MinIO has annoyed some of its open source Community Edition users by removing GUI management features and only providing them in its paid-for AIStor offering.
The change was implemented in a new AGPL Object Browser simplified console commit filed to GitHub by Harshavardhana, a MinIO co-founder, on February 26. Community Edition users no longer had access to a web-based management GUI but could still use the command-line management feature. Regaining the web-based management console meant switching to MinIO’s paid-for object storage edition, AIStor.
Harshavardhana commented on the move on the GitHub merge itself, stating: “We initially explored a basic admin UI for the community branch but haven’t actively maintained it. Building and supporting separate graphical consoles for the community and commercial branches is substantial. Honestly, it is hard to duplicate this work for the community branch. A whole team is involved in console development alone, including design, UX, front-end, back-end, and pen testing. This commit introduces an enhanced object browser but removes the unmaintained admin UI code.”
He added: “Admin actions in the console lack equivalent security protections. Without dedicated maintenance, this code risks introducing security vulnerabilities and creating misleading expectations for the community.”
Commenter Dani said: “Looks like the open source edition won’t have any admin option in the console from now on. Only a basic object browser is provided. Everything must be configured through mc (MinIO Client). It’s weird as there’s not a single warning about this in the changelog.”
Poster julienlau commented: “They changed the license of the browser and removed all features except basic browsing.”
Laurenceau wrote on LinkedIn: “MinIO has long been a popular open-source S3-compatible storage solution, but their strategy has shifted dramatically – especially since the release of their new AIStor product, now positioned as their main enterprise S3 offering. Over the past year, MinIO has taken increasingly aggressive steps to restrict the use of their Community Edition in production, pushing users toward commercial licensing or fear legal issues through AGPL license.
“Worryingly, MinIO has also started removing existing features from the Community Edition. Recently all administration features were removed from the MinIO community UI … This is a significant departure from the open source spirit that originally made MinIO attractive.”
User egorfine commenting on ycombinator.com said: “In my personal opinion, this is a perfectly fine change. The company has to make money. Nudging corporate users (who are incapable of running ‘mc’) towards purchase of license to have a web UI is a nice solution, I’m all for it.”
Some MinIO users are switching to a forked version, OpenMaxIO, which is a “community-maintained fork of MinIO, created in response to the removal of key features from the MinIO open-source distribution. Our goal is simple: to preserve a fully open, fully functional, and production-grade object storage server that stays true to the original spirit of minimalism, performance, and freedom.”
Others are sticking with the last version of MinIO that had the web-based management console available, but that means no more general updates and seems a short-term fix.
In a blog titled “MinIO Bait and Switch Leaves Organizations Reeling for Alternatives,” Cloudian CMO Jon Toor said: “The cost of MinIO’s paid version is substantial: software and support alone cost a minimum of $96,000 per year, rising to $244,032 per year for 1 PB of usable capacity, according to MinIO’s website.”
He added: “MinIO has deprecated several core management features in its web interface. Account and policy management, configuration settings, and other administrative functions are no longer available through the browser-based console. Instead, users must rely on the mc command-line client to perform these tasks.
“The community version is now limited to being an object browser only, with deprecated support for accounts & policies management, bucket management, configuration management, lifecycle & tiers management, and site replication. According to online discussions, the open source version of MinIO is now in maintenance mode with security fixes only.”
Of course, from Toor’s point of view, Cloudian’s HyperStore is a preferred alternative to AIStor as “Cloudian offers scalability to exabytes, the industry’s highest S3 API compatibility, a rich management interface, and global support … all at less cost.”
Bootnote
We have asked MinIO to comment about this change.
