Self-hosted alternatives to Dropbox
You pay monthly, forever, for storage you could own outright in under an hour.
Below are 10 open-source projects that cover the same ground, each scored 0–100 on how actively it is actually maintained — commit volume, release cadence and recent trend. 7 of the 10 are currently rated healthy or better. Ordering reflects that score, not sponsorship.
| Project | Health | Activity (11 mo) | Stars | Licence | Last release |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nextcloud Access and share your files, calendars, contacts, mail and more from any device, on your terms. | Thriving · 98 | 37k | AGPL-3.0 | 24 Sept 2026 | |
| Puter Web-based operating system designed to be feature-rich, exceptionally fast, and highly extensible. | Thriving · 92 | 44k | AGPL-3.0 | 20 Sept 2026 | |
| OpenCloud File Sharing and Collaboration Platform. | Thriving · 89 | 6.1k | Apache-2.0 | 16 Sept 2026 | |
| ownCloud All-in-one solution for saving, synchronizing, viewing, editing and sharing files, calendars, address books an | Healthy · 77 | 8.8k | AGPL-3.0 | 25 Sept 2026 | |
| Sync-in File storage, syncing, sharing, and collaboration with real-time editing, permission management, and desktop/C | Healthy · 75 | 1.8k | AGPL-3.0 | 21 Sept 2026 | |
| Syncthing Syncthing is an open source peer-to-peer file synchronisation tool. | Healthy · 71 | 89k | MPL-2.0 | 22 Sept 2026 | |
| Cloudreve File management and sharing system, supports multiple storage providers. | Healthy · 71 | 29k | GPL-3.0 | 18 Sept 2026 | |
| Peergos Secure and private space online where you can store, share and view your photos, videos, music and documents. | Steady · 67 | 2.5k | AGPL-3.0 | — | |
| Filestash Web file manager that lets you manage your data anywhere it is located: FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Git, S3, Minio, Dro | Steady · 62 | 15k | AGPL-3.0 | — | |
| Seafile File hosting and sharing solution primary for teams and organizations. | Slowing · 40 | 15k | GPL-2.0 | 27 Feb 2024 |
How these were picked
Every project listed here is open source and can run entirely on hardware you control. We start from the categories that match Dropbox's job — File Transfer & Synchronization, File Transfer - Web-based File Managers — then rank by health score so that a popular-but-abandoned project never appears above a smaller one that is actively shipping. The scoring method is documented in full.
The scores are recomputed from repository data on every rebuild, so this page reflects the state of these projects as of 1 Oct 2026 — not the day it was written.
Nextcloud
Access and share your files, calendars, contacts, mail and more from any device, on your terms.
Best fit: It suits individuals and organisations who want to keep their files and productivity data on their own hardware rather than relying on commercial cloud storage.
Worth knowing: Running a large PHP-based groupware suite requires careful resource tuning and regular updates to maintain security and acceptable performance.
Puter
Web-based operating system designed to be feature-rich, exceptionally fast, and highly extensible.
Best fit: It is well-suited for developers and administrators looking to host a centralised web desktop for file organisation and remote access.
Worth knowing: The copyleft AGPL-3.0 licence requires you to make your source code available if you modify and network-host the application, which may not suit commercial deployments. Additionally, web-based operating systems can introduce significant security and sandboxing considerations.
OpenCloud
File Sharing and Collaboration Platform.
Best fit: Teams and individuals seeking an open-source solution for managing and sharing documents on private hardware.
Worth knowing: It competes in a crowded space dominated by mature alternatives like Nextcloud and Owncloud, meaning community resources or documentation may be less extensive.
ownCloud
All-in-one solution for saving, synchronizing, viewing, editing and sharing files, calendars, address books and more.
Best fit: It is a suitable option if you want to retain full control over your stored documents and shared resources on private infrastructure.
Worth knowing: You should consider the ongoing operational overhead of managing PHP-based web applications, including performance tuning and keeping dependencies secure.
Sync-in
File storage, syncing, sharing, and collaboration with real-time editing, permission management, and desktop/CLI clients.
Best fit: It suits teams or individuals requiring a self-hosted file management system with multi-client synchronisation and collaborative editing features.
Worth knowing: The AGPL-3.0 copyleft licence requires you to make your modified source code available if you offer the software as a network service, which may affect proprietary deployments.