MinIO Has a Free API — S3-Compatible Object Storage You Can Self-Host

AWS S3 API, But Free and On Your Server MinIO is S3-compatible object storage you can run anywhere. Same API as AWS S3, but free and open-source. Setup (Docker) docker run -p 9000:9000 -p 9001:9001 \ -e MINIO_ROOT_USER = admin \ -e MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD = password123 \ minio/minio server /data --console-address ":9001" Dashboard at localhost:9001. API at localhost:9000. Python (boto3 — Same as AWS S3!) import boto3 s3 = boto3 . client ( " s3 " , endpoint_url = " http://localhost:9000 " , aws_access_key_id = " admin " , aws_secret_access_key = " password123 " ) # Create bucket s3 . create_bucket ( Bucket = " my-files " ) # Upload s3 . upload_file ( " report.pdf " , " my-files " , " reports/2026/report.pdf " ) # Download s3 . download_file ( " my-files " , " reports/2026/report.pdf " , " downloaded.pdf " ) # List objects for obj in s3 . list_objects_v2 ( Bucket = " my-files " )[ " Contents " ]: print ( f " { obj [ Key ] } : { obj [ Size ] } bytes " ) Same code works with AWS S3 — just chan