Garage is an S3-compatible distributed object storage service written in Rust and released under the AGPL-3.0, built for self-hosting at small-to-medium scale where the cluster spans nodes in different physical locations.

What it is

Garage is a free software object storage service that speaks the S3 protocol and runs on hardware the operator already controls. It is written in Rust and developed by Deuxfleurs, an experimental small-scale self-hosted service provider that has run Garage in production since the project's first release in 2020. The GitHub repository listed here is a mirror; the main repository lives at git.deuxfleurs.fr under the Deuxfleurs organisation, alongside the project website and documentation at garagehq.deuxfleurs.fr.

The concrete problem Garage solves is storage that stays available when parts of the infrastructure do not. Conventional object stores assume racks or regions inside one datacentre, or they assume budgets and operational teams that small deployments do not have. Garage is instead designed for storage clusters whose nodes run at different physical locations, so that data is replicated across those locations and the service remains reachable even when some servers are unreachable. In that role it replaces a hosted S3 bucket or a heavier self-hosted object store, giving a self-hoster the same S3 interface while keeping the data, the hardware, and the failure domain in their own hands.

Key capabilities

• S3-compatible object storage API, so applications that already speak S3 can use Garage without a bespoke client.
• Geo-distributed cluster design: nodes may run at different physical locations, with data replicated across those sites.
• Availability under partial failure — the service keeps serving when some servers are unreachable.
• Resilience to machine failures as an explicit design goal, alongside being lightweight and easy to operate.
• Implemented in Rust, the language given for the project in this registry.
• Entirely free software under the terms of the AGPLv3, with no proprietary tier described.
• Published binary releases, a quick-start guide, a features reference manual, and a goals-and-use-cases page, with community support through a Matrix channel.

Who uses it and how

• Deuxfleurs itself, an experimental small-scale self-hosted service provider, has operated Garage in production since 2020 — the project's own reference deployment.
• Small-to-medium self-hosters who need an object store but not a hyperscale storage system, which is the scale the project targets.
• Operators running nodes in more than one physical location, who want replication across those locations rather than within a single site.
• Deployments where individual machines are expected to fail and the storage layer must absorb that without taking the service down.

Getting started

Start from the published binary releases and follow the quick-start documentation on garagehq.deuxfleurs.fr, which covers bringing up the service and its documentation pages on features and design goals.

How it compares

No comparable or competing products are named in the facts provided for this entry, and no list of paid products it replaces is given, so on the evidence available Garage stands alone in this registry. Its distinguishing attributes as recorded here are the S3-compatible interface, the geo-distributed multi-site design, the Rust implementation, and the AGPL-3.0 licence.

When to use it — and when not to

A self-hoster takes on operating a cluster of nodes and coordinating their layout across locations, which is meaningful work even when the software is described as lightweight and easy to operate. Teams that want a fully managed service, or that need scale and support guarantees beyond small-to-medium self-hosting, should look elsewhere rather than adopt Garage. One practical caveat visible in the facts: this GitHub repository is a mirror, so issues, pull requests, and current development belong on the upstream Git repository at git.deuxfleurs.fr rather than here.