Enterprise features on the cheap
January 08, 2019

Enterprise features on the cheap

Marc-Olivier Turgeon-Ferland | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with ownCloud

I use it to store my personal files as the free solutions (Gdrive and such) do not offer enough storage.

We do not use it inside the organization but I think ownCloud would be a great fit for small to medium enterprise as it offers enterprise features and it's really simple to set up and operates. Of course, the main problem is that you need to host it but there is a lot of cloud-hosted instances of ownCloud that can be worth it IMO.
  • 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)
  • 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
  • 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
The sync client is great and outperforms OneDrive for sure and sometimes even Google Drive depending on the number and size of the files.

If you already have your own home-lab or server room, it's really not expensive to buy a couple hard drives and have TBs of storage. Compared to any other online solution, it's really not expensive.
OwnCloud is a great replacement to local SMB shares, in my opinion. It supports Webdav and it can be easily and safely published on the internet for remote access to the data without VPN. OwnCloud would also be great for a small to medium enterprise that can't afford the real enterprise alternatives, need way too much storage or need/want to control where their data is stored. I don't think ownCloud is well suited for big enterprises unless you really need to control/secure your data. I feel it would need a lot of investment to scale on a large user and data scale and stay responsive.

ownCloud Feature Ratings

Versioning
10
Video files
5
Audio files
5
Document collaboration
4
Access control
10
File search
6
Device sync
10
User and role management
8
File organization
9
Device management
5
Performance
2
Reliability
5
Storage Reports
5