12 Open Source Cloud Storage Software to

Store and Sync Your Data Quickly and Safely

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Cloud by name indicates something which is very huge and present over a large area. Going by
the name, in technical field, Cloud is something which is virtual and provides services to end
users in form of storage, hosting of apps or virtualizing any physical space. Now a days, Cloud
computing is used by small as well as large organizations for data storage or providing customers
with its advantages which are listed above.

12 Free Open Source Cloud Storage Softwares

Mainly, three types of Services come associated with Cloud which are: SaaS (Software as a
Service) for allowing users to access other publically available clouds of large organizations for
storing their data like: gmail, PaaS (Platform as a Service) for hosting of apps or software on
Others public cloud ex: Google App Engine which hosts apps of users, IaaS (Infrastructure as
a Service) for virtualizing any physical machine and availing it to customers to make them get
feel of a real machine.

Cloud Storage

Cloud Storage means storage of data away from users local system and across the span of
dedicated servers which are meant for this. At its earliest, CompuServe in 1983 offered its
customers 128k of disk space which could be used to store files. Whereas this field is under
active development and will be because of potential threats including: loss of data or
information, data hacking or masquerading and other attacks, many organizations have come
forward with their own solutions to Cloud Storage and Data Privacy which is strengthening and
stabilizing its future.

In this article, we will present some of selected contributions for this concern which are open
source and successfully being accepted by huge masses and big organizations.

1. OwnCloud

A Dropbox replacement for Linux users, giving many functionalities which are similar to that of
DropBox, ownCloud is a self-hosted file sync and share server.

Its open source functionality provides users with access to unlimited amount of storage space.
Project started in January 2010 with aim to provide open source replacement for proprietary
cloud storage service providers. It is written in PHP, JavaScript and available for Windows,
Linux, OS X desktops and even successfully provides mobile clients for Android and iOS.

OwnCloud employs WebDav server for remote access and can integrate with large number of
Databases including: SQLite, MariaDB, MySQL, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL.

Provides large number of features countable of which include: File storage and encryption,
Music Streaming, content sharing across URLs, Mozilla sync hosting and RSS/Atom feed
reader, one-click app installation, Video and PDF viewer and many more.

The latest version of ownCloud i.e. 8.2 adds on other new features including: improved design,
allows admin to notify users and set retention limits on files in the trash.
OwnCloud

Read More: Install OwnCloud 8 to Create Personal Cloud Storage in Linux

2. Seafile

Another file hosting software system which exploits open source property to avail its users with
all advantages they expect from a good cloud storage software system. It is written in C, Python
with latest stable release being 4.4.3 released on 15th October 2015.

Seafile provides desktop client for Windows, Linux, and OS X and mobile clients for Android,
iOS and Windows Phone. Along with a community edition released under General Public
License, it also has a professional edition released under commercial license which provides
extra features not supported in community edition i.e. user logging and text search.

Since it got open sourced in July 2012, it started gaining international attention. Its main features
are syncing and sharing with main focus on data safety. Other features of Seafile which have
made it common in many universities like: University Mainz, University HU Berlin and
University Strasbourg and also among other thousands of people worldwide are: online file
editing, differential sync to minimize the bandwidth required, client-side encryption to secure
client data.
Seafile Cloud Storage

Read More: Install Seafile Secure Cloud Storage in Linux

3. Pydio

Earlier known by the name AjaXplorer, Pydio is a freeware aiming to provide file hosting,
sharing and syncing. As a project it was initiated in 2009 by Charles du jeu and since 2010, it is
on all NAS equipments supplied by LaCie.

Pydio is written in PHP and JavaScript and available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux and
additionally for iOS and Android also. With nearly 500,000 downloads on Sourceforge, and
acceptance by companies like Red Hat and Oracle, Pydio is one of the very popular Cloud
Storage Software in the market.

In itself, Pydio is just a core which runs on a web server and can be accessed through any
browser. Its integrated WebDAV interface makes it ideal for online file management and
SSL/TLS encryption makes transmission channels encrypted securing the data and ensuring its
privacy. Other features which come with this software are: text editor with syntax highlighting,
audio and video playback, integration of Amazon, S3, FTP or MySQL Databases, image editor,
file or folder sharing even through public URLs.

4. Ceph

Ceph was initially started by Sage Well for his doctoral dissertation, and in fall 2007 he
continued on this project full time and expanded the development team. In April 2014 Red Hat
brought its development in-house. Till now 8 releases of Ceph have been released latest being
Hammer in April 7, 2015. Ceph is a distributed cluster written in C++ and Perl and highly
scalable and freely available.

Data can be populated in Ceph as block device, a file or in form Object through RADOS
gateway which can present support for Amazon S3 and Openstack Swift APIs. Apart from being
secure in terms of data, Scalable and reliable, other features provided by Ceph are:

1. network file system which aims for high performance and large data storage.

2. compatibility to VM clients.

3. allowance of partial/complete reads/ writes.

4. object level mappings.

Ceph Storage

5. Syncany

Released in about an year ago in near March 2014, Syncany is one of the lightest and open
source cloud storage and file sharing application. It is currently being actively developed by
Philipp C. Heckel and as of today, is available as a command line tool for all supported
platforms, but GUI version is under active development.

One of the most important feature about Syncany is that it is a tool and requires you to bring in
your own storage, which can be FTP or SFTP storage, WebDAV or Samba Shares, Amazon S3
buckets etc.

Other features which make it an awesome tool to have are: 128-bit AES+Twofish/GCM
encryption for all the data leaving the local machine, file sharing support with which you can
share your files with your friends, offsite storage as chosen by user instead of provider-based
storage, interval-based or on-demand backups, binary compatible file versioning, local
deduplication of files. It can be more advantageous for companies who want to use their own
storage space rather trusting some providers provided storage.
Syncany Cloud Storage

6. Cozy

Not just a file sharing or synchronization tool or software, Cozy is bundled as a complete
package of functions that can help you build your complete App Engine.

Like Syncany, Cozy provides flexibility to user in terms of storage space. You can either use
your own personal storage or trust Cozy teams servers. It relies on some open source softwares
for its complete functioning which are: CouchDB for Database storage and Whoosh for
indexing. It is available for all platforms including smartphones.

Main features which make it a must to have Cloud storage software are: ability to store all the
Contacts, Files, Calendar, etc in the Cloud and sync them between laptop and smartphone,
provides ability to user to create his own apps and share them with other users by just sharing
Git URL of the repository, hosting static websites or HTML5 video game consoles.
As a step further to provide its availability even for cheap hardwares, Cozy team has introduced
Cozy Light which performs well even on cheap hardwares like: Rasberry Pi, small Digital
Ocean VPS etc.

Cozy Cloud Storage

7. GlusterFS

GlusterFS is a network attached file storage system. Initially, started by Gluster Inc., this project
is now under Red Hat Inc. After their purchase of Gluster Inc in 2011. Red Hat integrated Gluster
FS with their Red Hat Storage Server changing its name to Red Hat Gluster Storage. It is
available for platforms including Linux, OS X, NetBSd and OpenSolaris with some of its parts
licensed under GPLv3 while others dual licensed under GPLv2. It has been used as a foundation
for academic research.

GlusterFs uses a client-server model with servers being deployed as storage bricks. Client can
connect to server with custom protocol over TCP/IP, Infiband or SDP and store files to the
GlusterFs server. Various functionalities being employed by it over the files are: file-based
mirroring and replication, file-based stripping, load balancing, scheduling and disk caching to
name a few.

Other very useful feature of it is that it is flexible i.e. data here is stored on native file systems
like: xfs, ext4 etc.

GlusterFS Storage

Read More: How to Install GlusterFS in Linux Systems

8. StackSync

StackSync is a Dropbox like tool running on top of OpenStack swift which is specially designed
to tackle the needs of organizations to sync their data at one place. It us written in Java and
released under GNU General public license v3.

Its framework is composed of three main components: a synchronization server, Openstack

swift, desktop & mobile clients. While the server processes metadata and logic, Openstack is
focused on storing the metadata while desktop and mobile clients help users sync their data to
their personal cloud.

StackSync employs various data optimizations that allow it to scale to cater the needs of
thousands of people with efficient use of cloud resources. Its other features are: provision of
RESTful API as a Swift module which allows mobile apps and other third party applications to
use it to sync data, separation between data and metadata which makes it flexible for deployment
based on different configurations, provides both Public configuration which is useful for Public
Cloud providers and Private configuration which solves the problems of big organizations
aiming for a better cloud storage solution.

StackSync Cloud Storage

9. Git-annex

Git-annex is another file synchronization service developed by Joey Hess, released in October
2010 which also aims to solve file sharing and synchronization problems but independent of any
commercial service or central server. It is written in Haskell and available for Linux, Android,
OS X and Windows.
Git-annex manages the git repository of the user without storing the session into git again. But
instead it stores only the linking to the file in the git repository and manages the files associated
to the link at a separate place. It ensures the duplicacy of file which is needed in case recovery of
lost information is required.

Further, it ensures availability of file data instantly as and when required which prevents files to
present on each system. This reduces a lot of memory overhead. Notably, git-annex is available
on various Linux distributions including: Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian etc.

Git-Annex

10. Yandex.Disk

Yandex.Disk is a cloud storage and synchronization service released in April 2012 and available
on all major platforms including: Linux, Windows, OS X, Android, iOS and Windows Phone. It
allows users to synchronize data between different devices and share it with others online.

Various features provided by Yandex.Disk to its users are: built-in flash player that lets people
preview songs, sharing of files with others by sharing download links, synchronization of files
between different devices of same user, unlimited storage, WebDAV support allowing easy
management of files by any application supporting WebDAV protocol.
Yandex-Disk

11. Bitcasa

Developed by Bitcasa Inc. Which is a California Based company, Bitcasa is yet another solution
for open source Cloud Storage and synchronization available for Windows, OS X, Android and
Linux. Not directly an open source software, but it is still a part of Open Source community as it
uses those softwares of which many are open sourced like: gcc/clang, libCurl, OpenSSL, APR,
Rapid JSON etc.

With main features being file storage, access and sharing other features which make it popular
among customers across more than 140 countries worldwide are: its convergent encryption
protocol which is mostly safe but with less risks associated with it as reported by an article,
provision of secure APIs and white label storage applications for OEMs, network operators and
software developers.
Bitcasa Storage

12. NAS4Free

NAS is acronym for Network Attached Storage and 4Free indicates its free and open source
nature. NAS4Free released under this name in March 2012. It is a network attached storage
server software with a user interface written in PHP and released under Simplified BSD License.
It supports platforms including i386/IA-32 and x86-64.

NAS4Free supports sharing across multiple Operating Systems. It also includes ZFS, disk
encryption etc with protocols such as: Samba, CARP, Bridge, FTP, RSYNC, TFTP, NFS. Unlike
other softwares, NAS4Free can be installed and operated from USB/ SSD Key, Hard Disk or
can even be booted from LiveCD, LiveUSB with small USB key for config storage. NAS4Free
has won awards including Project of month (August 2015) and Project of the week (May 2015).
NAS4Free Network Storage

Conclusion

These are some known Open Source Cloud storage and synchronization softwares which have
either gained a lot of popularity over the years or have just been able to enter and make their
mark in this industry with a long way to go. You can share any software that you or your
organization might be using and we will be listing that with this list.
Pydio Cloud Storage