Do you know about Cloud? The Cloud directs something which is very massive and exists over a large area. In a practical field, Cloud is something that is computer-generated and allows services to end-users in the format of storage, hosting of apps, or virtualizing any physical space.
Cloud Storage Software
Cloud Storage is a system of storing data online as a substitute for your local computer. To use this storage system, you require an internet link in order to upload, alter, and share documents, videos, presentations, spreadsheets, images, audio, etc. with others. This storage service provider does not store any data on your PC’s hard disk.
Mostly, three types of Services are allied with the Cloud that are:
- SaaS (Software as a Service) Cloud software organizations like Gmail allow access to all.
- PaaS (Platform as a Service) Other public clouds like Google App host apps or software.
- IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) virtualizes any physical machine and avails it to customers.
Cloud storage tools assist you in accessing your data from any other device. Cloud storage software is a service that offers individual users, SMBs, and organizations a joined repository for all types of data manageable through any internet-enabled computer or mobile device.
Benefits of Cloud Storage Software
- Cloud storage services provide an easy-to-use user interface and drag and drop feature.
- This keeps your data stored with high security.
- Using cloud data storage, companies reduce the costs of internal resources.
- This tool provides appropriate file-sharing options.
- This storage works like a hard disk to store your data without annoying you.
- These permit more than one user association.
- These offer a sync option to use.
- These storage allow backup to save data.
List of Open Source Cloud Storage Software
Following is the list of top free cloud storage apps and tools, with standard features and the latest download links. This list includes paid as well as free software.
1. Nextcloud
Nextcloud is an open-source collection of client-server applications for making and using file hosting services. The software is accessible for everyone from individuals to large enterprises to download and operate the application by their remote server device.
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With this software, you can share numerous files and folders on your system and sync them with your Nextcloud server. The functionality is related to Dropbox, but it provides on-premises file storage hosting with solid security, compliance, and flexibility in management and sharing solutions to the server that you can control. Nextcloud files are saved in conventional directory structures and accessible through WebDAV. As a user, you can generate public URLs when sharing files.
Charting of file-related activities also canceling access based on file access rules is also available in features. Nextcloud plans new features such as monitoring proficiencies, full-text search, expanded federation, Kerberos authentication, audio/video conferencing, and simple user interface expansions.
2. ownCloud
ownCloud is a good self-hosted file sync and share server. It is a free functionality provider with access to unlimited storage space. This provided service since 2010, intending to offer an open-source cloud storage service. This is written in PHP and JavaScript and is available for Windows, Linux, and OS X desktops. It even effectively delivers mobile clients for Android and iOS.
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OwnCloud renders a WebDav server for remote access and can include a large number of Databases containing Oracle Database, SQLite, MariaDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL. It provides a large number of functions comprising: file storage and encryption, one-click app installation, music streaming, PDF viewer, content sharing crosswise URLs, Mozilla sync hosting, RSS/Atom feed reader, video, and many more. The latest version of ownCloud adds new functions with improved design permits the admin to notify users and sets retention bounds on files in the trash.
3. GlusterFS
GlusterFS is a network-related file storage system. Firstly, started by Gluster Inc. This project is now under Red Hat Inc. after the purchase of Gluster Inc. in 2011. Red Hat combined Gluster FS with their Red Hat Storage Server altering the name to Red Hat Gluster Storage.
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This software uses a client-server model with servers actuality deployed as storage bricks. It is accessible for Linux, OS X, NetBSD, and OpenSolaris platforms, with some parts licensed under GPLv3 but others dual-licensed under GPLv2. It has been used as a basis for hypothetical research.
A client can be linked to a server with custom protocol over Infiniband, TCP/IP, or SDP and save files to the GlusterFs server. It includes loads of functionalities like file-based scheduling, mirroring and replication, file-based stripping, load balancing, and disk caching. Another very beneficial feature of it is that it is flexible; for example, data here is stored on inherent file systems like xfs, ext4, etc.
4. Seafile
Seafile is also a file hosting software that enterprise open-source property to allow users with all benefits they expect from a good cloud storage software system. It offers desktop clients for Windows, Linux, and OS X and mobile clients for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. This software is written in C, Python with the latest stable release being.
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Alongside with a community version that is released under General Public License and a professional version that is released under a commercial license. Professional offers extra functions that are not supported in the community edition, such as user logging and text search. When it became open-sourced, it started grabbing international attention.
In main features, you have to sync and share with the main focus on data safety. Other features that made it common in many universities and among thousands of people globally doing online file editing include differential sync to reduce the bandwidth and client-side encryption to safe client data.
5. Pydio
Earlier known as AjaXplorer, Pydio is a freeware that provides file sharing, hosting, and syncing. It was started in 2009 by Charles Du Jeu, and since 2010, it has been on all NAS equipment supplied by LaCie. It is written in PHP and JavaScript languages. Also, it is available for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and furthermore for iOS and Android also.
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With millions of downloads and acceptance by giant companies, this become one of the very famous Cloud Storage Software in the market. The software is just a core that can be opened through any browser. This software has a WebDAV interface and it is best for Online File Management. Also, SSL/TLS encryption creates transmission networks encrypted, securing the data and certifying its privacy. Other features in this software are an integration of Amazon, S3, text editor with syntax highlighting, audio and video playback, FTP or image editor, MySQL Databases, file or folder sharing even through public URLs.
6. Ceph
Ceph has originally started by Sage Well for his doctoral thesis, and in 2007 he worked on this project full time and extended the development team. It is a tool written in C++ and Perl and highly accessible and freely available. In 2014, Red Hat purchased development in-house. Till now, it has 14 versions.
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Data can be categorized as ablock device, a file, or in the form of an object through RADOS gateway, which can extant support for Amazon S3 and Openstack Swift API. Apart from being protected in terms of data, scalable, and reliable, other features are provided by Ceph. It has network file system intentions for high performance and ample data storage in other functions. It also creates compatibility with VM clients allows partial/complete reads/ writes and object-level mappings.
7. Syncany
Syncany is also a good freeware and lightweight cloud storage service provider and file-sharing app. Philipp C. Heckel keenly develops it. Today, it is available as a command-line tool and GUI for all allowed platforms.
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The most important feature of this software is that it requires you to get in your own storage, which can be Amazon S3 buckets, FTP or SFTP storage, WebDAV or Samba Shares, etc. . It can be more beneficial for companies who want to use their own storage space rather than believing some storage providers.
Other features that make it a remarkable tool to have are: 128-bit AES+Twofish/GCM encryption for all the data leaving the local machine, file-sharing permission with which you can share your files with your friends, offsite storage that is chosen by the user as a substitute of provider-based storage, interval-based or on-demand backups, binary well-suited file versioning, local deduplication of files
8. Cozy
Cozy is not just a file-sharing or management tool or software. It is a complete collection package of functions that can help you to create your complete App Engine. It provides users an intelligent, decentralized, and secure storage space that offers them to restore information via its connectors.
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Like others, it provides relaxation to the user in expressions of storage space. You can either use your personal storage space or trust this tool server. It depends on some open source software for complete operations, that is, CouchDB for database storage and Rustle for indexing. It is accessible for all platforms, including smartphones.
The main features that make it a good Cloud storage software are Calendars, the ability to store all the Contacts, Files, etc. The Cloud can classify between laptop and smartphone, provides the ability to generate his own apps and share them with other users by sharing the Git URL of the repository, hosting static sites or HTML5 video game comforts.
9. Git-annex
Git-annex is another file management service developed by Joey Hess that also purposed to solve file sharing and organization problems but is independent of any commercial service or central server. It is written in Haskell, available for Linux, Android, OS X, and Windows.
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Git-annex manages the git dataspace of the user without saving the session into git again. But instead of saving data, it stores only the involving to the file in the git source and manages the files associated with the link at a different place. It confirms the duplicate of a desirable file in case the recovery of lost information is required.
Further, it guarantees the accessibility of file data rapidly when required, preventing files from presenting on each system. This decreases a lot of memory overhead. Remarkably, Git-annex is vacant on various Linux supplies, including Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, etc.
10. XigmaNAS
XigmaNAS is a free powerful, customizable storage NAS (meaning Network-Attached Storage) operating system based on FreeBSD, constructed for sharing computer data storage over a computer network. It can be downloaded on essentially any hardware platform and allows the sharing of data across Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, Windows as well as Mac OS.
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It has a smooth interface, but underside, it is not really what you were looking for. And with many other things, once you bought it. Over the years, with the competition, we see underpowered NAS devices that are altered with hardware/software locks and software updates concluded within 2-3 years. Some features contain support for S.M.A.R.T / email reports, ZFS v5000, software RAID (0,1,5), disk encryption, and much more. It permits multiple network protocols like CIFS/SMB (Samba), Active Directory Domain Controller (Samba), FTP, NFS, RSYNC, among others.
11. Yunohost
Yunohost is a free and open-to-use lightweight, reliable, protected self-hosting operating system related to Debian GNU/Linux. It streamlines server management by proposing a friendly web interface for you to administrate your server.
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This group is part of YunoHost, an operating system targeting to simplify till the best possible server administration. You have to manage your server to store data and set up your server with ease. You already have everything at home. It permits for management of operator accounts (via LDAP) and domain names that support the creation and restoration of backups, along with a full email stack (Postfix, Dovecot, Rspamd, DKIM) and a quick messaging server. Also, it supports security tools such as fail2ban, Yunohost-firewall, and the management of SSL certificates.
12. Sandstorm
Sandstorm is a good open-source self-cloud web-based efficiency suite developed to run easily and firmly open source web applications either on your own local server or on community-run servers. It provides file saving and sharing with others using Davros, a chat app, mailbox, a task and project management app, a document editing function, and many others.
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It is constructed for individuals, businesses, and developers. Each application you download in this tool is arranged in its own safe sandbox from which it cannot connect to the world without direct permission. And significantly, it permits a locked operation model that makes it easy to observe security, regulatory, and data privacy desires.
Once you sign in, all your files know who you are. No need to sign in every time individually and remember dozens of passwords. You can share any grain (such as a document or a chat room) with your friends or colleagues using one common sharing interface. All these connections are handled through this Powerbox UI, allowing apps to find each other and permitting you to grant permissions easily and firmly.
13. Syncthing
Syncthing is an open-source, modest yet powerful, and moveable private and secure nonstop file management tool that coordinates files between two or more clouds in real-time. It is related to Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, FreeBSD, Solaris, and OpenBSD.
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All communication via Syncthing is encoded (secured using TLS), and every device is recognized by a robust cryptographic license to ensure secure verification. You can set up and monitor its operations through a powerful and responsive user interface(UI) available via a web browser. Coordinate as many folders as you need with diverse people or just between your own devices. You are working through it on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, OpenBSD, and many others. Run it on your desktop PC and coordinate them with your server for backup.
14. Tonido
Tonido is a secretive and safe cloud storage service that allows file access, organization, and sharing for home and business use. It executes on Linux, Windows, Mac, and all other major mobile phones and tabs comprising iPhone, iPad, Android, and Windows Phone. Besides, it works on Raspberry Pi too.
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It permits you to access and share files from your PC at home. Business users can occupy it to backup, organize, search, share, sync, and manage enterprise documents to your employees, customers, and clients. Also, it offers ultra-fast, high-performance media management and access from anywhere. Make your life modest and keep everything prepared in one place with AirSend. You can enjoy conversations, voice/video calls, share files, manage tasks, and keep notes in one cooperative space, it provides free 100 GB file storage.
15. Disk
Yandex.Disk is a cloud storage and harmonization service for all main platforms counting Linux, Windows, OS X, Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. It offers users to online synchronize data among diverse devices and share them with others.
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Various features are provided by this software to the users as the built-in flash player that allow people to watch songs, sharing of files with others by sharing download links, management of files among different devices of the same user, unrestricted storage, WebDAV support letting easy management of files by any application associate WebDAV protocol.
This software does not contain ads, provides 1TB more storage, and has a history of file changes for 3 months. It provides priority support in editing and can download files from public pages even if you are out of space.
Final Words
These are some famous open-source Cloud storage and management software that have either expanded a lot of vogue over the years or have just entered and made their identity in this business with a long way to go. You can pick any software that you or your group feel comfortable with. You can select any one or more Cloud Storage tools from the list that fulfills all your requirements.
