What is Pydio Cells used for?

Pydio Cells is a file sharing and content collaboration platform for organizations, rewritten in Go with a microservice architecture. It is a good fit for organizations hosting their own file sharing and teams collaborating on shared content.

Is Pydio Cells open source?

Yes. Pydio Cells is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at pydio/cells and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. Pydio Cells is open source, so the software itself is free to use. Paid plans are also available, starting at €3,280 per year.

Can I self-host Pydio Cells?

Yes. Pydio Cells can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Pydio Cells an alternative to?

Pydio Cells is an open-source alternative to Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and pCloud. Other open-source alternatives to Dropbox include Nextcloud, ownCloud and Sync-in.

Is Pydio Cells actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Pydio Cells was on 30 September 2026, and the latest release is v5.1.0, published on 30 September 2026. The project has 2.3k stars on GitHub.

Pydio Cells: open-source alternative to Dropbox, Box

About Pydio Cells

Pydio Cells is a file sharing and content collaboration platform for organizations. It is a full rewrite of the earlier Pydio project in the Go language, built around a microservice architecture. Project topics describe it as a file sharing platform and a Go application made of microservices, and it is licensed under AGPL-3.0.

The README covers building from source for development and testing. It requires a recent Go toolchain and a MySQL or MariaDB database. You build the backend, create a database, run the installer, which guides you through setup, and then open the default site on port 8080. The project says it was developed and tested on macOS, Ubuntu, Debian and CentOS, and that Windows may still have unknown issues.

A notice at the top of the README warns that the version 5 branch is a work in progress to be used at your own risk. Tests and a live reload setup based on the air tool are described for contributors, and a contributing guide explains how to add tests. The vendor, Pydio, hosts documentation, a developer guide and an issue tracker.

Key features

File sharing for organizations
Go microservice architecture
Guided installer
MySQL or MariaDB storage
Documentation and developer guide

Good fit for

→Organizations hosting their own file sharing
→Teams collaborating on shared content

Built with: Go
Tags: file-sharing; collaboration; go; microservices; self-hosted; pydio; content-collaboration; mysql

Pydio Cells: questions and answers

What is Pydio Cells used for?: Pydio Cells is a file sharing and content collaboration platform for organizations, rewritten in Go with a microservice architecture. It is a good fit for organizations hosting their own file sharing and teams collaborating on shared content.
Is Pydio Cells open source?: Yes. Pydio Cells is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at pydio/cells and is written mainly in Go.
Is Pydio Cells free?: Yes. Pydio Cells is open source, so the software itself is free to use. Paid plans are also available, starting at €3,280 per year.
Can I self-host Pydio Cells?: Yes. Pydio Cells can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Pydio Cells an alternative to?: Pydio Cells is an open-source alternative to Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and pCloud. Other open-source alternatives to Dropbox include Nextcloud, ownCloud and Sync-in.
Is Pydio Cells actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Pydio Cells was on 30 September 2026, and the latest release is v5.1.0, published on 30 September 2026. The project has 2.3k stars on GitHub.