AList vs TagSpaces
| Tagline | File list program supporting multiple storages, with WebDAV and web UI | Offline-first file manager and organiser with tagging and note-taking |
| Category | File Storage & Sync | File Storage & Sync |
| Replaces | Google Drive, Dropbox | Dropbox, Google Drive, Box |
| GitHub stars | 50k | 5.2k |
| Language | Go | Nodejs |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Docker Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 13 days ago | today |
| 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
TagSpaces
- No native real-time sync daemon; relies on WebDAV or manual folder pointing
- Collaborative multi-user editing not supported in the community edition
- Mobile apps are limited in functionality compared to the desktop version
- Full-text search across large libraries can be slow without prior indexing
Bottom line
Choose AList if you want the lower-effort setup; choose AList for the larger community and ecosystem. TagSpaces has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.