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MinIO vs SwiftStack [EOL] comparison

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Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (17th), File and Object Storage (6th)
MinIO
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (1st)
SwiftStack [EOL]
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us
The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.
Abdelrahim-Ahmad - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good object storage functionalities
MinIO should provide an easier subscription model for companies that don't have a huge amount of data. Our company has a maximum of 100 terabytes of data. The solution should provide more bugging tools in the open-source version to encourage people to buy the support services. It's not an easy decision. If I go to the management and tell them that I need to buy a service, there should be an easier subscription model for companies that don't have huge amounts of data. For me, getting a subscription for 15,000 a year for a system already in production might be a bit hard. I think MinIO supports a minimum of one petabyte or 100 terabytes of data. Since we don't have such huge amounts of data, buying a subscription for the solution is a bit difficult. Hence, we're only using the open-source version for now. If MinIO becomes really crucial for our business, we could ask the management to get a subscription.
Scientif48eb - PeerSpot reviewer
It has helped us with the ability to distribute data to different data centers
* You can bring your own drives, which don't have to be certified. This usually means that they cost significantly more to insert a certified drive with the manufacturer who is selling you your solution. * It is platform independent, so you bring your own hardware. It doesn't matter if you get a Dell EMC, HPE, IBM, etc. Its hardware agnostic capabilities are great. Dell EMC, HPE, and Lenovo are obviously big players, but sometimes they don't have the best prices. You are not tied to any one particular vendor, and it gives you great flexibility as far as pricing is concerned. You can go out, and say, "Give me the most capacity in the smallest number of use spaces." Sometimes that's not the big vendors, it's the small vendors who provide this. * The forward thinking in their cloud solution creates a global namespace across the major public clouds. It allows you to go from on-premise to the cloud seamlessly. They have made it easier to move data between the different cloud vendors and move those flows from on-premise to the cloud, then from the cloud back to on-premise. That freedom that they facilitate is hard to put a price on, because it gives you flexibility. * The metadata search capabilities are something that we look forward to being able to use, though we haven't fully had a chance to get into them. However, in the life sciences area, it could be tremendously beneficial. * Ease of operation: We got it up and running, and it's been solid. We can upgrade the capacity of our drives at any point in time. * The flexibility that the solution provides, both for hardware and on-premise, then to the cloud. That flexibility is great.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."
"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."
"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."
"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."
"The most valuable features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."
"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."
"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."
"Very good at object retrieval."
"It performs efficiently compared to other solutions."
"The initial setup was straightforward as MinIO provided good support documentation and took a couple of days to complete."
"MinIO can work with attributes and folders, and it has the ability to use a stream approach for files. I have moments that should work exclusively. It also has some management features you can use, like exclusive locks that you can perform on one record or a collection."
"The initial setup was very easy - one click, and it was installed."
"The stability of MinIO is good."
"The container installation features are good. The S3 feature provisions the storage buckets making it easy. It allows me to spin up the public buckets with open-source technology."
"Reliable erasure coding."
"SwiftStack is also quite flexible when it comes to hardware. It depends, of course, on the use case and the kind of hardware you want to buy. But you have quite a bit of choice in hardware. The SwiftStack software itself does not impose anything on you."
"The biggest feature, the biggest reason we went with SwiftStack, rather than deploying our own model with OpenStack Swift, was their deployment model. That was really the primary point in our purchase decision, back when we initially deployed. It took my installation time from days to hours, for deployment in our environment, versus deploying OpenStack Swift ourselves, manually."
"The scalability is phenomenal. It seems infinite, as long as you put enough storage in place, add enough nodes."
"In terms of the hardware flexibility, with SwiftStack not being a hardware company, I literally buy any hardware that's the least expensive, from any vendor... from a flexibility standpoint, I think it's fantastic. I can go to anybody, anywhere - any vendor - and get my hardware."
"The graphs are most valuable. They have a lot of graphs and reports that you can run to see what's happening in the background to configure OpenStack Swift."
"It has helped us with the ability to distribute data to different data centers. As part of our DR strategy, we have nodes automatically replicating data from one data center to the other. This makes it easier for us to not have to shift tapes around."
"The SwiftStack Controller, which is the web UI, provides out of band management. This has been one of the best features of it. It allows us to be able to do upgrades and look at performance metrics. It is a top feature and reason to choose the product."
"The general consensus on what we've done is that the restores coming back from it have been faster than they were from our prior vendor. Ingest speeds are fine. The restore speeds have improved."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more deduplication."
"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."
"The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top."
"Its configuration should be easier."
"Its configuration should be easier."
"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."
"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."
"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."
"The solution lacks documentation."
"Its reverse proxy features could be better."
"MinIO should provide an easier subscription model for companies that don't have a huge amount of data."
"The Distributed User Interface (DUI) needs some work. It's hard to view a large set of data on the DUI. It's an issue with the DUI's performance."
"The tool’s pricing needs to improve. We also encountered challenges while deploying the tool in Kubernetes. The documentation also was not too great. We have currently deployed the solution in a stand-alone fashion."
"Lacks documentation for non-Kubernetes users."
"There should be the ability to expand the size after it has already been deployed. Currently, you cannot do that. It doesn't support an increase in size. Each time we spawn a new MinIO, we need to track the particular MinIO instance or tenant that has the file. Therefore, we had to create a multi-tenant solution that tracks the MinIO that has our artifacts. It isn't in one single instance. It should have better multi-tenancy support."
"MinIO could use a time patch on it. It could also use better documentation for some languages like Python."
"It's very well done for what it's supposed to do, and I don't have anything to add, but I would like them to keep it available to the public. SwiftStack is going out of the market. NVIDIA purchased SwiftStack a couple of years ago, and they won't be making it available to the public anymore. Our license is up to March 31st."
"At the moment we are using Erasure coding in an 8+4 setting. What would be nice is if, for some standard configurations like 15+4 and 8+4, there were more versatility so we could, for example, select 8+6, or the like."
"The biggest room for improvement is the maturity of the proxyFS solution. That piece of code is relatively new, so most of our issues have been around the proxyFS."
"[One] thing that I've been looking for, for years as an end user and customer, for any object store, including SwiftStack, is some type of automated method for data archiving. Something where you would have a metadata tagging policy engine and a data mover all built into a single system that would automatically be able to take your data off your primary and put it into an object store in a non-proprietary way - which is key."
"They should provide a more concise hardware calculator when you're putting your capacity together."
"The file access needs improvement. The NFS was rolled out as a single service. It needs to be fully integrated into the proxy in a highly available fashion, like the regular proxy access is. I know it's on the roadmap."
"On the controller features, there needs to be a bit more clean up of the user interface. There are a lot of options available on the GUI which might be better organized or compartmentalized. There are times when you are going through the user interface and you have to look around for where the setting may be. A little bit more attention to the organization of the user interface would be helpful."
"I would like to see better client integrations, support for a broader client library. SwiftStack could be a little bit more involved in the client side: Python, Java, C, etc."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is very expensive."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
"This solution is open source so it is free."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
"MinIO is a free open-source solution."
"This is an open-source solution but I am using the licensed version."
"My company hasn't tried the version of the solution where we need to pay to use it."
"It's pricey for us because we're a nonprofit. I'm not privy to any amount or cost, but I have been told that it is pricey. There are no costs in addition to the licensing fees, and it seems to come with the support."
"One of their advantages of being a commercial open source platform is, for the scale that they offer, the pricing is pretty competitive."
"We find the pricing rather steep. Of course, you get quality for your money, that's absolutely true... [But] when you look at the prices of the licensing and the prices of your hardware, it's quite substantial."
"The pricing and licensing are capacity-based, so it's hard to put my finger on them, because so many different vendors charge in different ways. We are still saving significantly over any of the other options that we evaluated because we can choose the best hardware at the best price, then put SwiftStack software on it. So, it's hard to complain, even though a part of me goes, "It would be nicer if it were less expensive.""
"We are able to dynamically grow storage at a lower cost. We can repurpose hardware and buy commodity hardware. There is a huge cost savings, on average $100,000 a year compared to traditional storage for what we have at our size."
"We have had a 40 to 50 percent reduction in CAPEX on the acquisition of new hardware, which is probably conservative."
"COST_SAVING; We have had a 40 to 50 percent reduction in CAPEX on the acquisition of new hardware, which is probably conservative."
"The annual support and maintenance costs compared to our old solution for backups had about a two-thirds savings, so about a 60% annual savings on our support and maintenance contract. That savings funded additional expansion for what it was costing us for the support and maintenance contracts on old solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
37%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?
Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...
What do you like most about MinIO?
I like that if you have a problem, you can buy the home server. It is stable and robust.
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Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
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Pac-12 Networks, Georgia Institute of Technology, Budd Van Lines
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