BeeGFS vs Ceph
BeeGFS
beegfs.io
Ceph
ceph.ioSide by side
| Figure | BeeGFS | Ceph |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · Storage Management Software | 8.2 (#5) | 8.8 (#1) |
| Spec score · Distributed File System Software | 8.2 (#7) | 8.8 (#3) |
| Founded | 2014 | 2006 |
| Integrations | BeeGFS 8 Remote Storage Targets synchronize with S3 object storage, while BeeGFS Copy supports parallel copying with BeeGFS and other locally mounted file systems. | The documentation lists integrations for block devices including Kubernetes, QEMU, libvirt, OpenStack, Nomad, and CloudStack. |
| Intended users | ThinkParQ describes its target environments as HPC, AI and deep learning, life sciences, and oil and gas. | The maker identifies SMEs, global organizations, academic institutions, startups, and developers as Ceph audiences. |
| Support | Hive Enterprise includes professional support, and BeeOND Enterprise lists 5×9 Next Business Day support with 24x7x4 available upon request. | The maker directs users to documentation, the ceph-users mailing list, community channels, and the bug tracker for help. |
Plans
In their own words
BeeGFS
BeeGFS is a parallel file system for high-performance computing, AI, and other data-intensive workloads. Its user-space services run over filesystems such as ext4, XFS, and ZFS, with metadata spread across multiple servers. It is designed to scale performance and capacity from small clusters to enterprise systems with thousands of nodes. Native client and server components are available for Linux across x86_64, AMD, ARM, OpenPower, and other CPU architectures. BeeGFS 8 Remote Storage Targets synchronize with S3 object storage, while BeeGFS Copy supports parallel copying among BeeGFS and other locally mounted file systems. System-wide monitoring and Grafana dashboards provide views of performance and system health. Hive Enterprise adds high availability, metadata and file-content mirroring, quota enforcement, and tiered storage pools. The Community Edition is free up to 1 PB of total storage and is for self-supported end users; its BeeOND use is limited to five compute nodes contributing storage. Capacity beyond 1 PB requires a subscription license. BeeGFS is available for Linux, API, and self-hosted deployment.
Ceph
Ceph is free, open-source distributed storage software for object, block, and file storage in one system. Organizations run clusters on commodity hardware that they choose and manage. Its RGW object storage supports the S3 API and Swift-compatible applications. RBD provides thin-provisioned disk images, snapshots, writable clones, and asynchronous mirroring to remote Ceph clusters. CephFS is a POSIX-compliant distributed filesystem with snapshots, quotas, and multi-cluster mirroring. The system can replicate data across devices, racks, and geographic locations, then redistribute it following hardware or connectivity failures. For Kubernetes, the project recommends Rook to run Ceph or connect an existing cluster; its CSI driver can provision block and file volumes. Installation choices include packages, container images, source clones, and tarballs. The cephadm tool requires Python 3, systemd, and Podman or Docker. Production guidance calls for at least three monitors, two managers, three OSDs, and 10 Gb/s networking between hosts. The project publishes a stable release annually and supports each series for approximately 24 months.