We Built a Bridge Between FTP and AWS S3
A surprising number of systems still rely on FTP to transfer data — believe me I come from a world of banking and mainframe.
Security cameras.
IoT devices.
Legacy enterprise software.
Backup tools.
Random scripts written 20 years ago.
Mainframe & Cobol
They all rely on transferring files using FTP or SFTP. But modern infrastructure lives in object storage like AWS S3. And those two worlds don’t always talk to each other very well.
One of the most requested features
While building ftpGrid, I kept getting the same request from users:
My system uploads files using FTP… but I need them in S3. So I hacked around FTP to move the files to external cloud blob storage.
Examples included:
surveillance cameras sending recordings
IoT devices uploading logs
backup tools exporting archives
legacy software exporting data
These systems couldn’t easily speak S3.
The Idea
What if ftpGrid could simply synchronize with cloud storage providers automatically?
Instead of rewriting systems, you could just do this:
Device → FTP upload → ftpGrid → S3
No scripts. No glue code. No infrastructure.
Just upload files like you always have.
Introducing Cloud Integration
So we built Cloud Integration into ftpGrid.
It allows you to automatically synchronize files between ftpGrid storage and AWS S3 (or S3-compatible providers).
You can choose between several modes:
Copy ftpGrid → S3
Copy S3 → ftpGrid
Mirror ftpGrid → S3
Mirror S3 → ftpGrid
That means ftpGrid can now act as a bridge between legacy file transfer protocols and modern cloud storage.
It Also Works With S3-Compatible Storage
The integration supports more than AWS.
Anything speaking the S3 API works, including:
Cloudflare R2
OVH Object Storage
MinIO
Wasabi
Backblaze B2 (S3 mode)
If You’re Curious
I wrote a full tutorial showing how to set it up step-by-step:
https://ftpgrid.com/tutorials/ftp-to-s3-cloud-integration/
It only takes a few minutes. Building ftpGrid has been a constant reminder that the tech world is messy.
We love new tools and modern infrastructure but there are systems that still only speaks FTP.
And that’s fine. Sometimes the best solution isn’t replacing old systems. Sometimes it’s just building a bridge between them.
