight operation and resilience to machine failures rather than large-scale cloud infrastructure. See the project goals and features for details on its design and capabilities.
Key Features
- Provides an S3-compatible object storage service.
- Distributes storage across nodes in different physical locations.
- Replicates data across locations to support availability during server outages.
- Targets small-to-medium self-hosted deployments.
- Is designed to be lightweight and resilient to machine failures.
- Offers binary releases and documentation through the project website.
Use Cases
- Self-hosters who need an S3-compatible endpoint for storing application files or backups.
- Small organizations with servers in multiple locations that want replicated object storage.
- Operators who need storage to stay available when individual machines or locations become unreachable.
- Teams seeking an alternative to relying on a hosted object-storage service, and willing to operate their own cluster.
What you need
Detected in the repository
- Rust (from Cargo.toml)
- A Dockerfile, so it can run in a container
License in plain words
AGPL-3.0network copyleft
- Commercial use: yes
- Modify and redistribute: yes
- You must keep: the license notice
- Share your changes: yes, the full source, also when people only use it over a network (e.g. as a hosted service)
- Includes an explicit patent grant from the contributors:
A summary, not legal advice: the LICENSE file is what applies.
Getting Started
Start with the quick start guide and consult the binary releases. The repository also provides a Dockerfile; see the README for project links and documentation.
Considerations
The project is active, with regular recent commits and a broad contributor base, but has had no release in over a year. The measured data also reports no issues closed in the past 90 days, so review the current repository and project documentation when assessing maintenance and support needs. Garage requires Rust, and its distributed, multi-location design means operators should evaluate deployment and failure-recovery requirements against their own infrastructure. AGPL-3.0 may also impose obligations that matter when modifying or distributing the software.
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