Current Personal Cloud Storage Offerings are not Competitive

15 Jul 2024 • Reviews

As someone who relies on multiple computers, I appreciate the convenience that personal cloud storage providers offer. However, I’m surprised by how uncompetitive the current offerings are. Dissatisfied with my Dropbox subscription, I started exploring alternatives and realized this issue is prevalent across the board. I am writing this in hopes that someone who has solved this problem can give me some pointers.

What I Need in a Cloud Storage Solution

• Linux and MacOS client with stable sync
• Support for large files and many small files (from bytes to multi-gigabytes)
• Options to share files with non-logged-in users
• Decent pricing

Dropbox

Pros:

• Usually just works

Cons:

• Cannot share with non-Dropbox accounts
• Constant upsell prompts for more expensive accounts
• Very expensive

Google Drive

Pros:

• Never had an issue with data loss

Cons:

• Messy organization (hard to maintain folder structure, usually shows most recent files)
• MacOS sync client is buggy and resource-intensive
• No official Linux client

OneDrive

Pros:

• Competitive pricing

Cons:

• Had serious sync issues back in 2016 (files would disappear), so I haven’t tried it since
• No Linux client

OwnCloud

Pros:

• Open source

Cons:

• Sync client can be problematic (had mutliple issues as part of the ETH Zürich provided OwnCloud instance)
• Limited hosted options

NextCloud

Pros:

• Open source
• Can get hosting with Hetzner, offering outstanding value (but likely not encrypted on drive - they don’t mention anything).

Cons:

• Large ecosystem that sometimes feels half-baked

Conclusion

Ideally, I would want to stay on Google Drive or Dropbox, but their limitations are actively hindering my workflow. Currently, I am on Dropbox looking to move to a Hetzner-hosted NextCloud instance, but I am not too eager as it also comes with its limitations. If you know of a provider that would suit my workflow, please let me know.

Have any feedback?

Please feel free to send me a mail! I would love to hear from you.