Velero
Kubernetes-native backup and disaster recovery: snapshot cluster state and volumes to your own object storage, then restore or migrate namespaces. Apache-2.0; ownership is shifting from Broadcom to the CNCF.
Storage
Category: Storage under Infrastructure & Cloud
Rook
CNCF-graduated Kubernetes operator that runs Ceph as declarative, self-healing storage — object, block, and file from cluster disks. Fully open; the cost is the Ceph expertise it abstracts but never removes.
OpenEBS
CNCF Kubernetes storage that runs in userspace, with pluggable engines from simple local volumes to replicated NVMe-oF. Apache-2.0 core, but external KMS and the management GUI sit in DataCore's commercial tier.
Longhorn
CNCF-governed, fully open block storage for Kubernetes: highly available volumes with encryption, synchronous replication, and S3/NFS backup. No open-core paywall — the only paid tier is optional vendor support.
SeaweedFS
Apache-2.0 distributed storage exposing S3 and POSIX, tuned for billions of small files and simpler to run than Ceph. Day-2 safety nets like self-healing repair and point-in-time recovery sit behind a paid Enterprise tier.
Ceph
Unified distributed storage that serves one cluster as S3 object, block, and POSIX file. Foundation-governed, standards-based, with no per-GB cloud fees, but it demands real cluster-ops expertise.