Nextcloud vs Pydio Cells: which one to choose in 2026?
Both are open source alternatives to Dropbox. We compare license, tech stack and features to help you decide which fits your team best.
| Nextcloud | Pydio Cells | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Storage | Storage |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| GitHub stars | 27k | 2k |
| Tech stack | PHP, MariaDB/PostgreSQL | Go, React |
| Replaces | Google Drive, Dropbox | Dropbox |
Nextcloud has more GitHub stars, which usually indicates a larger community (not necessarily that it's the best option for your use case).
Nextcloud
File cloud and collaboration, an alternative to Google Drive.
Pros
- The widest ecosystem of self-hosted productivity apps
Things to consider
- Can feel heavy on small instances running many apps
Pydio Cells
Enterprise file sharing with auditing, an alternative to Dropbox Business.
Pros
- Built for strict enterprise compliance and governance
Things to consider
- More complex setup than simpler solutions like Seafile
Key features
Nextcloud
- Cross-platform file sync
- Collaborative document editing (Collabora/OnlyOffice)
- Calendar, contacts and video calls (Nextcloud Talk)
- Hundreds of official and community apps
Pydio Cells
- File approval workflows
- Detailed access auditing
- Version control and trash