Leil FS
The Engine of Open Hyperscale Storage

Leil FS is a truly open-source distributed file system licensed under GPL-3.0. It is the successor of SaunaFS and implements concepts introduced by Google FS. Leil FS is commercially ready, battle-tested at petabyte scale, and includes enterprise features in the open-source core.

Leil FS uses the GPL-3.0 license – not a Business Source License. This means you can build, deploy, and profit freely with no restrictions. Fork it, ship it, and retain full control of your infrastructure and code.

Leil FS includes erasure coding, uRaft high availability, copy-on-write snapshots, NFS/SMB/S3 protocol support, NFSv4 + POSIX ACLs, granular quotas, automatic rebalancing, SSD and CMR HDD tiering, periodic scrubbing, and Kubernetes orchestration with CSI driver.

Leil FS is the free, open-source foundation that supports SSD and CMR HDDs. Leil OS adds Host-Managed SMR support, ICE power-disable, Head Depopulation, advanced erasure coding, Windows console, and the hardware performance package — features needed for mission-critical enterprise deployments.

Leil FS performs erasure coding directly within the client-side process, distributing the computational cost across your entire network of clients rather than taxing the storage tier. By performing erasure coding on the client rather than the storage server, Leil FS keeps chunkservers focused exclusively on I/O. This decoupled architecture enables leaner storage servers, reduced hardware costs and linear scalability to exabyte scale without compute bottlenecks.

Leil FS is available via apt-repo (Debian, Ubuntu), RPM (Fedora), and Docker Hub (multi-arch). It includes native Proxmox plugin and Kubernetes Operator with CSI driver for container orchestration. POSIX compliant for Linux and Windows environments.

Yes. Leil FS is battle-tested in production at petabyte scale. It is a commercially-ready, open-source parallel file system with the full protocol stack (NFS, Samba, S3, native POSIX) and enterprise resilience features included in the core distribution. 

Yes. Leil FS is GPL-3.0 licensed with no Business Source restrictions. All core features – erasure coding, high availability, snapshots, multi-protocol support – are included free. Deploy at petabyte scale with no licensing fees or hidden obligations.

Seamless. Leil FS and Leil OS share the same architecture and codebase. When you need HM-SMR support, ICE power management, or Head Depopulation, you upgrade to Leil OS with no data migration and no re-architecture required.

Yes. Leil FS includes a native Kubernetes Operator with CSI driver and a Proxmox plugin. Multi-arch Docker images are available on Docker Hub. The filesystem integrates directly with container orchestration for automated storage provisioning.

Absolutely. Leil FS is enthusiast-friendly with direct engineering communication. Join the Matrix channel to talk directly with the developers. The GPL-3.0 license ensures your contributions remain open and the community benefits.

Native POSIX via the Leil FS client, NFSv3/NFSv4 via Ganesha FSAL, SMB/CIFS via Samba, and S3 via the Versity gateway. Your applications can access storage through whichever protocol fits your workflow – no custom drivers needed.