JuiceFS vs StarWind Virtual SAN
JuiceFS
juicefs.comStarWind Virtual SAN
starwindsoftware.comSide by side
| Figure | JuiceFS | StarWind Virtual SAN |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.02/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 3 | 5 |
| Spec score · Software-Defined Storage Software | 9.3 (#1) | 8.4 (#6) |
| Founded | 2017 | 2003 |
| Support | Community Edition support is through GitHub and Discord, Cloud Service includes professional team online support, and Enterprise support is customizable. | VSAN Free is self-supported or community-supported through StarWind Forums, while the paid edition includes deployment, configuration, integration and responsive technical support. |
| What it does | JuiceFS is a cloud-oriented distributed POSIX file system that stores file data in object storage and metadata in a separate database. | StarWind Virtual SAN is software-defined storage that replaces physical shared SAN hardware by pooling and mirroring internal disks and flash between virtualization hosts. |
Plans
JuiceFS
- Community EditionFree
- Cloud Service$0.02 a month
- Enterprise EditionPriced on request
StarWind Virtual SAN
- StarWind Virtual SAN FreeFree
- Virtual SAN FreeFree
- DatacenterPriced on request
- EnterprisePriced on request
- StarWind Virtual SANPriced on request
In their own words
JuiceFS
JuiceFS is an open-source, cloud-native distributed file system that stores file data in object storage and metadata separately in a metadata engine. It supports POSIX, HDFS, S3, and WebDAV protocols, with storage options including Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage, MinIO, Ceph, and HDFS. Documented uses include big data, machine learning, Kubernetes, shared workspaces, and backup. Integrations cover Kubernetes CSI and Hadoop ecosystem components such as Spark, Presto, Hive, Flink, Trino, and StarRocks. JuiceFS offers a self-hosted Community Edition, a managed Cloud Service, and an Enterprise Edition with on-premises, BYOC, and other deployment options. Its downloadable client supports Linux, macOS, and Windows; WSL 2 is recommended for Windows. Encryption in transit and at rest is supported, but at-rest encryption must be enabled when creating a file system and does not cover client-side cached data or file metadata. Community Edition is free; paid plans start at $0.02/mo.
StarWind Virtual SAN
StarWind Virtual SAN is software designed to replace physical shared SAN storage in SMB, ROBO, and Edge environments. It provides fault tolerance and high availability starting with two nodes, and supports iSCSI, SMB3, NFS v4.1, VVols iSCSI, NVMe over Fabrics, and iSER. Deployment options include Windows-native software in a Hyper-V partition or a Linux-based virtual machine on a chosen hypervisor. An HTML5 console is used to monitor and manage hardware and software resources. Listed reliability features include ZFS self-healing, AI-powered telemetry, and call-home systems. Supported hypervisor versions include VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0 or later, Windows Server Hyper-V 2019 or later, oVirt/OLVM/RHV 4.4 or later, Proxmox VE 9.1 or later, and XCP-ng 8.3 or later. The free edition is self- or community-supported, and its comparison lists web UI support for KVM only; paid editions list KVM, Hyper-V, and ESXi. A 30-day trial is available, while paid pricing is on request.