this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
55 points (98.2% liked)

Selfhosted

46671 readers
1110 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
ruud@lemmy.world
Loki@lemmy.world
CannaVet@lemmy.world
devve@lemmy.world
HybridSarcasm@lemmy.world
HybridSarcasm@lemmy.hybridsarcasm.xyz
55
Google Drive alternative? (lemmy.today)
submitted 2 days ago by paequ2@lemmy.today to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
32 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hello! How are folks self-hosting online storage, similar to Google Drive?

Some options I've found:

A bunch more: https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted?tab=readme-ov-file#file-transfer---web-based-file-managers

I mainly just need basic file management features. I don't plan to share files outside of my tailscale VPN. I do need to support multiple users though.

I'm not considering Nextcloud because that seems too big. I'm also not considering syncthing for this project because I don't want copies on multiple devices.

I'm currently just using ssh+nautilus and that's worked great for just me, but something similar to Google Drive would be easier to onboard my family.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] aksdb@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Why does the storage layer of seafile scare you? Are you also scared of databases and prefer storing things in raw txt files? The difference is the same. You get certain features in return:

  • Versioning is possible (so each file can have a history you can roll back)
  • Sync is very fast
  • It can sync incremental changes even of big files

You still have access via:

  • Web
  • Synced locally using Seafile Client
  • WebDAV
  • Mounted as network filesystem anywhere using SeaDrive.
[–] paequ2@lemmy.today 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Are you also scared of databases and prefer storing things in raw txt files?

Yes, actually. 😅 I can't manage a database for more than a few weeks before I screw it up or want to easily edit something and stop using it.

I don't think databases are bad. I think I'm too much of a fuckup to manage one.

[–] aksdb@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

LOL, ok, fair 😁

You should in any case consider your backup strategy. If you have reliable backups, your fuckups can't be as bad anymore. If you don't have reliable backups, a "raw" storage doesn't help you either. Maybe even the contrary: you won't notice, if individual files get corrupted or even lost until it's too late. (Not talking about disk corruption, against which the right filesystem can guard you.... but I am not sure you trust filesystems either 😛)

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

I'm not OP and am a dev, but also prefer flat files. Here's my reasoning:

  • versioning - I use snapshots in my filesystem (BTRFS), which is more than enough, and have a git hosting solution for things I care about more
  • sync is plenty fast on OCIS and Samba, it's just kinda slow on Nextcloud; I'm sure Seafile is better, but it's not something I do frequently anyway, especially since backups from devices is automatic and uses a different, fast system
  • incremental - not my use case, most of my files either never change (movies) or are small (text flees)

My main concerns with Seafile specifically are:

  • developed by a Chinese company and doesn't seem particularly open to contributions
  • mostly written in C, so there's a good chance of security vulnerabilities
  • documentation about the disk format isn't very open, so third party tools don't really exist
  • main target is larger orgs, so I'm unlikely to get very good support

With flat files, I can easily switch to a different service if my needs change.