Google Drive alternatives

3 projects to consider for your Google Drive workflows.

3 open source

Explore Cozy, CryptPad and Pluton. Each takes a different approach to your Google Drive workflows. Read its capabilities and limitations to find the right fit.

Catalogue facts checked August 31, 2026

Cozy

French personal cloud for files, notes, and passwords.

Open sourceAGPL-3.0Self-hostedManaged hostingAcquired

People who want a European home for their personal data get the most from Cozy: its France-hosted cloud bundles Drive storage, automatic bill connectors, notes, and a password manager from 0 euros per month. The decisive tradeoff is the ongoing transition to Twake Workplace branding, so buyers who want a settled mainstream product should choose Nextcloud for self-hosting or Dropbox for ubiquity instead.[1][2][3]

Good fit. Privacy-minded individuals wanting a European home for personal data: France hosting with GDPR compliance is the core promise, not an add-on.[1]

Keep in mind. Anyone confused by the brand transition: Cozy Cloud is becoming Twake Workplace, so accounts, apps, and docs currently span two names.[1]

Repository review signals: unknown status, very stale · Observed October 3, 2026.

Read project review Official website

Sources and editorial review

Source research. Reviewed on October 9, 2026. Written by Sanjib Sah. AI assisted; reviewed by a human editor.

We have not run or tested this product.

Cozy official site
official · Observed October 9, 2026
Official homepage: Cozy Cloud becoming Twake Workplace, collaborative open-source platform with messaging and file sharing, Drive storage with automatic document connectors, France hosting with GDPR compliance, Docker on-site installation, free storage with paid upgrades.
Cozy pricing (official)
official · Observed October 9, 2026
Official pricing page: Decouverte free plan at 0 euros per month with 5 GB, Standard at 4 euros per month with 50 GB, Premium at 12 euros per month with 1 TB, enterprise quote, cancellation terms.
linagora/cozy-stack repository
official · Observed October 3, 2026
Repository linagora/cozy-stack, redirected from cozy/cozy-stack after the Twake and Linagora takeover: AGPL-3.0, Go with CouchDB, about 1,270 stars observed October 3, 2026.

CryptPad

Encrypted collaboration suite for docs, sheets, and files

Open sourceAGPL-3.0Self-hostedManaged hosting

Privacy-sensitive teams, classrooms, and self-hosters who want shared editing without readable data on any server will get the most from CryptPad. Its browser-encrypted suite covers documents, spreadsheets, presentations, boards, and forms with real-time co-editing, versioned history, and permission-aware link sharing, free to use and free to host under AGPL-3.0. The price of that privacy is quota-bounded free storage and paid tiers for space, admin controls, and support, plus a zero-knowledge design where no operator can recover content for you. If encryption and self-hosting decide the choice, choose CryptPad; if Workspace integration and centralized administration decide it, evaluate Google Drive first.[1][2][3][4]

Good fit. Privacy-sensitive teams leaving ad-supported suites: end-to-end encryption with no ads and no data mining, built by a grant-funded EU team.[1][2]

Keep in mind. Readers needing large free storage: the free tier is bounded by quota, and more space with bigger uploads requires a paid cryptpad.fr subscription.[1][2]

Repository review signals: unknown status, very stale · Observed October 3, 2026.

Read project review Official website

Sources and editorial review

Source research. Reviewed on October 9, 2026. Written by Sanjib Sah. AI assisted; reviewed by a human editor.

We have not run or tested this product.

CryptPad official site
official · Observed October 9, 2026
Official homepage: end-to-end encrypted open-source office suite, real-time editing and collaboration, full app suite, free trial on public instances.
About CryptPad
official · Observed October 9, 2026
Official about page: application list, browser encryption with unreadable server data, team drives and calendar, AGPL free software, self-hosting, XWiki Paris maker, grant funding.
CryptPad Document
official · Observed October 9, 2026
Official Document app page: Word and Docs alternative, editing tools, auto-save with versioned history and snapshots, Fast and Strict modes, permission-aware links, no ads or data mining.
CryptPad pricing
official · Observed October 9, 2026
Official pricing page: free public instance and self-hosting with donations, cryptpad.fr paid plans from 5 to 100 euros per month, managed and on-premise enterprise tiers from 1,500 euros per year with education and nonprofit discount.

Pluton

Free open-source backup with end-to-end encryption

Open sourceApache-2.0Self-hosted

People protecting personal or small-team files across several cloud accounts benefit most from Pluton. Its concrete advantage is on-device encryption plus incremental snapshots that land on more than 70 storage backends, from local disks to S3-compatible clouds. The material constraint is youth: the project is under a year old, so long-term restore reliability is still being proven and public user reports are scarce. If you need a backup tool with a decade of recovery stories behind it, choose a mature engine directly; if you accept a young project in exchange for a modern interface and zero licence cost, Pluton is worth a trial restore.[1][2][3][4]

Good fit. People consolidating scattered cloud storage will get the most out of it: files already sitting across Google Drive, S3, and a NAS become backup destinations under one encrypted plan instead of requiring another paid vault.[1][2]

Keep in mind. Teams needing proven decade-scale restores should wait: backup software is judged by recoveries years later, and a project started in late 2025 cannot yet show that record.[1][2]

Repository review signals: unknown status, stale · Observed October 12, 2026.

Read project review Official website

Sources and editorial review

Source research. Reviewed on October 12, 2026. Written by Sanjib Sah. AI assisted; reviewed by a human editor.

We have not run or tested this product.

Pluton official homepage
official · Observed October 12, 2026
Official homepage: free open-source self-hosted backup; on-device Restic-engine encryption and compression; scheduled incremental backups; 3-2-1 replication; 70+ providers; retention; guided restore; Docker/standalone; 50MB idle; 2FA; notifications.
plutonhq/pluton repository
official · Observed October 12, 2026
Repo: modern self-hosted backup for encrypted backups across local and cloud storage; LICENSE present; topics backup, restic, self-hosted.
Pluton download page
official · Observed October 12, 2026
Free builds for Windows, Linux Desktop (AppImage x64/arm64), macOS, Linux Server, Docker, and source; install instructions; no paid tiers.
Pluton integrations page
official · Observed October 12, 2026
70+ storage backends: Local, SMB, SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, Backblaze B2, AWS S3, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, Azure Blob, GCS, MEGA, pCloud, Storj, SeaFile and others.
Repository metadata API
official · Observed October 12, 2026
Repo metadata: public non-fork, homepage usepluton.com, created 2025-11-19, pushed 2026-09-09, 850 stars, 36 forks, TypeScript-dominant, license apache-2.0.

Compare Google Drive alternatives

Known catalogue facts at a glance. Columns with no reviewed values are omitted. “Not reviewed” means unknown, not that a capability is absent.

Known facts for Google Drive alternatives
Project	License policy	Hosting	Deployment	Enterprise support	Best fit
Cozy	AGPL-3.0 · OSI-approved	Self-hosted + Managed	moderate	Not reviewed	Personal file sync; Private notes
CryptPad	AGPL-3.0 · OSI-approved	Self-hosted + Managed	moderate	Yes	Group document collaboration with encrypted storage; Real-time editing of documents, sheets, and presentations
Pluton	Apache-2.0 · OSI-approved	Self-hosted	easy	Not reviewed	Individuals keeping encrypted 3-2-1 backups of personal files across several cloud storages; Small teams that want self-hosted backups without per-seat backup SaaS pricing

Before you switch

Check that the project covers the workflows and data you need to move.
Confirm that the license terms fit how you plan to run, modify, and distribute it.
Choose between self-hosting responsibility and a reviewed managed option.
Open the project page for repository freshness, review dates, and any unresolved requirements.

About Google Drive

Google Drive is storage with an office suite attached, and the suite is the reason most organisations are on it. Docs, Sheets, and Slides collaborate in real time well enough that the underlying file storage barely gets thought about.

As pure sync it is weaker than Dropbox, particularly for large binary files and selective sync on desktop. As a place for a company's documents to live, it is very hard to dislodge.

Google · 15 GB free, Workspace plans from $7/user/month · Checked August 31, 2026

Official website

How this list is ordered

Recommended · Organic catalogue order.

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