Minikv
Distributed key-value and object store in Rust (Raft, S3 API)
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Hi HN,I’m releasing minikv, a distributed key-value and object store in Rust.What is minikv? minikv is an open-source, distributed storage engine built for learning, experimentation, and self-hosted setups. It combines a strongly-consistent key-value database (Raft), S3-compatible object storage, and basic multi-tenancy. I started minikv as a learning project about distributed systems, and it grew into something production-ready and fun to extend.Features/highlights:- Raft consensus with automatic failover and sharding - S3-compatible HTTP API (plus REST/gRPC APIs) - Pluggable storage backends: in-memory, RocksDB, Sled - Multi-tenant: per-tenant namespaces, role-based access, quotas, and audit - Metrics (Prometheus), TLS, JWT-based API keys - Easy to deploy (single binary, works with Docker/Kubernetes)Quick demo (single node):git clone https://github.com/whispem/minikv.git cd minikv cargo run --release -- --config config.example.toml curl localhost:8080/health/ready # S3 upload + read curl -X PUT localhost:8080/s3/mybucket/hello -d "hi HN" curl localhost:8080/s3/mybucket/helloDocs, cluster setup, and architecture details are in the repo. I’d love to hear feedback, questions, ideas, or your stories running distributed infra in Rust!Repo: https://github.com/whispem/minikv Crate: https://crates.io/crates/minikv
HN · launched Jan 17, 2026 · 35 upvotes (top 26%) · 1 view
Niche: database management systems and engines · 162 launches, 5 in the last 7 days ▼ -17% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Data infrastructure
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 162 launches in database management systems and engines →
Could you build this?
No Implementing a distributed storage engine with Raft consensus and S3 compatibility in Rust demands deep expertise in distributed systems, network partitions, and data durability.
What it would actually take: The stack involves Rust, asynchronous runtime (Tokio), a Raft consensus implementation (e.g., openraft or custom), a local LSM-tree/B-Tree storage engine, and an HTTP/S3 wire-format compatibility layer. The hard parts are formally verifying consensus edge cases, handling network partitions, cluster membership changes, log compaction, and ensuring zero data corruption under power failures. This requires specialized distributed systems engineering and systems programming experience.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: AWS S3, RocksDB, Sled
Concerns raised: Code quality issues (.DS_Store in repository), Prompt injection vulnerability only works on smaller models (<70b), Unreviewed work and vibe-coded contributions, Potential AI-generated code in repository history
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 399 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #110 of 400 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 77 days after the earliest competitor.
- gatekv · github · 2026-09-30 · 11 upvotes · similarity 0.67
- raft-kv-store · github · 2026-10-04 · 34 upvotes · similarity 0.58
- KeyEnv · hn · 2026-01-18 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- SnkvDB · hn · 2026-02-16 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- Shrouded, secure memory management in Rust · hn · 2026-03-23 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.49
- Minigraf · hn · 2026-10-05 · 41 upvotes · similarity 0.47
- MiniToolDesk · ph · 2026-10-12 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- I Forked MinIO Object Storage and Made It Run Faster · hn · 2026-07-30 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.45
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