A self hosted object storage service, in other words, MinIO 🎉

Why Choose Self-Hosting Over AWS S3? 👀

While AWS S3 is certainly a very reliable and well known storage solution, it may not be the ideal choice for everyone, particularly for individuals with personal projects or smaller companies with budget constraints. Setting up your own S3-compatible storage environment using MinIO provides several compelling benefits such as:

• Cost Control: Avoid unpredictable billing surprises from egress fees or per-request charges

• Data Sovereignty: Maintain complete control over where your data is physically stored

• Privacy: Keep sensitive data entirely within your infrastructure

• Performance: Eliminate network latency when accessing files from the same network

• No Vendor Lock-in: Freedom to migrate or change your setup without dependency on a single provider

But What is MinIO ❓

MinIO is a piece of software that lets you create your own file storage system similar to Dropbox or Google Drive, but running on your own computer or server, Therefore, Self Hosted.

Think of it as having your own personal "cloud storage" system that you control completely, without paying monthly fees to a big company like Amazon or Google.

Setting up MinIO using Docker 🟦

STEP 0: Make sure you have Docker Deamon up and running, if not install it and get it ready, Here!

STEP 1: Create and Move inside an directory by running mkdir minio-test && cd minio-test

STEP 2: Create a .env file and add your MINIO_ACCESS_KEY, MINIO_SECRET_KEY, MINIO_DEFAULT_BUCKETS

STEP 3: Create a docker-compose.yml file and add these contents.

  minio:
    image: bitnami/minio:latest
    container_name: minio
    ports:
      - '9000:9000'
      - '9001:9001'
    networks:
      - backend
    volumes:
      - 'minio_data:/bitnami/minio/data'
    environment:
      - MINIO_ROOT_USER=${MINIO_ACCESS_KEY}
      - MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=${MINIO_SECRET_KEY}
      - MINIO_DEFAULT_BUCKETS=${MINIO_DEFAULT_BUCKETS}
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost:9000/minio/health/live"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 20s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 30s
    restart: unless-stopped

STEP4: Now, inside of the same directory, run docker compose up and access, localhost:9000 on any browser.

STEP 5: Login using username and password and use MinIO!

Conclusion

Setting up your own S3-compatible storage with MinIO gives you the freedom to control your data without breaking the bank. This Docker-based solution offers the perfect balance of simplicity and power, allowing you to escape unpredictable cloud costs while maintaining professional-grade storage capabilities. Whether you're a developer, small business owner, or tech enthusiast, self-hosted object storage provides the flexibility, performance, and privacy that cloud providers can't match on the same budget. By following this guide, you've taken an important step toward true digital independence, one where you dictate the terms of your data storage rather than the other way around.

Thanks for reading ✨ I hope you found these insights valuable. If you learned something new today, don't forget to share this knowledge with others who might benefit from it.

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Until next time! Goodbye 👋🏻