Ceph
Massively scalable distributed storage system with block, object, and file interfaces
Overview
Ceph is a battle-tested open-source distributed storage platform providing object storage (via RADOS Gateway), block storage (RBD), and POSIX-compliant file storage (CephFS) from a single unified cluster. It is designed to be self-healing and self-managing, with no single point of failure. Many cloud providers and private clouds use Ceph as their storage backbone.
Where it falls short of Dropbox
- Extremely complex to deploy and tune; requires dedicated cluster expertise
- High minimum hardware requirements (multiple nodes recommended)
- No consumer-facing web UI out of the box; administration is CLI-heavy
We list the gaps honestly so you can decide if the trade-off is worth owning your data.
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