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File Browser

Lightweight web file manager for a single directory on your server

30k Go Apache-2.0 18 days ago

Overview

File Browser is a single-binary web application that provides a clean interface to manage, upload, share, and edit files in a specified directory on your server. It supports multiple users with permissions, shareable links, and a built-in editor, making it a simple self-hosted alternative for accessing your files anywhere. It is extremely easy to deploy with no external dependencies.

Key features

  • Single static binary with no external dependencies
  • Web interface to upload, edit, and manage files in a chosen directory
  • Multi-user accounts with per-user permissions
  • Shareable links for individual files and folders
  • Built-in text editor for quick edits in the browser

Our take

File Browser does exactly one thing well: it puts a clean, fast web UI in front of a directory on your server, and the single-binary, zero-dependency deployment makes it trivial to drop onto almost anything. User permissions and shareable links cover the common access-control needs, and the built-in editor is handy for quick changes. The trade-off is scope: this is not a sync platform, so there are no desktop sync clients, no file versioning, and no mobile apps in the Dropbox sense, just web-based access. If you want full sync-and-share, look at Nextcloud instead, but if you just need to reach and share files through a browser, File Browser is hard to beat on simplicity.

Ideal for: Anyone who wants a no-fuss web UI to browse and share files in one directory on a server without standing up a full sync platform.

Where it falls short of Dropbox

  • No automatic desktop or mobile sync client; it's a web file manager, not a sync engine
  • No file versioning or trash/restore comparable to Dropbox
  • Single-directory scope; not built for large multi-tenant deployments
  • Sharing and collaboration features are basic compared to Google Drive

We list the gaps honestly so you can decide if the trade-off is worth owning your data.

Tags

file-manager
web-ui
self-hosted
go
single-binary
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