AList vs sftpgo Community Edition
| Tagline | File list program supporting multiple storages, with WebDAV and web UI | Fully-featured SFTP server with FTP/S and WebDAV support |
| Category | File Storage & Sync | File Storage & Sync |
| Replaces | Google Drive, Dropbox | Dropbox, Box, Google Drive |
| GitHub stars | 50k | 12k |
| Language | Go | Go |
| 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 | 13 days ago | 3 days 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
sftpgo Community Edition
- No built-in collaborative document editing; files are raw storage only
- Web UI is admin-focused, lacks a polished end-user sharing experience compared to Dropbox
- Mobile sync clients are not provided natively; third-party clients needed
- Real-time collaboration and commenting features absent
Bottom line
Choose AList if you want the lower-effort setup; choose AList for the larger community and ecosystem. sftpgo Community Edition has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.