OrangeFS vs SeaweedFS

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.

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.