Excellent Software with Great Value - Don't Forget the Add Ons!
May 01, 2019
Excellent Software with Great Value - Don't Forget the Add Ons!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with ownCloud
I own a computer service and support company, and I also own a Photography business. OwnCloud -- now NextCloud -- has been an indispensable suite of applications that has allowed me to continue to serve my customers on both business fronts, and has allowed me to grow my business by being able to offer real-time sync and file shares as needed. I absolutely love ownCloud, and am very grateful that this project exists.
OwnCloud has enabled me to increase my services and my offerings, therefore increasing my bottom line without substantial cost increases and without monthly subscription charges. In my opinion, there are more features and more value in ownCloud than there are on paid cloud storage/collaboration platforms.
OwnCloud has enabled me to increase my services and my offerings, therefore increasing my bottom line without substantial cost increases and without monthly subscription charges. In my opinion, there are more features and more value in ownCloud than there are on paid cloud storage/collaboration platforms.
- 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!
- 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.
- 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.
- Dropbox Business, Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), Google Drive and FreeNAS
I have a very similar experience between Google Drive and Dropbox. Both offer real-time sharing and collaboration. Google Drive limits external access and requires the recipient of shared files to have a Google account. In the case of both Dropbox and GoogleDrive, they limit the amount of storage on the free plan. OwnCloud offers as much storage as my server will allow, and this can be increased as needed. Right now, I have 2TB of storage without the cost or subscription.
FreeNAS is great as far as storing files and sharing the files locally on the network. It is possible to share files through FreeNAS as well, but there really isn't much in the way of collaboration. So while storage is great, working as a team is not really possible.
Amazon S3 is great for reliable and secure data storage. But, by itself, it isn't great for collaboration either. And there is substantial cost involved with large amounts of data storage. The AWS S3 power is truly unlocked when paired with ownCloud-- then it's like magic!
FreeNAS is great as far as storing files and sharing the files locally on the network. It is possible to share files through FreeNAS as well, but there really isn't much in the way of collaboration. So while storage is great, working as a team is not really possible.
Amazon S3 is great for reliable and secure data storage. But, by itself, it isn't great for collaboration either. And there is substantial cost involved with large amounts of data storage. The AWS S3 power is truly unlocked when paired with ownCloud-- then it's like magic!