Ceph vs SeaweedFS
Ceph
ceph.io
SeaweedFS
seaweedfs.comSide by side
| Figure | Ceph | SeaweedFS |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $1.67/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 10 |
| Spec score · Software-Defined Storage Software | 8.8 (#2) | 8.0 (#9) |
| Spec score · Distributed File System Software | 8.8 (#3) | 7.9 (#12) |
| Data protection | Ceph can replicate data across devices, racks, and geographic locations, and redistribute data after hardware or connectivity failures. | Enterprise automatically repairs missing or corrupted erasure-coding shards and periodically checks shards against checksums for silent corruption. |
| Deployment | Ceph runs on commodity hardware and can be installed and managed with cephadm or deployed on Kubernetes with Rook. | The deployment guide offers an official repository binary and the container image chrislusf/seaweedfs-enterprise. |
| Integrations | The documentation lists integrations for block devices including Kubernetes, QEMU, libvirt, OpenStack, Nomad, and CloudStack. | The built-in Iceberg catalog supports querying with Spark, Trino, Dremio, and DuckDB. |
| Support | The maker directs users to documentation, the ceph-users mailing list, community channels, and the bug tracker for help. | Enterprise support is optional and purchased separately from the capacity license; published support channels and response targets vary by plan. |
| What it does | Ceph is open-source distributed storage software that provides object, block, and file storage through one unified system. | SeaweedFS is a distributed storage system serving S3 objects, Iceberg tables, and POSIX files from one cluster. |
Plans
SeaweedFS
- Community supportFree
- Development & testingFree
- Capacity license — Monthly$2 a month
- Capacity license — Yearly$20 a year
- Essential support$2,000 a year
- Small Production support$5,000 a year
- Growth support$15,000 a year
- Standard support$40,000 a year
- Critical support$85,000 a year
- Enterprise 5 PB+Priced on request
In their own words
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.
SeaweedFS
SeaweedFS is a distributed storage system that serves S3 objects, Iceberg tables, and POSIX files from one cluster. It supports S3, POSIX mounts, HDFS-compatible access, an Iceberg REST catalog, and WebDAV. Its built-in Iceberg catalog supports queries with Spark, Trino, Dremio, and DuckDB. The product describes scaling from gigabytes to petabytes and supporting billions of files. Development and testing under 25 TB are free, but production deployments require a paid license regardless of size. Monthly capacity licensing is $2 a month, based on used storage including replication or erasure-coding overhead; yearly licensing is $20 a year. Enterprise features include deleted-file recovery within a configurable retention window, point-in-time restoration, repair of missing or corrupted erasure-coding shards, and OIDC sign-in with role mapping. The free 25 TB trial limits deleted-file recovery retention to one hour. Enterprise support is optional and priced separately from capacity licensing. Community support is free and has no guaranteed response time. SeaweedFS is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows, with API access and self-hosted deployment.