HACKER Q&A
📣 wolpoli

Alternatives to Google Drive?


With the removal of free unlimited photo storage from Google and the demise of legacy Google Apps for Domains. I expect that Google will be going after Google Drive/Docs/Sheets/Slides at some point.

Are there any solid alternatives to Google Drive/Docs/Sheets/Slides other than OneDrive/Word/Excel/PowerPoint?


  👤 themodelplumber Accepted Answer ✓
Have you already looked into Zoho Office? https://www.zoho.com/office/

It may also help to design a minimum spec to fit your needs, so you don't exclude anything that could work for you, in searching for broader platform-to-platform matches.


👤 erulabs
We're in the process of building an alternative to Google Photos over at https://kubesail.com. You can use it now with a spare PC, or buy our custom designed hardware at https://pibox.io.

Today we're prepping to publish our App to the iOS app-store, which will do local-wifi-photo-synching much like Google Photos, only faster (due to only transferring over local network, not the internet). It's going to be a long battle to catch up with hosted Google Products, but we're on our way.

As for Google Drive, apps like NextCloud (https://kubesail.com/template/erulabs/NextCloud) work really well, though they're not quite as slick as google products. For Google Sheets, there is https://seatable.io/.

Self-hosting software is coming along nicely. All it really needs to get as slick as Google products is more users and more money and more attention. We're hoping to provide exactly that by making it far easier to buy a "Google-Photos-replacement box" (PiBox + PhotoStructure) or a "Slack-replacement Box" (PiBox + Mattermost).


👤 akoster
http://box.com

Box’s free tier used to occasionally have 50GB for free offers but file size is limited to 250MB iirc. My family has been using their accounts when this deal was on a few years back and the file history recovery option helped in a pinch where ransomware encrypted both one of their PC + then connected external HDD backup data at once. Also though they have a new sync client “Box Drive” their legacy “Box Sync” client still functions without any major interface or major boot changes one has to learn or get used to (for now).

Update: Sadly no promos now (https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043694774-Box-P...) but free personal account signups here with 10GB of storage https://box.com/personal


👤 tenebrisalietum
As long as Microsoft offers some free use of storage and web-based office apps, Google will as well.

If you're looking for a self-hosted web-based office suite with a filemanager, OnlyOffice might fit your needs.


👤 orsenthil
I find tools like https://rclone.org/ useful have a storage service transparent from the backend.

👤 yosito
I've got a VPS with Nextcloud and Photoprism running in a Docker container. If you're savy enough to set it up, including backups, it's a pretty solid option. Haven't needed to spend much time on maintenance since I originally set it up.

If you're looking for an option that's free as in beer, I've got no recommendations for you.


👤 u2077
I haven’t tested this product at all, just happened to catch my eye a while back. However, it appears to be in the early stages of development. It’s open source and has similar features to google drive.

https://twake.app/#start


👤 d--b
Your assumption may be wrong though. Hosting photos is vastly more expensive than hosting documents. Google may loose a lot of users if they made people pay for docs and sheets. They’re still very inferior to word and excel.

👤 runjake
You should probably just pick a service and select a paid tier.

Anything free is probably going to go away once the service has acquired its desired number of users and wants to monetize. You’ll just be in the same spot again.


👤 zepolen
Yes, god forbid you pay for a service you find valuable!

👤 Unesco88
gofile.io for files is great.

👤 PaulHoule
USB thumb drives.