AList vs Garage
| Tagline | File list program supporting multiple storages, with WebDAV and web UI | Lightweight S3-compatible distributed object storage for self-hosters |
| Category | File Storage & Sync | File Storage & Sync |
| Replaces | Google Drive, Dropbox | Dropbox, Google Drive, Box |
| GitHub stars | 50k | 1.8k |
| Language | Go | Rust |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 22 days ago | 1 month ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
AList
- Primarily a read/list and aggregation layer; not a true two-way sync engine like Dropbox
- No native desktop/mobile sync clients (relies on WebDAV)
- Limited collaboration, versioning, and team permission features
- Documentation is partly Chinese-first and can lag for some backends
Garage
- No built-in web UI for browsing files; relies on external S3 clients
- Lacks advanced IAM policies compared to AWS S3
- No built-in CDN or edge caching layer
Bottom line
Choose AList if you want the lower-effort setup; choose AList for the larger community and ecosystem. AList has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.