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ownCloud

Score9.2 out of 10

36 Reviews and Ratings

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What is ownCloud?

ownCloud is a self-hosted open source file syncing and sharing option, from the Boston-based company of the same name.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features ownCloud has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 36 ratings of ownCloud's features
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Top Performing Features

  • Access control

    Users can control access to (shared) files, including different levels of access such as view-only or permission to edit.

    Category average: 8.6

  • Device sync

    Device syncing that updates files connected to the cloud, keeping all files up to date regardless of where they are edited or viewed.

    Category average: 8.4

  • Reliability

    Cloud storage platform is secure, all features are consistently available, and the platform maintains file integrity.

    Category average: 9

Areas for Improvement

  • Video files

    Supports video file types

    Category average: 8

  • Document collaboration

    Users can edit files and attach comments to files.

    Category average: 8.4

  • Device management

    Administrators can manage devices connected to the cloud storage platform, including restricting access for certain devices or wiping files from devices remotely.

    Category average: 8.7

Reviews

What users are saying about ownCloud.
View all reviews

The ideal tool for sharing files across your team!

Incentivized
João AlmeidaView profile
Researcher in Engineering at Instituto de Telecomunicações (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Open plaform, one can federate with others' OwnCloud and share files.
  • Easy to upload and download documents.
  • Scalable and lightweight solution for cloud storing.

Cons

  • The Web user interface can be a little be slow sometimes.
  • No online video viewer by default.
  • No online document editor.

Return on Investment

  • Maintenance is very simple for Linux developers.
  • Enhanced organization and increased productivity.
  • It is a suitable option for institutions that pay cloud hosting and that can this way save money every month.

Alternatives Considered

Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox

Other Software Used

Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox

Usability

Excellent Software with Great Value - Don't Forget the Add Ons!

Incentivized
Jonathan Hanson
Owner in Information Technology at TechEdge Computer Solutions (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • Attention and dedication to making the product a world class product with continual product updates.
  • Ease of use from an administration standpoint, and a very Clear UI.
  • The price -- you can't beat free!
  • Mobile applications are great.
  • Integration with public S3 cloud providers like AWS S3 and Wasabi S3.
  • 2FA authentication is supported and works great!
  • Marketplace Add-Ons: I love this! For example, I can install an add-on that natively opens raw images. I am a photographer as well, and being able to quickly view the CR2 Raw Files direct from the camera is fantastic! This was made possible by a marketplace add-in.
  • Embedded Media Players: Photos, Music, and Video files can be viewed and played right in the browser window.
  • Sync application to keep local files on a computer updated with the files on the server.
  • Access control and permissions -- shareable links!

Cons

  • Backup and redundancy -- I wish there was a method right in the interface to completely back up the entire system. I use it on a VM, so I can snapshot and backup the VM, but there is nothing directly in the ownCloud interface to be able to do.
  • Docker/Container/MVM Function. I would love to see ownCloud natively support docker or virtualizations where it could host and spin up a VM or run containerized applications.

Return on Investment

  • The ability to offer more services and faster delivery of files -- this has given me the ability to sell my photography, as well as to provide a secure and easy way to share files. This results in a higher bottom line.
  • Cost Effective -- ownCloud is free, and therefore is not costing me a bunch of money each month to offer file sharing and collaboration services.
  • It runs on my own equipment -- I know the data is safe, and can use this as a selling point when bidding on a job.

Alternatives Considered

Dropbox Business, Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), Google Drive and FreeNAS

Other Software Used

ScreenCloud Signage, JW Player, Webroot SecureAnywhere, Accounting by Wave, Square for Retail, Comodo Advanced Endpoint Protection (AEP), Pinnacle Studio, Oracle VM VirtualBox, Ubuntu Linux, Concrete5, Hesk, Canon PIXMA-PRO, Jive Hosted VoIP, GoToMeeting, Vimeo Pro, Loom, ConnectWise Control (formerly ScreenConnect), Apache OpenOffice

Usability

Enterprise features on the cheap

Incentivized
Marc-Olivier Turgeon-FerlandView profile
System Administrator in Information Technology at Coveo (201-500 employees employees)

Pros

  • Great sync apps on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. (was even better then gDrive client for a while but they caught up)
  • A lot of Security features including End-to-End encryption, server-side encryption
  • Control on where your data is stored
  • Plugin marketplace allows for unlimited features
  • Incomparable transfer speed if hosted locally
  • Always has the latest feature because it's open source
  • Expiration date/timer on sharing (either to someone directly or on links)

Cons

  • Requires you to manage the infrastructure, software updates, backups and security because it is self-hosted
  • The picture viewer in ownCloud is not really snappy by default (You need to setup plugins or some kind of cache)
  • No video viewer by default
  • The web UI requires a cache setup to have reasonable load times (to be fair, it is recommended in the admin page)
  • I stopped using the calendar and contacts plugins because after each update they would break

Return on Investment

  • Software is free so if you are going for a hosted solution anyway, it's hard to beat
  • One of the easiest way to make sure your data is secured without compromising on features
  • You need to manage the infrastructure and software

Alternatives Considered

Google Drive and OneDrive

Other Software Used

Hyper-V, Altaro Hyper-V Backup, Arcserve Backup, FreeNAS, SysAid

Enterprise grade cloud document platform, accessible!

Incentivized
Tommy BoucherView profile
IT Director in Information Technology at Coveo (201-500 employees employees)

Pros

  • Many plugins, for video, audio, documents, integrations, etc.
  • Very secure, including end-user file encryption.
  • Open, I can federate with my friends' OwnCloud and share/backup documents.

Cons

  • You host your own data, maybe it's better to use an hosted version of OwnCloud to keep the files at a different location.
  • The WebUI can be very slow sometimes.

Return on Investment

  • Since I don't use corporate space for my own data, I spare very expensive gigs of data!
  • Because it's open source and self hosted, I can have an enterprise grade cloud for free.
  • Slow Internet means slow performance. If you host your OwnCloud on a slow connectivity, you will have a lot of issues, and it can cost way more than a hosted version.

Alternatives Considered

Dropbox for Business, Google Drive, OneDrive and CrashPlan

Other Software Used

Hyper-V, Altaro Hyper-V Backup, Arcserve Backup

ownCloud is a reasonable document management solution for SMB

Incentivized
Martin MalecView profile
Coordinator in Information Technology at Česká psychedelická společnost, z.s. (Czech Psychedelic Society) (11-50 employees employees)

Pros

  • Runs fine on a inexpensive Linux VPS with a few CPU cores and little RAM and is able to serve well for dozens of users. The scalability at almost no extra cost is perfect.
  • Sync clients are available for all major platforms: MS Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and mobile apps on Android and iOS are available too and work very well. We use all these platforms and are able to exchange documents transparently.
  • Initial setting up the environment for users - such as creating a few user groups, virtual users owning particular folders and assigning users to these groups, is quite easy and quick. Auto-sync of data to local devices on all platforms is also perfect, users don't have to manually select anything, default is to sync (or admin can set on the desktop clients how big folders are auto-synced).

Cons

  • Inability to easily collaboratively edit the same document by several people. Some advances have been made with Collabora (Libreoffice online) but it is still very sub-par compared to Office365 and desktop/online Office editing Sharepoint or OneDrive documents.
  • Apps for Calendar and Contacts are not part of the basic core, and although now quite supported they cannot still be easily deployed in common email clients such as Outlook or Thunderbird, separate CalDAV and CardDAV plugins need to be installed. Embedding an email solution and plugins for major email clients so they can work just by entering username and password would be good.
  • Risk of moving important folders/files to another location just by random drag-and-drop on Windows. Sometimes this breaks public links that cannot be restored anymore. Reverting such mistake by any of the users is impossible automatically.
  • When some user deletes some data in a shared folder it is put into recycle bin of the owner of the folder. The user who deleted cannot himself/herself revert such action as he/she does not see the recycle bin (trash) of the owner. Also, there is no log in the recycle bin who deleted that file or folder.

Return on Investment

  • The company grew from 4 employees in 2013 when ownCloud was initially deployed to about 40 in 2017 and still using it with a very similar setting without any major upgrade on the same Linux VPS. 95% of all company data are stored and shared via ownCloud successfully. No clear data about ROI but clearly the perfect adoption rate by all people and its ubiquitous use makes it an essential part of the company workflow.

Alternatives Considered

Office365 and MS SharePoint

Other Software Used

LibreOffice, Slack, Trello, Microsoft Office 365, Adobe Illustrator CC