Forrester’s object storage wave leaves out Cloudian, MinIO and many others

Forrester's Q2 2026 Wave report on object storage solutions includes only 12 vendors, omitting prominent players such as Cloudian, MinIO, Quantum, and DataCore. The report names NetApp (StorageGRID), Everpure, Nutanix, and VAST Data as leaders, with Dell, Scality, AWS, Hitachi Vantara, HPE, and Huawei as strong performers, and DDN and Alibaba Cloud as contenders. Forrester analyst Brent Ellis says object storage is becoming the de facto storage platform for AI, and the evaluation criteria focus on alignment with enterprise operating models, AI ambitions, and regulatory realities.

OBJECT Forrester’s object storage wave leaves out Cloudian, MinIO and many others Research house Forrester only includes a dozen suppliers in its object storage wave report, omitting prominent vendors such as Cloudian https://www.blocksandfiles.com/object/2026/06/09/cloudian-closes-gap-between-enterprise-ai-ambitions-and-messy-production-deployments/5252816 , MinIO https://www.blocksandfiles.com/ai-ml/2026/05/12/minio-adds-petabyte-scale-memkv-cache-for-nvidia-gpu-inference/5238593 and Quantum https://www.blocksandfiles.com/tape/2026/08/11/quantum-has-turned-the-corner/5286256 . The Forrester Wave: Object Storage Solutions, Q2 2026 https://reprint.forrester.com/reports/the-forrester-wave-tm-object-storage-solutions-q2-2026-ec267b91/index.html report has four leaders: NetApp StorageGRID , Everpure, Nutanix and VAST Data; six strong performers: Dell, Scality, AWS, Hitachi Vantara, HPE, and Huawei; with two trailing contenders – DDN and Alibaba Cloud. A wave diagram shows their placement positions: Forrester’s analyst, Brent Ellis, says: "Object storage is transitioning from cheap and deep cold storage into an active primary platform. Cloud-native workloads like serverless and Kubernetes depend on object storage, and it’s becoming the de facto storage platform for AI." In his view: "Object storage decisions hinge less on raw durability claims and more on how object platforms align with enterprise operating models, AI ambitions, and regulatory realities." Consequently: "We designed criteria in this evaluation to understand how vendors operationalize those buyer needs — especially as the technology market rapidly shifts to address AI-native workloads and a greater need for secure, compliant, and governed data assets." The report identifies two rejected vendors: IBM and Oracle – meaning 14 vendors overall. IBM was excluded for not having a single object storage offering, and Oracle because it is a public cloud-only service. AWS and Hitachi Vantara declined to participate in the full evaluation process, and Ellis used desk research to assess their offerings. A GigaOm Object Storage Radar https://www.blocksandfiles.com/object/2026/06/30/gigaom-object-radar-has-26-platform-players-vs-seagate/5264491 report in June listed 27 suppliers, showing that Forrester has more rigorous inclusion criteria. These required a vendor having at least $100 million in annual revenue from object storage products in the past year, a track record for supporting large enterprises, plus Forrester clients frequently mentioning the product as one they are considering prior to a purchase. DataCore https://www.blocksandfiles.com/ai-ml/2025/05/22/datacore-acquires-starwind-for-edge-hyperconverged-tech/1617383 , with its Swarm product, was also excluded by Forrester. Bootnote Forrester’s Wave diagram shows two concentric quarter circles placed in a square space defined by a vertical current offering axis and a strategy strength horizontal axis. The three areas in this space, moving from left to right, are named Contenders, Strong Performers, and Leaders with suppliers ranked and placed in each category area.