S3 Exit • Open-Source Enterprise Storage
Managed Ceph Storage in Germany
S3-compatible object, block and file storage on dedicated clusters — planned, built and operated 24/7, in our Frankfurt data center or on your hardware. The sovereign alternative to AWS S3, with pricing that does not grow with every gigabyte you move.
S3-compatible API
Object, block & file — one platform
Frankfurt, Germany
24/7 managed operations
No license fees, no lock-in
Initial situation
Object storage that charges you for using your data
Storing data in S3 is the cheap line on the invoice — egress and API requests are the expensive ones. 15 TB stored plus 200 TB of egress comes to €268,140 per year on AWS S3 (as of 2026), and the data sits under US jurisdiction either way. Ceph turns that equation around: open-source software with no license fees, running on dedicated hardware in Frankfurt or on your premises — where throughput is your own network, not a billable event.
- No egress fees — your data moves on your own network
- Dedicated hardware, German jurisdiction — Frankfurt DC or on-premise
- S3-compatible — existing tools, SDKs and backup jobs keep working
- Open source — no license costs, no vendor to outgrow
The offer
What “Managed Ceph” means at Hostzero
We plan, build and run your cluster
Updates & security patches handled
24/7 monitoring & emergency response
On-premise, Frankfurt DC or hybrid
No lock-in — open source, export anytime
AI-Ready Scalability
Feed high-performance GPUs and AI pipelines with massive parallel throughput. From block storage (RBD) to S3 object storage — scale from terabytes to exabytes without changing architecture or vendor.
Ransomware Resilience
Native immutability, object locking and snapshots protect your critical assets. When backups are the last line of defense, storage that cannot be silently encrypted is your recovery-first insurance.
Digital Sovereignty
Independent of hyperscalers and external providers. Your data under German law, on infrastructure you control — with open standards that keep every exit open.
AWS S3 vs managed Ceph — the honest comparison
| Criterion | AWS S3 | Hostzero Managed Ceph |
|---|---|---|
Cost model | Per-GB storage + egress + per-request fees | Fixed monthly price for the cluster |
Egress | Billed per GB — grows with your usage | Included — it is your network |
Data jurisdiction | US CLOUD Act applies | German law — Frankfurt DC or your premises |
Interfaces | Object storage (S3 API) | Object (S3-compatible) + block (RBD) + file (CephFS) |
Elastic capacity | Instant, effectively unlimited | Planned capacity; hardware scales in days, not minutes |
Durability & replication | Multi-region replication managed for you | Replication / erasure coding designed with you — your responsibility, our job |
Ecosystem | Deep AWS integrations (Lambda, Athena, CloudFront) | Open-source stack (Proxmox, Kubernetes, Prometheus) |
Lock-in | Egress pricing makes leaving expensive | Open standards — take your data anywhere |
Support | Ticket tiers, paid support plans | Direct engineer access |
Service models
From planning to 24/7 operations — pay for what you actually need
Every cluster is sized individually — typical projects range widely, and we're happy to talk to businesses of all sizes. All prices are net.
Cluster Planning & Setup
Managed Ceph Operations
Emergency Support & Data Recovery — 24/7
Around-the-clock emergency response and data recovery — also for Ceph clusters we did not build. Degraded clusters, failed OSDs, lost data: we stabilize first, explain later. 250 € /hour • 24/7 emergency hotline: +49 2932 9398 511 — fixed quote after assessment.
Request offerArchitecture
One cluster — object, block and file
S3 Object Storage (RGW)
S3-compatible API — s3cmd, rclone, AWS SDKs and backup tools keep working
Block Storage (RBD)
Virtual disks for Proxmox, Kubernetes (CSI) and OpenStack — with snapshots and cloning
File Storage (CephFS)
POSIX-compliant shared filesystem for legacy workloads and shared data
Self-Healing by Design
Automatic re-replication on disk or node failure — no RAID rebuild windows
Replication or erasure coding per pool
Object lock & immutable snapshots
Prometheus/Grafana monitoring & alerting
Multi-site replication where required
Which S3 exit fits?
Not every workload needs Ceph
Managed RustFS
Pure S3 object storage at the lowest cost — 0.03 €/GB/month. The right call when object storage is all you need and simplicity beats features. RustFS itself is a young project — we say so openly on its page. →
Managed Ceph
When you also need block or file storage, VM disks under Proxmox or Kubernetes, self-healing at petabyte scale, or a storage layer with well over a decade of production maturity behind it — Ceph is the answer.
Onboarding
From assessment to production — without a big-bang migration
Assessment
Storage inventory, workloads, growth and compliance — and whether Ceph is the right fit at all
Design & build
Architecture, hardware, network — cluster built and load-tested, on-premise or in Frankfurt
Migration
Data moves bucket by bucket, volume by volume — your current storage stays as fallback
Operation
Monitoring, patching, capacity management — per your service model, up to 24/7 with SLA
Why teams choose Hostzero for storage
We run Ceph in production every day — as the storage backend under the Proxmox and Kubernetes platforms we operate for customers and for ourselves, from Frankfurt.
15+ Years Open Source
Enterprise open-source experience — network security on Juniper/Linux, SELinux, and production storage clusters we run for ourselves and our customers.
Storage Is Our Own Stack
Ceph is not a side business: it is the layer our own managed platforms stand on. We debug it at 2 a.m. because our infrastructure runs on it too.
Direct Engineer Access
No ticket tiers, no middlemen — you talk to the people who run your cluster.
Customer voice
Storage that stays out of the way
Kickstage builds and operates web products for its clients — on infrastructure Hostzero manages, with Ceph as the storage layer underneath.
"Hostzero takes care of everything below our applications — including storage. It just works, so we don't have to think about it."
Ljubo Radoš, Kickstage
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Start now
Ready to own your storage?
Talk to an engineer — 30 minutes, no sales pitch. Tell us your data volumes and workloads, and we will tell you honestly whether Ceph fits — or whether staying on S3, or the lighter RustFS, is the right call for you.