Introduction
Arkel is a community-driven alternative to cloud object storage. Node operators contribute storage in exchange for credit, and users pay to use object storage.
Why use Arkel when alternatives like S3, R2, or B2 exist? We think there are several reasons:
- Cloud providers are geared towards enterprises, because that is where most of the profit is.
- That results in features and incentives that benefit from massive expansion and owning the entire stack.
- Arkel is a fresh take on the same problem, initially geared to supplement self-hosting use cases.
Where Arkel shines
- Easy remote backups for your self-hosting servers.
- Media offload services — think Immich, Mastodon media, forum attachments.
- Avoiding vendor dependence: not just major outages, but surprise or hidden charges and unethical practices.
- A second life for old storage hardware that is not being used.
- Community and friends helping each other out.
How it works
- Client-side encryption — objects are encrypted on your machine before upload (
chacha20poly1305), so storage nodes only ever hold ciphertext. - Erasure coding — the ciphertext is split into
kdata shards andmparity shards, spread across independent storage nodes. The network survives losing up tomnodes. - Distributed metadata — a Raft cluster of index nodes owns the global metadata: buckets, objects, ownership, and quotas. No single company controls the index.
- An economy — accounts hold quota, storage operators earn contribution grants, and a payment operator credits accounts.
Project status
The project is in early alpha, with contribution and usage possible. The main instance of the network is scheduled to go live soon. See the roadmap for where things are heading.
Next steps
- Quick start — build, run a node, and store your first object.
- Contribute — run a storage node and earn quota.
- CLI reference — the full command surface.