BeeGFS vs OrangeFS
BeeGFS
beegfs.ioOrangeFS
orangefs.comSide by side
| Figure | BeeGFS | OrangeFS |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 2 |
| Spec score · Distributed File System Software | 8.2 (#7) | 7.7 (#16) |
| Architecture | Its user-space services run over filesystems such as ext4, XFS, and ZFS, with metadata distributed across multiple servers. | Its user-level server and client provide parallel access to multi-server disk storage. |
| Linux support | The native BeeGFS client and server components are available for Linux on x86_64, AMD, ARM, OpenPower, and other CPU architectures. | The Linux kernel client has been in the mainline kernel since version 4.6, and the documentation recommends the upstream kernel module for Linux integration. |
| Purpose | BeeGFS is a parallel file system designed for high-performance computing, AI, and other data-intensive workloads. | OrangeFS is a scale-out parallel storage system aimed at large storage workloads in HPC, Big Data, streaming video, genomics, and bioinformatics. |
| Security | BeeGFS repositories and packages are digitally signed, and its documentation describes TLS encryption for some network communication by default. | The product lists capability-based security and its documentation describes default, key-based, and certificate-based security modes. |
| Support | Hive Enterprise includes professional support, and BeeOND Enterprise lists 5×9 Next Business Day support with 24x7x4 available upon request. | Community support is available through the mailing list, and the maker offers commercial and research support. |
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.
OrangeFS
OrangeFS is a free, open-source parallel storage system for large workloads in high-performance computing, Big Data, streaming video, genomics, and bioinformatics. Its user-level servers and clients let applications access disk storage across multiple servers in parallel. Configurable file striping and distributed metadata, including directory metadata, support this layout. OrangeFS supports Linux, macOS, Windows, APIs, and self-hosted deployment. Linux integration uses a kernel client available in the mainline kernel since version 4.6, and the documentation recommends the upstream kernel module. Other interfaces include a native Windows parallel client, FUSE for Linux and Mac, a direct Linux application interface, Java JNI, Hadoop HCFS, WebDAV, and optimized MPI-IO; S3 is also listed among the file access protocols. Security options include capability-based security and default, key-based, and certificate-based modes. LDAP mapping can associate a client certificate subject with a user ID and primary group ID. CloudyCluster offers configurable deployments through Google Cloud and AWS marketplaces. The open-source software is free; commercial and research support is available by quote.