MinIO AIStor vs MinIO OSS - Complete Technical Comparison (13,061 commits analyzed)

MinIO AIStor vs MinIO OSS - Complete Technical Comparison

Analysis based on full commit history review of 13,061 commits

Executive Summary
Upgrade Priority Summary
Codebase Statistics
Enterprise Features (AIStor Only)
Performance Improvements
Stability & Reliability Improvements
Operational Improvements
Observability & Monitoring
Architecture Differences
Detailed Commit Analysis by Category
Summary Comparison Table

Executive Summary

MinIO AIStor is a comprehensive enterprise evolution of MinIO OSS with 13,061 total commits analyzed. AIStor transforms MinIO from an object storage platform into a production-ready data lakehouse solution with:

245 unique source files in cmd/ not present in OSS
24 new internal packages for enterprise functionality
19 additional metrics files for comprehensive observability
178 commits for Tables API (Iceberg Catalog)
140 commits for Site Replication enhancements
547 commits for Healing improvements
470 commits for Replication enhancements
457 commits for Locking improvements
396 commits for Encryption/KMS
307 commits for Metrics/Prometheus
265 commits for ILM/Lifecycle
690 commits for IAM/Auth improvements

Upgrade Priority Summary

Why Upgrade Now? This release includes 47+ critical and 85+ high priority stability fixes across core subsystems.

Stability Fixes by Severity

Severity	Count	Areas Impacted
Critical	47+	Data integrity, split-brain prevention, availability
High	85+	Race conditions, resource leaks, locking
Medium	120+	Performance bottlenecks, operational improvements

Critical Stability Fixes (47+)

These fixes address issues that could impact data integrity or cluster availability:

Area	Fixes	Key PRs
Healing & Recovery	18	#2558 (abandoned object recovery), #879 (write lock timing), #1147 (offline drive healing)
Distributed Locking	12	#2073 (lease-based locking), #2802 (write lock contention), #2768 (coalesced locks)
Replication Consistency	10	#2608 (site-replication races), #2457 (retention preservation), #1447 (init/heal improvements)
Startup & Availability	7	#2691 (non-blocking license), #2631 (health endpoint protection), #2072 (resource monitoring)

High Priority Stability Fixes (85+)

These fixes address race conditions, resource leaks, and locking issues:

Area	Fixes	Key PRs
Race Conditions	25+	#1882 (QoS), #2608 (site-replication), #2752 (persistent log), #2789 (Tables locking)
Memory & Resource Leaks	20+	#2596 (heap escapes), #2566 (buffer pooling), #2567 (decompressor pooling), #1041 (MRF locks)
Lock Contention	22+	#2789 (Tables), #2110 (cleanup interval), #1748 (multi-table transactions)
I/O Bottlenecks	18+	#2438 (delete operations), #2070 (DiskInfo calls), #1542 (multipart IOPS)

Upgrade Recommendation

Your Environment	Priority	Reason
Multi-site replication	Immediate	10 critical consistency fixes
High-throughput (100Gbps+)	Immediate	Lock contention and hot path fixes
Heavy concurrent reads	This Week	N-fold RPC reduction via coalesced locking
Long-running clusters	This Week	Memory leak and resource pooling fixes
S3 Tables / Iceberg	This Week	12 locking and transaction fixes
Standard deployments	Planned	Cumulative stability improvements

Codebase Statistics

Commit Distribution by Category

Category	Commit Count	Description
Tables/Iceberg	178	S3 Tables API, Iceberg catalog
Delta Sharing	15	Delta Sharing protocol
Inventory	49	Bucket inventory management
Batch	140	Batch operations and catalog
QoS	21	Rate limiting and throttling
Rolling Update	126	Zero-downtime updates
License	88	Enterprise licensing
Metrics/Prometheus	307	Observability
Healing	547	Data healing and recovery
Replication	470	Bucket replication
Decommission	88	Pool decommissioning
Erasure	178	Erasure coding
Locking	457	Distributed locking
ILM/Lifecycle	265	Information lifecycle management
FTP/SFTP	27	Protocol support
Lambda	14	Object Lambda
Site Replication	140	Multi-site replication
Grid/RPC	161	Internal RPC framework
Encryption/KMS	396	Key management
IAM/Auth	690	Identity and access management
Tiering	129	Warm/cold tiering
Scanner	90	Background scanning
Console	231	Web console

File Count Differences

Metric	AIStor	OSS	Difference
Unique cmd/*.go files	-	-	+245 files
Internal packages	53	29	+24 packages
Metrics V3 files	45+	26	+19 files
Total commits	13,061	-	-

Enterprise Features (AIStor Only)

1. S3 Tables API (Apache Iceberg Catalog)

Commits: 178 | Files: 42+ | Status: Production-ready

Complete Apache Iceberg REST Catalog implementation for data lakehouse architectures.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#2806	Migrate catalog API tests from Python to Go
#2789	Rework locking to reduce contention
#2804	Binary search for pagination token lookup
#2776	Reduce memory allocations in registry
#2774	Eliminate redundant metadata lookups
#2757	Validate bucket configs before warehouse upgrade
#2725	RegisterView (AIStor extension)
#2703	Switch from JSON to msgpack format
#2695	Block bucket ops on table bucket
#2609	Shard namespace.json
#2548	Recoverable transactions
#2491	Multi-level namespaces
#2276	Commit-view implementation
#2249	AuthSys with cache
#2126	Metrics v3 integration
#2060	Views API implementation
#1949	Register-table endpoint
#1911	Return last consistent state on LoadTable
#1806	Transaction hierarchy refactor
#1748	Optimize multi-table transaction locking
#1700	Staged table lifecycle
#1672	SigV4 authentication support
ecd55c948	Initial iceberg catalog API

API Endpoints

Warehouses: Create, List, Get, Delete Namespaces: Create, List, Get, Delete, Update Properties, HEAD Tables: Create, Load, Commit, Delete, Register, Rename, HEAD Views: Create, Load, Replace, Delete, Register (AIStor Extension), HEAD Transactions: CommitMultiTableTransaction

2. Delta Sharing Protocol

Commits: 15+ | Files: 34+ | Status: Production-ready

Complete Delta Sharing Protocol v1.0 implementation.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#2450	Initial Delta Sharing implementation
#2541	Unit tests and Prometheus v3 metrics
#2614	TTFB and request count metrics
#2583	Databricks compatibility (endStreamAction)
#2743	JWT token isolation
#2727	Error code fixes
#2711	Token management fixes

Features

Bearer token and OAuth 2.0 M2M authentication
Delta Universal Format (UniForm) for Iceberg compatibility
Change Data Feed (CDF) support
Time travel queries
Predicate pushdown
Snapshot caching (5-minute TTL)

3. Inventory System

Commits: 49 | Status: Production-ready

Comprehensive bucket inventory with job lifecycle management.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#1357	Bucket Inventory APIs
#1510	Job control APIs (suspend/resume/cancel)
#1603	Prometheus metrics
#1762	Automatic recovery for corrupt metadata
#1808	Status API records count
#1867	AIStor Tables integration
#2033	Integration tests
#2055	v2 prometheus endpoint
#2095-#2099	Comprehensive integration tests
#2153	Prometheus metric descriptions
#2512	LastUpdate field
#2568	Retry logic and InstanceID

Features

Job state machine (PENDING → RUNNING → COMPLETED/SUSPENDED/CANCELED)
Parquet, CSV, JSON output formats
Integration with AIStor Tables for Iceberg format
Automatic recovery from corrupt metadata
Prometheus metrics

4. QoS and Rate Limiting

Commits: 21 | Status: Production-ready

Bucket-level Quality of Service enforcement.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#1389	Bucket level QoS enforcement
#2008	Integration tests
#1873	xsync.Map for performance
#1882	Data race elimination
#2263	Failure mode tests
#2455	API management and metrics
#2551	Deterministic assertions

Features

Concurrency limiting per bucket
Bandwidth throttling
Connection limits
Activity filtering

5. Rolling Update System

Commits: 126 | Status: Production-ready

Zero-downtime rolling updates for cluster upgrades.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#1512	Rolling update/restart implementation
#1754	Grid request versioning and compression
#1834	Real-time update events streaming
#2119	Update cancel and downgrade
#1967	Binary distribution tree topology
#1841	Integration tests
#1807	Enhancements and bug fixes
#1796	UX improvements
#1830	0 seconds wait time support
#2639	API version constraint tests

Features

Real-time event streaming
Tree topology binary distribution
Update cancellation and downgrade
Version constraint enforcement

6. Batch Catalog (Enhanced Batch Jobs)

Commits: 140 (batch total) | Status: Production-ready

Enhanced batch processing with catalog export capabilities.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#493	Initial batch catalog implementation
#946	Resume on restart
#1090	Parquet backend format
#1159	AWS S3 metadata schema
#1333	Refactor to internal inventory package
#1355	Buffered parquet row writing
#1367	Speed optimization
#1525	AccessTime support
#1612	MaxFileSizeHint

Output Formats

CSV, Parquet (Snappy), JSON
AWS S3-compatible schema

7. Object Lambda / PromptObject

Commits: 14 | Status: Production-ready

Lambda function invocation on S3 operations with AI workload support.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#122	PromptObject API
#1065	Forward 2xx responses
#1089	Test cases
#1337	Reconfigurable timeout

8. FTP and SFTP Server Support

Commits: 27 | Status: Production-ready

Built-in FTP/SFTP servers for legacy application compatibility.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#2011	FTPS cert reload without restart
#20914	Trailing headers for upload
#21251	Force TLS option

9. S3 Express Zone Support

Commits: 5 | Status: Production-ready

AWS S3 Express One Zone compatibility.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#549	S3 Express zone requirements
#572	Append object behavior
#609	Unsorted listing
#814	CreateSession API
#866	mpCache support

10. License Management

Commits: 88 | Status: Production-ready

Non-disruptive enterprise licensing with background renewal.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#1817	Store license in config
#2691	Non-blocking startup redesign
#2765	Consolidate licenseManager
#2810	Config license before token lookup
#2504	Feature restriction for free tier
#2523	Block tiering for free tier
#2643	Block free license on distributed

Features

Non-blocking startup
Background renewal
SIGHUP throttling
Tier-based feature enforcement

11. Pool Hot-Reload

Commits: 4 | Status: Production-ready

Add storage pools without server restart.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#2302	SIGHUP signal and config.yaml support
#2597	Extend config.yaml for CLI flags
#2635	Update S3PeerSys after reload
#2642	Heal buckets to new pool

12. Cordon Functionality

Commits: 4 | Status: Production-ready

Node maintenance mode for troubleshooting.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#1433	Cordon functionality
#2077	Write quorum check
#2092	HTTP listener context tests
#2118	Draining nodes handling

13. eBPF Deletion Protection

Commits: 3 | Status: Production-ready

Kernel-level storage protection.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#1945	Kernel-level storage protection
#2009	eBPF LSM module
#2534	Go-based eBPF loader (cilium/ebpf)

14. HTTP/3 (QUIC) Support

Commits: 1 | Status: Production-ready

Key Commits

PR	Description
#281	HTTP3.0 support for all S3 API calls

15. Persistent Log Recorder

Commits: 10 | Status: Production-ready

Durable logging for API, errors, and audit events.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#2173	Persistent log recorder
#2463	External targets (webhook/kafka)
#2751	Lock file during drive rotation
#2752	Race condition fixes
#2411	Disabled by default

16. Object Summary API

Commits: 7 | Status: Production-ready

Admin API for detailed object inspection.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#581	ObjectSummary API implementation
#688	Bitrot checking and version listing
#765	API updates
#859	v4/object-summary admin API
#1131	Inline/non-inline data handling

17. Extended Object Naming Mode

Commits: 8 | Status: Production-ready

Support for special characters in object names.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#1513	Explicit extended naming mode persistence
#1540	Extended naming tests
#1569	Mint tests for extended mode
#1628	Decommission/rebalance handling
#1632	Reject replication from Extended to Safe mode
#2188	Preserve naming mode on drive format

18. Admin Query APIs (V4)

Commits: 10+ | Status: Production-ready

New admin API version with resource querying.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#489	New Admin API v4
#953	Admin Query APIs
#1369	Sorting support
#1618	Drive query metrics
#1898	Drive state tracking
#1924	Healing info in Drive Query
#2019	Set query results info

Endpoints

ClusterQueryHandler
ServicesQueryHandler
PoolsQueryHandler
NodesQueryHandler
DrivesQueryHandler
ErasureSetsQueryHandler
ServerAPIStatsHandler
ClusterSummaryHandler

19. Thread Pressure Monitoring

Commits: 3 | Status: Production-ready

Goroutine and memory monitoring with health protection.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#478	Threshold-based dumps
#2072	Memory/goroutine monitoring
#2631	Thread pressure with health endpoint protection

20. Coalesced Locking

Commits: 2 | Status: Production-ready

N-fold RPC reduction for concurrent readers.

Key Commits

PR	Description
#2768	Coalesced read locks for distributed locking
#2802	Write lock contention fix

Performance Improvements

Memory and Allocation Optimizations

PR	Description	Impact
#2660	Eliminate path.Clean allocations	Reduced GC in listings
#2659	Migrate to generic Set[T]	Better type safety
#2667	strings.Builder for replication	Fewer allocations
#2662	Cache compiled regex	Faster filtering
#2654	Optimize MRF reading	Faster healing
#2650	Precompile regex in isValidChars	Hot path optimization
#2638	Optimize PUT hot path	High-speed network
#2596	Reduce heap escapes	Reduced GC
#2557	Reduce read allocs	Memory optimization
#1506	xsync.Map migration	Lock-free maps
#1194	AVX512 crc64-nvme and crc32	Faster checksums

I/O and Network Optimizations

PR	Description	Impact
#2640	DeleteVersions Grid RPC migration	Faster deletes
#2544	Heap-based k-way merge for ListObjects	Faster listings
#2438	Reduce delete disk operations	Reduced IOPS
#1542	Reduce CompleteMultipart IOPS	Faster completion
#2048	ServerInfo caching	Better performance
#2070	Eliminate repeated DiskInfo calls	Reduced disk calls
#2566	Pooled erasure buffers	Memory reuse
#2567	Pool decompressors	Resource reuse
#2196	CRC32C bitrot for ARM64/BF3	Faster checksums
#18461	WebSocket grid connectivity	Better internode

Locking Optimizations

PR	Description	Impact
#2768	Coalesced read locks	N-fold RPC reduction
#2789	Tables locking rework	Better concurrency
#2073	Lease-based locking	No stale locks
#2110	Reduce cleanup interval	Faster cleanup

Stability & Reliability Improvements

Healing Improvements (547 commits)

PR	Description
#1444	Precise MRF heal conditions
#879	Write lock only during commit
#919	Clean abandoned parts
#937	Workers for scanner items
#1041	MRF non-blocking lock
#1147	48-hour offline triggers whole-drive healing
#2558	Move abandoned children to MRF
#251	Streaming RPC for CheckParts

Decommission Improvements (88 commits)

PR	Description
#2415	Dynamic ILM policy reload
#2400	NewerNoncurrentVersions support
#622	Avoid objects without quorum
#509	Ignore not found buckets
#871	Skip immediate purge option
#2262	Resume after restart test

Rebalance System (25+ commits)

PR	Description
#15483	Pool-level rebalance
#2511	Comprehensive integration tests
#1628	Extended mode handling

Site Replication (140 commits)

PR	Description
#1447	Improve init and heal
#1947	IAM parity check
#2013	ILM expiry bug fix
#2457	Preserve retention/versioning
#2608	Race condition fixes
#2475	Console UI integration

MRF Improvements (30 commits)

PR	Description
#2654	Optimize MRF reading
#2558	Move abandoned children to MRF
#1444	Precise heal conditions
#1041	Non-blocking lock
#1040	Avoid healing with offline drives
#8470	Initial MRF implementation

Observability & Monitoring

Metrics V3 Expansion (307 commits)

19 unique AIStor metrics files:

metrics-v3-batch.go
metrics-v3-bucket-batch.go
metrics-v3-cluster-site-replication.go
metrics-v3-debug-heal.go
metrics-v3-delta-sharing.go
metrics-v3-docs-gen.go
metrics-v3-heal.go
metrics-v3-iam.go
metrics-v3-kms.go
metrics-v3-lambda.go
metrics-v3-locks.go
metrics-v3-software.go
metrics-v3-stdout.go
metrics-v3-system-drive-smart.go
metrics-v3-system-network-interface.go
metrics-v3-tables.go
metrics-v3-tier.go

OpenTelemetry/Distributed Tracing (40+ commits)

PR	Description
#552	OpenTelemetry distributed tracing
#2165	Admin trace for Tables
#360080385	Delta Sharing tracing
#259	Grid RPC stream traces
#252	KMS tracing
#943	Direct telemetry export

SMART Drive Monitoring

PR	Description
#2629	S.M.A.R.T. disk health metrics
#2696	Fix excessive logging

Architecture Differences

Unique Internal Packages (24)

internal/batch          - Batch job processing
internal/bigcache       - High-performance caching
internal/context        - Delayed context cancellation
internal/goroutine      - Goroutine utilities
internal/iam            - IAM policy evaluation
internal/iammap         - IAM mapping utilities
internal/inventory      - Inventory job system
internal/itertools      - Go 1.22+ iterator utilities
internal/ldaputils      - LDAP helpers
internal/metrics        - Metrics generation
internal/mformat        - Metadata formatting
internal/objects        - Object validators
internal/path           - Path utilities
internal/qos            - QoS/rate limiting
internal/race           - Race detection
internal/reqs           - Request utilities
internal/singleflight   - Request deduplication
internal/smart          - SMART drive monitoring
internal/testutils      - Testing utilities
internal/tmpfile        - Temporary file handling
internal/traceevents    - Event tracing
internal/windowed       - Windowed operations
internal/xbufio         - Extended buffered I/O
internal/xstrings       - String utilities

Console Integration

AIStor includes the enterprise console:

github.com/miniohq/aistor-console v0.0.37
github.com/miniohq/aistor-operator

Key Dependencies

github.com/miniohq/license/go/license
github.com/apache/iceberg-go v0.4.1
github.com/substrait-io/substrait v0.78.1
github.com/parquet-go/parquet-go v0.24.0

Detailed Commit Analysis by Category

Tables API Evolution

ecd55c948 - Initial iceberg catalog API implementation
#1672 - SigV4 authentication
#1700 - Staged table lifecycle
#1748 - Optimize multi-table locking
#1806 - Transaction hierarchy refactor
#1911 - Last consistent state on LoadTable
#1949 - Register-table endpoint
#2060 - Views API
#2126 - Metrics v3 integration
#2249 - AuthSys with cache
#2276 - Commit-view
#2491 - Multi-level namespaces
#2548 - Recoverable transactions
#2609 - Shard namespace.json
#2703 - JSON to msgpack
#2725 - RegisterView extension
#2789 - Locking rework

Checksum Improvements (40+ commits)

PR	Description
#247	Full Object Checksums
#401	Optimized crc64nvme
#496	XXH3 bitrot for low-end CPUs
#1163	CRC64-NVME by default
#1194	AVX512 crc64-nvme and crc32
#2196	CRC32C for ARM64/BF3
#2398	Automatic Multipart Checksums

Kafka Improvements

PR	Description
#263	Migrate to franz-go from sarama
#1187	Kerberos authentication
#366	Global event queue systems
#2463	External log targets

Summary Comparison Table

Feature	AIStor	OSS
Total Commits Analyzed	13,061	-
Unique cmd Files	+245	-
Internal Packages	53	29
Metrics V3 Files	45+	26

Data Lakehouse
S3 Tables API (Iceberg)	Yes (178 commits)	No
Delta Sharing Protocol	Yes (15+ commits)	No

Protocol Support
FTP/SFTP Servers	Yes	No
HTTP/3 (QUIC)	Yes	No
Object Lambda	Yes	No
S3 Express Zone	Yes	No

Operations
Inventory System	Yes (49 commits)	No
Enhanced Batch Catalog	Yes (140 commits)	Basic
Rolling Updates	Yes (126 commits)	No
Pool Hot-Reload	Yes	No
Cordon Functionality	Yes	No
QoS/Rate Limiting	Yes (21 commits)	No

Monitoring
SMART Drive Monitoring	Yes	No
Admin Query APIs	Yes (10+ endpoints)	No
OpenTelemetry	Enhanced (40+ commits)	Basic
Thread Pressure Monitoring	Yes	No

Performance
Coalesced Locks	Yes	No
BigCache	Yes	No
xsync Migration	Yes	No

Security
eBPF Deletion Protection	Yes	No

Enterprise
License Management	Yes (88 commits)	No
Enterprise Console	Yes	No
Extended Naming Mode	Yes	No
Object Summary API	Yes	No

Stability
Healing Commits	547	-
Replication Commits	470	-
Site Replication Commits	140	-
Locking Commits	457	-
Decommission Commits	88	-

Conclusion

MinIO AIStor represents the most comprehensive enterprise evolution of MinIO OSS, with 13,061 commits delivering:

Data Lakehouse Leadership: Complete S3 Tables API (178 commits) and Delta Sharing protocol (15+ commits) for modern analytics workloads
Enterprise Protocol Compatibility: FTP/SFTP, HTTP/3, Object Lambda, S3 Express Zone support
Operational Excellence:
- Inventory system (49 commits)
- Batch catalog (140 commits)
- Rolling updates (126 commits)
- QoS (21 commits)
- Pool hot-reload
- Cordon functionality
Comprehensive Observability:
- 307 metrics commits
- 19 additional metrics files
- OpenTelemetry integration (40+ commits)
- SMART drive monitoring
- Thread pressure monitoring
Performance Optimizations:
- Coalesced locking (N-fold RPC reduction)
- xsync migration for lock-free maps
- Memory allocation optimizations
- AVX512 checksum acceleration
Enhanced Stability:
- 547 healing commits
- 470 replication commits
- 457 locking commits
- 140 site replication commits
- 88 decommission commits
Enterprise Ready:
- License management (88 commits)
- Enterprise console
- eBPF kernel protection
- Extended naming mode
- Object Summary API

The codebase demonstrates a mature, production-ready enterprise storage platform suitable for demanding data lakehouse and analytics workloads.

harshavardhana/minio-aistor-vs-oss-final.md

MinIO AIStor vs MinIO OSS - Complete Technical Comparison

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Upgrade Priority Summary

Stability Fixes by Severity

Critical Stability Fixes (47+)

High Priority Stability Fixes (85+)

Upgrade Recommendation

Codebase Statistics

Commit Distribution by Category

File Count Differences

Enterprise Features (AIStor Only)

1. S3 Tables API (Apache Iceberg Catalog)

Key Commits

API Endpoints

2. Delta Sharing Protocol

Key Commits

Features

3. Inventory System

Key Commits

Features

4. QoS and Rate Limiting

Key Commits

Features

5. Rolling Update System

Key Commits

Features

6. Batch Catalog (Enhanced Batch Jobs)

Key Commits

Output Formats

7. Object Lambda / PromptObject

Key Commits

8. FTP and SFTP Server Support

Key Commits

9. S3 Express Zone Support

Key Commits

10. License Management

Key Commits

Features

11. Pool Hot-Reload

Key Commits

12. Cordon Functionality

Key Commits

13. eBPF Deletion Protection

Key Commits

14. HTTP/3 (QUIC) Support

Key Commits

15. Persistent Log Recorder

Key Commits

16. Object Summary API

Key Commits

17. Extended Object Naming Mode

Key Commits

18. Admin Query APIs (V4)

Key Commits

Endpoints

19. Thread Pressure Monitoring

Key Commits

20. Coalesced Locking

Key Commits

Performance Improvements

Memory and Allocation Optimizations

I/O and Network Optimizations

Locking Optimizations

Stability & Reliability Improvements

Healing Improvements (547 commits)

Decommission Improvements (88 commits)

Rebalance System (25+ commits)

Site Replication (140 commits)

MRF Improvements (30 commits)

Observability & Monitoring

Metrics V3 Expansion (307 commits)

OpenTelemetry/Distributed Tracing (40+ commits)

SMART Drive Monitoring

Architecture Differences

Unique Internal Packages (24)

Console Integration

Key Dependencies

Detailed Commit Analysis by Category