LINBIT
LINBIT develops and commercializes open-source software-defined block storage, high availability, and disaster recovery solutions built around DRBD and LINSTOR, serving enterprise customers and cloud platform providers globally through subscription support and professional services.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2001
- HeadquartersBeaverton, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What LINBIT does
LINBIT is a privately held open-source software company founded in 2001 and headquartered in Vienna, Austria, with a US subsidiary (LINBIT USA, LLC) in Portland, Oregon. The company develops and commercializes software-defined block storage, high availability, and disaster recovery solutions built around DRBD (Distributed Replicated Block Device), a Linux kernel module for synchronous data replication that has been part of the mainline kernel for nearly a decade. Its portfolio includes LINSTOR for storage orchestration and volume management, DRBD Reactor for cluster resource management, DRBD Proxy for asynchronous WAN replication, LINBIT VSAN as a turnkey SDS appliance, LINBIT SDS for Windows, and a web-based LINBIT GUI. The company monetizes primarily through annual enterprise support subscriptions (certified binaries, technical support, software updates) and professional services, while offering the core software under open-source licenses for community use.
LINBIT serves enterprise customers and cloud providers requiring mission-critical storage infrastructure across industries including telecommunications (T-Mobile), media (BBC), automotive (Volkswagen), financial services (ING), and consumer goods (adidas), alongside technology partners IBM, HP, Cisco, and Fujitsu. The company holds exclusive "only underlying open source storage" positions with Red Hat OpenShift, OpenNebula, and Apache CloudStack, and maintains deep integrations with Kubernetes, Proxmox VE, OpenStack, Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager, HashiCorp Nomad, and storage protocols including NVMe-oF, iSCSI, and NFS. Distribution occurs through direct enterprise sales, partner resellers (ShapeBlue, 45Drives, Supermicro, Western Digital), and the Red Hat OperatorHub marketplace. The company operates with approximately 30 employees and is led by founder and CEO Philipp Reisner (originator of the DRBD project) and COO Brian Hellman.
LINBIT firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- LINBIT
- Legal name
- LINBIT HA-Solutions GmbH
- Website
- https://linbit.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2001
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- LINBIT develops and commercializes open-source software-defined block storage, high availability, and disaster recovery solutions built around DRBD and LINSTOR, serving enterprise customers and cloud platform providers globally through subscription support and professional services.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
LINBIT industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Software-Defined Storage
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132), Software Publishers (513210), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Storage Virtualization & Software-Defined Storage (SDS) (HDABAEAF)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- Cloud Storage Core Services (Object/Block/File Storage as a Service) (HDABAAAK)
Keywords
Where LINBIT is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Beaverton
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices2 records
Markets served
LINBIT business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Support Subscriptions: Primary revenue stream from annual support subscription contracts for LINBIT SDS software. Customers pay for access to certified binaries, technical support, updates, and documentation. Subscriptions are tiered and priced based on cluster size or node count.
- Professional Services: Remote installation, training, and consulting services. The company emphasizes that customers needing installation and support due to complexity of deploying SDS or HA clusters are a key customer type.
- Enterprise Licensing: Enterprise-grade licensing for organizations requiring SLA-backed support, certified binaries, and direct vendor support relationships.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise Support Subscription |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels8 records
LINBIT product offering
Product offeringCore offering
LINBIT develops and sells open-source software-defined storage (SDS) solutions built on DRBD (Distributed Replicated Block Device), a Linux kernel module for synchronous block replication, and LINSTOR, a management and orchestration platform for DRBD resources. Its commercial offering combines free open-source software with paid annual enterprise support subscriptions, certified binaries, and professional services for high-availability, disaster recovery, and Kubernetes-native block storage deployments.
Product overview
LINBIT offers a comprehensive software-defined storage portfolio centered on open-source block storage, high availability, and disaster recovery solutions. The core platform LINBIT SDS transforms standard hardware into enterprise-grade block storage using DRBD (a Linux kernel module for data replication) managed through LINSTOR (a storage orchestration system). Key products include DRBD for kernel-level synchronous replication, DRBD Reactor as a simplified cluster resource manager, DRBD Proxy for asynchronous WAN replication, LINBIT VSAN for turnkey storage appliances, and LINBIT GUI for visual cluster management. The portfolio integrates natively with Kubernetes (via LINSTOR CSI and Operator), major virtualization platforms (Proxmox VE, OpenStack, OpenNebula, Apache CloudStack, Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager), and supports NFS, iSCSI, and NVMe-oF protocols. All core software is open source with optional commercial support subscriptions.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- LINBIT SDS: Software-Defined Storage solution providing block storage with enterprise cluster-wide volume management.
- LINBIT HA
- LINBIT DR
- LINBIT VSAN
Products and services
- LINBIT SDS Enterprise software-defined storage platform that transforms standard hardware into high-performance block storage with cluster-wide volume management, synchronous replication, and support for NFS, iSCSI, and NVMe-oF protocols; targeted at large enterprises and cloud providers with mission-critical infrastructure.
- LINSTOR Block device provisioner and storage management system for Kubernetes and large clusters that orchestrates DRBD resources, provides volume management, configuration management, and point-in-time snapshot shipping for disaster recovery.
- DRBD Linux kernel module providing synchronous block-level data replication for creating high-availability storage clusters; supports RDMA, TCP, and other network transports and is capable of millions of IOPS.
- DRBD Reactor Software that monitors and reacts to DRBD events, functioning as a cluster resource manager alternative to Pacemaker, enabling automatic failover and high availability for DRBD clusters.
- DRBD Proxy Asynchronous replication solution for disaster recovery across WAN distances; enables point-in-time snapshot shipping of DR copies of data across geographically distributed sites.
- LINBIT HA High availability solution combining DRBD replication and DRBD Reactor for reliable, high-performing enterprise storage with automatic failover.
- LINBIT DR Disaster recovery solution providing real-time continuity with synchronous and asynchronous replication options that scale across any distance.
- LINBIT VSAN Turnkey software-defined storage appliance for managing highly available NVMe-oF, iSCSI, and NFS data stores in virtualized environments.
- LINBIT GUI Web-based graphical user interface for the LINBIT SDS stack; HTML5/React-based open-source GUI for inspecting and modifying LINSTOR objects, supports 8 languages.
- LINBIT SDS for Windows Native enterprise software-defined storage solution for Windows environments, bringing DRBD-based replication capabilities to Windows-based infrastructure.
- LINSTOR Gateway Tool for creating highly available iSCSI, NVMe-oF, or NFS targets/exports from LINSTOR-managed storage pools.
- LINSTOR Operator Kubernetes Operator for automated deployment and management of LINSTOR clusters in Kubernetes; Red Hat certified offering on OperatorHub and part of the open-source Piraeus Datastore project.
Quantifiable outcome
- 14.8 million IOPS world record achieved with LINSTOR
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use LINBIT
Customer profileNamed customers15 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
LINBIT technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration15 records
Feature10 records
LINBIT partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Nine partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- Western DigitalcoreStrategic partnership focused on cloud gaming and OpenFlex storage integration with LINSTOR. Phil and Manfred from Western Digital discussed common future projects and synergy between OpenFlex and LINSTOR during LINSTOR Days event.
- OpenNebulacoreLINBIT is the only underlying open source storage solution for OpenNebula cloud. Deep technical integration with native storage management, geo-clustering, and synchronized replication capabilities. Joint TechDays events hosted.
- HashiCorpcorePartnership for integrating LINBIT SDS with HashiCorp Nomad workload orchestrator. Joint Storage Days event focused on Nomad + LINBIT SDS integration demo and technical presentations.
- Red HatcoreLINBIT SDS is the only underlying open source storage solution for OpenShift with native integration. LINSTOR Operator is a Red Hat certified offering available on OperatorHub. Joint Storage Days events.
- Apache CloudStackcoreLINBIT is the only underlying open source storage solution for Apache CloudStack. Joint Storage Days events with ShapeBlue (CloudStack integrator) and CloudStack experts. Integration enables cloud and edge computing deployments.
- IBMcorePartnership for IBM LinuxONE integration with LINBIT SDS. Joint presentations on IBM LinuxONE + LINBIT SDS during Storage Days events. LINBIT solutions certified and optimized for IBM infrastructure.
- ShapeBluecoreLeading independent CloudStack integrator and Apache CloudStack contributor. ShapeBlue CEO Giles Sirett participated in LINBIT CloudStack Storage Days events. Joint customer success presentations.
- 45DrivescorePartnership with open source-focused enterprise data storage, compute, and virtualization solutions company. Joint content creation including videos on building reliable 2-node HA solutions with DRBD.
- ProxmoxcoreDeep integration with Proxmox VE hyperconverged infrastructure. Multiple joint how-to guides including 'Getting Started With LINSTOR in Proxmox VE'. Community meeting presentations on Proxmox + LINSTOR.
Scale indicators6 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
LINBIT competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- MinIO: Open source, Kubernetes-native object storage. Competes with LINBIT in the open source cloud-native storage layer, primarily for object rather than block workloads but in overlapping enterprise and Kubernetes accounts.
- Portworx (Pure Storage): Enterprise Kubernetes-native storage platform acquired by Pure Storage. Competes with LINBIT for stateful Kubernetes workloads at large enterprises, with stronger commercial reach but a proprietary (rather than open source) core.
- Ceph (Red Hat / Linux Foundation): Open source distributed storage system providing block, object, and file storage. Like LINBIT, it is Linux-based open source SDS with strong Kubernetes integration (via Rook), making it the most directly comparable competitor for cloud-native and enterprise SDS deployments.
- Rook (CNCF): CNCF Graduated open source storage orchestrator for Kubernetes, primarily wrapping Ceph. Competes with LINSTOR for the orchestration layer of Kubernetes-native SDS, particularly in environments that standardize on CNCF projects.
- OpenEBS (MayaData / Datacore): Open source Kubernetes-native block storage with multiple storage engines. Targets the same Kubernetes persistent-volume use case as LINSTOR, with a similar open core + enterprise support commercial model.
- Longhorn (SUSE): Lightweight, reliable distributed block storage for Kubernetes built by Rancher/SUSE. Competes head-to-head with LINSTOR for persistent volume workloads on Kubernetes clusters, sharing the open source, Kubernetes-native, and CNCF-affiliated positioning.
Broad incumbents
- Pure Storage: All-flash enterprise storage vendor that expanded into Kubernetes-native storage via Portworx. Competes with LINBIT across both traditional enterprise array and cloud-native SDS segments.
- Dell Technologies (Dell EMC / PowerStore): Broad enterprise storage incumbent selling PowerStore, PowerScale, and ECS alongside VMware-integrated solutions. Competes with LINBIT for the same enterprise storage budget, especially in mixed on-prem / VMware environments.
- NetApp: Large enterprise storage vendor offering ONTAP-based arrays, NetApp Astra for Kubernetes, and various SDS offerings. Represents the broad incumbent alternative LINBIT displaces when enterprise customers choose open source SDS over proprietary arrays.
Emerging players
- Storj: Decentralized cloud object storage provider with an open source, S3-compatible platform. Targets a different workload (object / archival) than LINBIT's block-storage focus but competes for open source cloud-native storage budget and mindshare.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
LINBIT social profiles
Digital presenceLINBIT financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
LINBIT leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles3 records
LINBIT subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries1 record
LINBIT funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
LINBIT M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about LINBIT
What does LINBIT do?
LINBIT develops and sells open-source software-defined storage (SDS) solutions built on DRBD (Distributed Replicated Block Device), a Linux kernel module for synchronous block replication, and LINSTOR, a management and orchestration platform for DRBD resources. Its commercial offering combines free open-source software with paid annual enterprise support subscriptions, certified binaries, and professional services for high-availability, disaster recovery, and Kubernetes-native block storage deployments.
Is LINBIT a public or private company?
LINBIT is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was LINBIT founded?
LINBIT was founded in 2001. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is LINBIT based?
LINBIT is headquartered in Beaverton, United States, in the North America region.
How does LINBIT make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Support Subscriptions are the primary driver. The others are professional Services and enterprise Licensing.
Who are LINBIT's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are MinIO, Portworx (Pure Storage), Ceph (Red Hat / Linux Foundation), Rook (CNCF), OpenEBS (MayaData / Datacore) and Longhorn (SUSE). Broad incumbents are Pure Storage, Dell Technologies (Dell EMC / PowerStore) and NetApp. Storj is listed as an emerging player.
Does LINBIT have an API?
Yes. LINSTOR REST API available at port 3370 (HTTP) or 3371 (HTTPS) for managing storage clusters, resources, volumes, and snapshots. LINSTOR Python API library also available for programmatic access. Developer documentation is at app.swaggerhub.com/apis-docs/Linstor/Linstor.
What industry is LINBIT in?
LINBIT's product category is Software-Defined Storage. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDABAEAF, Storage Virtualization & Software-Defined Storage (SDS), with a secondary code of HDABAAAK, Cloud Storage Core Services (Object/Block/File Storage as a Service). Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7372.