Open Source Alternatives to Google Drive

Switching from Google Drive to an open source alternative means your files stop living exclusively on Google’s servers under a shared Google One quota. Nextcloud is the closer match: a self-hosted platform that pairs file sync and sharing with collaborative document editing (via Collabora or OnlyOffice), calendars, and other groupware, running on infrastructure you or a hosting provider control. Syncthing takes a different approach, skipping cloud storage entirely and syncing files directly between your own devices over encrypted peer-to-peer connections, with no server-hosted copy at all. Seafile lands in between: a self-hosted, server-based platform like Nextcloud, but narrower in scope, focused on fast block-level sync and per-library version history rather than a full groupware suite — its core is open source under AGPL-3.0, though Seafile Ltd. also sells a proprietary Professional Edition with extra enterprise features. All three trade Google’s real-time Docs/Sheets collaboration polish and mobile app maturity for more control over where your data physically resides.