MinIO AIStor
7.3#2 in software-defined storage softwareFree planFree planWebAPILinuxmacOS
VisitMinIO AIStor vs StarWind Virtual SAN
StarWind Virtual SAN
7.2#3 in software-defined storage softwareFree planFree planWebAPILinuxSelf-hosted
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| Fact | MinIO AIStor | StarWind Virtual SAN |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2014 | 2003 |
| Headquarters | Redwood City, California, United States | Beverly, Massachusetts, USA |
| Licence | AIStor is commercially licensed under MinIO's software licensing model; the former AGPLv3 MinIO community edition is frozen and no longer maintained. | The commercial agreement grants a non-exclusive, non-transferable software licence and says StarWind source code is proprietary trade-secret material. |
| Protocols | AIStor supports S3, S3 Express, SFTP, an Iceberg Catalog and Delta Sharing protocols. | The product supports iSCSI, SMB3, NFS v4.1, VVols iSCSI, NVMe over Fabrics and iSER. |
| Purpose | AIStor combines persistent memory, tables, objects, and files in an enterprise AI data store. | StarWind Virtual SAN is software that replaces physical shared SAN storage and targets Enterprise ROBO, SMB and Edge environments. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.3 out of 5 from 17 reviews | 4.7 out of 5 from 204 reviews |
| Rating on TrustRadius | 6.6 out of 10 from 3 reviews | 9.5 out of 10 from 167 reviews and ratings |
MinIO AIStor plans
- AIStor FreeFree
- AIStor EnterprisePriced on request
- AIStor Enterprise LitePriced on request
- EnterprisePriced on request
- Enterprise LitePriced on request
StarWind Virtual SAN plans
- StarWind Virtual SAN FreeFree
- Virtual SAN FreeFree
- DatacenterPriced on request
- EnterprisePriced on request
- StarWind Virtual SANPriced on request
Pick MinIO AIStor if…
AIStor suits teams building AI data stores that need object storage, agent memory, or Iceberg tables. The free tier fits single-node use cases that can be self-supported.
Pick StarWind Virtual SAN if…
It is aimed at SMB, ROBO, and Edge deployments that need shared storage software and high availability. Teams should check the free edition’s KVM-only web UI listing and support model before choosing it.