{"id":40372,"date":"2020-02-06T16:11:03","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T16:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/?guid=86a0f218ceb551005f8d84e786edff95"},"modified":"2020-02-06T16:11:03","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T16:11:03","slug":"best-open-source-cloud-storage-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/best-open-source-cloud-storage-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Best open source cloud-storage services"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n Steve Clark<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
6 Feb, 2020<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

When it comes to cloud computing, it’s easy to fall back on the same big name players like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and Google. But, as in so many areas of computing, open source can offer a low or no cost alternative that businesses should be investigating.<\/p>\n

Cozy<\/h2>\n

What we liked:<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re planning to take the plunge by moving away from traditional cloud platforms run by the big tech companies, mobility and security should be high on your list of considerations. You need to be able to access your files any time, anywhere, and they should be safe from nefarious net-dwellers snooping on personal data.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cozy offers exactly that. You can operate within your browser or download the app for your computer. Refreshingly, the company also \u201cprohibits any use, for its benefit or for the benefit of anyone, of all or part of your \u2018private\u2019 data\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to a clean layout and large fonts, Cozy\u2019s design is effortlessly user-friendly. A simple sidebar ensures navigation is slick and familiar, while adding your files to the cloud is achieved with one click of the Upload button. Clicking the three-dot menu reveals options to create new folders and select multiple items and, once you\u2019ve added files, you can then manage items through the second three-dot menu that appears beside it, renaming and moving files, and sharing them with others. If you\u2019re a convert from the Google and Microsoft services, you\u2019ll have no trouble mastering Cozy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During our tests, we found uploading to Cozy was almost instant. As with other cloud services, a progress bar in the bottom-right corner provides a visual indication of everything you\u2019re uploading to your Cozy cloud drive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll find another handy shortcut by clicking the company logo in the top-left corner, which lets you quickly jump between the standard cloud service, your Photos folder and the Cozy Bank service (if you sign up for it).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How it can be improved:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cozy doesn\u2019t offer the best deals when it comes to storage. Free accounts are capped at 5GB, which is fine for basic use, but you\u2019ll need to shell out around \u00a33 a month to increase that to a more respectable 50GB. While it\u2019s a simple process to create new folders and the like, we\u2019d love to have a Google Drive-style context menu to manage files with a simple right-click of the mouse.<\/span><\/p>\n

XOR Drive<\/span><\/h2>\n

What we liked:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Security lies at the heart of XOR Drive. Proudly proclaiming itself as \u201cencrypted cloud storage\u201d, the platform abandons centralised systems in favour of a decentralised blockchain-based service. So, rather than letting a single company keep all your data, you\u2019re completely in control of it, making XOR Drive the choice for the truly privacy conscious.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To get started, you need to create an account with Blockstack, which powers the service. You can then access your cloud storage and, once you\u2019re in, things start to look a little more familiar. In fact, if you didn\u2019t know about XOR\u2019s emphasis on security, privacy and data ownership, you\u2019d think this was just another cloud-storage platform \u2013 and that\u2019s no bad thing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Uploading to the service is speedy. Unlike other contenders, you can also drag and drop files to upload them. Sharing, too, offers the option to share publicly or to send files direct to other Blockstack users, keeping them private.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How it can be improved:<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a heavy user of cloud storage, you\u2019ll notice everything slows down when uploading files over 10MB to the free account. Likewise, upload and download times are penalised if you\u2019re using more than 10GB of storage. Occasionally, when attempting to see files, we received the notification that XOR \u2018Failed to load preview\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bloom<\/span><\/h2>\n

What we liked:<\/b><\/p>\n

Bloom \u2013 currently in beta \u2013 is very similar to Cozy.This browser-based cloud-storage service is big, bright and easy to navigate, and includes an Android app.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The interface\u2019s mobile-style icons take you to different areas \u2013 Drive, Photos, Music, contacts and so on.
\nAnd while you may not have any games saved, visit Arcade anyway, for a free version of popular puzzler 2,048.
\nYou can also access Bitflow, for downloading files saved as torrents.<\/p>\n

Once you get into the actual drives themselves, it begins to feel less mobile-inspired and more like a traditional cloud platform. Looking like a mash-up between OneDrive and Google Drive, navigation is standard and uploads are fairly quick, though by no means the fastest. Bloom\u2019s storage is certainly generous \u2013 sign up for free and you\u2019ll immediately get 30GB to use how you choose.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How it can be improved:<\/b><\/p>\n

Because it\u2019s not yet had a full release, Bloom is lacking in certain areas. There\u2019s no iOS app (though there are hints that it\u2019s under consideration) and no dedicated desktop installation \u2013 all that cloud magic happens in your browser or in the Android app. That may be a deal-breaker, particularly for iPhone and iPad owners.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Clark<\/p>\n

6 Feb, 2020 <\/p>\n

When it comes to cloud computing, it’s easy to fall back on the same big name players like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and Google. But, as in so many areas of computing, open source can …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":472,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/472"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40373,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40372\/revisions\/40373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}