AList vs Pydio Cells
| Tagline | File list program supporting multiple storages, with WebDAV and web UI | Self-hosted document sharing and collaboration platform for the enterprise |
| Category | File Storage & Sync | File Storage & Sync |
| Replaces | Google Drive, Dropbox | Dropbox, Box, Google Drive |
| GitHub stars | 50k | 2.2k |
| Language | Go | Go |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 4/5 Involved |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 4 days ago | yesterday |
| 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
Pydio Cells
- Smaller community and ecosystem than Nextcloud/Seafile
- Some enterprise capabilities are gated behind the paid Cells Enterprise edition
- Microservices architecture makes setup and troubleshooting more complex than simpler apps
- Office/document co-editing relies on external integrations
Bottom line
Choose AList if you want the lower-effort setup; choose AList for the larger community and ecosystem. Pydio Cells has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Pydio Cells
Self-hosted document sharing and collaboration platform for the enterprise