Do you really need a database for this? On a unix system, you should be able to: CRUD users, CRUD files and directories, grant permissions to files or directories
Is there a decade-old software that provides a UI or an API wrapper around these features for a "Google Drive" alternative? Maybe over the SAMBA protocol?
58.9% TypeScript and 32.6% JavaScript wouldn't be my first preference to implement such a high performance and throughput demanding application? Why is that?
I built something similar years ago. These are terribly hard to build, so I did a bit of digging.
1: This appears to be backed by a French company called Linagoria. I don't know much about the company, but they've been around for a bit.
2: I experimented with Mongodb for the similar product, and it turned out to be very unreliable. A lot can change since I used Mongodb, but in general, I'm weary of any product that uses it unless there's an expectation that data is lossy.
(Which was the problem Mongodb had at the time: Their CTO only wanted to target lossy data use cases, but the people interested in using Mondodb wanted a database that was easier to use than SQL.)
Open source drive tools live or die on three things.
1) Simple sync that never surprises.
2) Clean conflict handling you can explain to a non tech friend.
3) And zero drama upgrades.
If Twake nails those and keeps a sane on prem story with S3 and LDAP, it has a shot. The harder part is trust and docs. Clear threat model. Crisp migration guides from Drive and Dropbox. And a tiny CLI that just works on a headless box. Do these and teams will try it for real work, not just weekend tests.
Lots of talk about must‑have features and backups here...
BUT there's another piece that makes or breaks these tools... whether they can build a community around them and stick around for years...
Open‑source cloud storage projects come and go when maintainers burn out... a sustainable business model or strong contributor base matters as much as technical checklists...
ALSO interoperability is underrated... if your drive can speak WebDAV or S3 and plug into existing identity systems, teams are more likely to try it...
In the end people want something that won't vanish after the honeymoon... that's harder than adding a progress bar...
Is that a weakness of the tool's organizational model?
I don't want to be part of a community around my cloud storage. I want it to work and I want to think about it as little as possible.
I use Syncthing and it does a pretty great job at this, no one ever insisted I need to join a Syncthing community, yet it keeps on working.
I don't pay a dime for Syncthing but I'm vaguely aware that they're linked to a company called Kastelo which provides enterprise support for Syncthing deployments. Probably a lot of Syncthing development is paid for that way.
Incidentally I founded an open source consulting company that's totally unrelated to cloud storage. We have enterprise as well as smaller contracts. We develop some addons in-house and the bigger enterprise contracts tend to subsidize most of the work that goes into them. We haven't asked anyone to be part of a community and I don't think we need to.
Communities are nice, but if you want your software to last I think a good business model and a good marketing strategy are a better bet. Bonus, you can quit your day job.
Given how integrated Drive and Docs are, if this doesn't have docs-like collaborative realtime document editing, for many people this is like "30% of Google Drive"
For people whose UX is dragging and dropping stuff to browser, and/or using a desktop sync client only, sure why not, the UI looks clean and familiar. But as someone who has used and still uses like 3 different similar things concurrently, the only real reason I use drive is because of the seamless zero-dependency office-like web software being part of the product.
(yes I know it's a curse too, I ended up writing a piece of software just to migrate company drive stuff to my personal drive when a company I was a cofounder in went bust to have a record ... those google docs can really only exist in Drive natively, any export is an immediate downgrade)
Seafile is the only good enough thing i've found so far for self-hosted file sync. But it is still a pain to upgrade the server version. nextCloud and friends is a complete disaster in my oppinion.
I recently got into self-hosting Seafile and successfully set it up on my dedicated server. Had to think backup and security strategies quite a bit and ultimately I set up a bulletproof backup mechanism. Tested it pretty rigorously.
Seafile took me by surprise in terms of how quick it was at picking up new files and changes - syncing works incredibly well too. I moved all my files from my Google Drive into my Seafile instance and I'm now using it on all my devices as my main cloud storage solution.
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[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 57.3 ms ] threadWith clients some of them have already made this bad decision; with my own personal files I get to avoid it.
Was that because of team expertise or particular aspects of TS you thought suited the domain?
Is there a decade-old software that provides a UI or an API wrapper around these features for a "Google Drive" alternative? Maybe over the SAMBA protocol?
1: This appears to be backed by a French company called Linagoria. I don't know much about the company, but they've been around for a bit.
2: I experimented with Mongodb for the similar product, and it turned out to be very unreliable. A lot can change since I used Mongodb, but in general, I'm weary of any product that uses it unless there's an expectation that data is lossy.
(Which was the problem Mongodb had at the time: Their CTO only wanted to target lossy data use cases, but the people interested in using Mondodb wanted a database that was easier to use than SQL.)
If Twake nails those and keeps a sane on prem story with S3 and LDAP, it has a shot. The harder part is trust and docs. Clear threat model. Crisp migration guides from Drive and Dropbox. And a tiny CLI that just works on a headless box. Do these and teams will try it for real work, not just weekend tests.
TDrive would work
BUT there's another piece that makes or breaks these tools... whether they can build a community around them and stick around for years...
Open‑source cloud storage projects come and go when maintainers burn out... a sustainable business model or strong contributor base matters as much as technical checklists...
ALSO interoperability is underrated... if your drive can speak WebDAV or S3 and plug into existing identity systems, teams are more likely to try it...
In the end people want something that won't vanish after the honeymoon... that's harder than adding a progress bar...
I don't want to be part of a community around my cloud storage. I want it to work and I want to think about it as little as possible.
I use Syncthing and it does a pretty great job at this, no one ever insisted I need to join a Syncthing community, yet it keeps on working.
I don't pay a dime for Syncthing but I'm vaguely aware that they're linked to a company called Kastelo which provides enterprise support for Syncthing deployments. Probably a lot of Syncthing development is paid for that way.
Incidentally I founded an open source consulting company that's totally unrelated to cloud storage. We have enterprise as well as smaller contracts. We develop some addons in-house and the bigger enterprise contracts tend to subsidize most of the work that goes into them. We haven't asked anyone to be part of a community and I don't think we need to.
Communities are nice, but if you want your software to last I think a good business model and a good marketing strategy are a better bet. Bonus, you can quit your day job.
Why ? who cares? if the tool solves the problem, you need a community maintain it. And that's it.
For people whose UX is dragging and dropping stuff to browser, and/or using a desktop sync client only, sure why not, the UI looks clean and familiar. But as someone who has used and still uses like 3 different similar things concurrently, the only real reason I use drive is because of the seamless zero-dependency office-like web software being part of the product.
(yes I know it's a curse too, I ended up writing a piece of software just to migrate company drive stuff to my personal drive when a company I was a cofounder in went bust to have a record ... those google docs can really only exist in Drive natively, any export is an immediate downgrade)
Seafile took me by surprise in terms of how quick it was at picking up new files and changes - syncing works incredibly well too. I moved all my files from my Google Drive into my Seafile instance and I'm now using it on all my devices as my main cloud storage solution.
Been a user for around a decade. It is really great. Nextcloud was choking on large repos back in the day and it requires a beefier machine.
I first run Seafile on a cheap ARM board with 2GB ram and 2 core CPU.