Introduction
Want to own a private yet powerful Dropbox-like enterprise class file sharing system? Check out FileCloud Community Edition that I found. It is your own personal cloud with complete control. Perfect file sharing and sync solution for your home and business. Free unlimited external users and up to 5 full accounts. It can be hosted in Windows 10, Linux or on the cloud. Sound great? Let’s have a closer look now…
Company Background
FileCloud is owned by CodeLathe. It is a privately held software company, headquartered in Austin, Texas, USA. It offers three products – Tonido for consumers, AirSend for professionals/creatives, and FileCloud for businesses. FileCloud itself has several editions that suit all type of usages from home, small business to large enterprise. I am going to cover FileCloud Community Edition which suitable for a small team.
Features
It’s all about files. Yes, we can’t live without files in this Internet era. Therefore, FileCloud comes in. It provides remote access to all your important files including documents, photos and videos. It helps to synchronize those files from your PC or mobile devices automatically. No manual work is needed once setup. You can edit them from Windows or Mac as you wish. Share the files securely with unlimited users. The most important one – you have total full control and completely private to your group only. It can be runs on Windows 10, Linux and any Cloud. Perfect for your own usage, small team and even business. There is a lot of more useful features but I won’t list them down here. Do check them at FileCloud Website.
Installation
FileCloud server installation is fast and simple. I am using Windows 64 bit version for my case. You can also choose X86-64 Ubuntu (Deb Package), Redhat/Fedora/CentOS (RPM Package) FileCloud Linux Appliance – Virtual Machine/OVF for VMWare, VirtualBox etc, AWS, Azure and Docker. For community edition, you are given 14 days trial license. More than enough for you and me to test out all the features and functions. After that, 10$ per year only which CodeLathe will use it to donate to charity. By the way, it took less than 10 minutes to install the FileCloud server with some simple configurations.
Yes, this is the FileCloud Control Panel to start the webserver and database. That’s the 2 main stuff to run FileCloud for the first time. For your information, some IT knowledge is preferred to set up and configure FileCloud Community Edition Server. But no worry much as there is very detailed documentation that helps you to do so. If you can’t find the solution from the documentation, just ask those experts in the Support Forum will do. As usual, take your time to explore and set it up.
Admin Dashboard
Setting up the server is one thing. Configure the FileCloud is another one. As usual, do check out the documentation if you run into any problem. You will need it as I did. Yes, the docs do help and solve some of the configuration issues. The administrator dashboard gives all the controls to you. Take your time to set up and turn on those functions that you required. Create user, group or even assign a new admin. Manage all the folders including team, network, user share, folder permission and notifications. You can also check back all the logs through audit, alert and reports. This is the page that you will spend most of the time when setting the server up.
Desktop Apps
FileCloud Sync and Drive are the 2 applications that you need for PC/laptop. They help to sync your files seamlessly and use FileCloud as a drive on your desktop. FileCloud Sync will help to sync files from your desktop computer to the cloud. And Drive will make your cloud as drive letter on Windows and Mac OSX.
In short, you need to configure the folders to be synced. FileCloud Sync will do the job for you then. You can also backup those important folders and files to the server as well. Again, take your time to explore and unleash all the useful functions for your needs.
Mobile App
Mobile apps are there for you too. Available in both iOS Apple App Store and Android Google Play Store. Yes, iPhone and iPad are supported. Basically, it does the same functions as the desktop app. You can access shared files on the server. Edit them. And the most useful for mobile users – backup all your precious photos and videos to the private cloud server. Always make a backup of those important files. No regret later when they are lost.
Usages
Easy and simple to use (for end users)! Period. And FileCloud Community Edition does the job well. Sync, share and backup. You name it. I helped a small design company with team of 4 on setting up this FileCloud server for them. They need a centralized place to keep all their designs. FileCloud helps to sync those designs from each local PC to the main server as backup. They also have a team folder that eases them to edit office documents. In short, they just do their daily job normally – create, edit and design. FileCloud will do its jobs then in the background for them. One of the useful features that they use – file versioning. They can always roll back to previous design if the clients don’t like it. No manual work is needed. That’s great!
Conclusion
FileCloud Community Edition is an excellent private cloud solution with just $10 yearly. And loaded with a lot of useful enterprise-level features and functions. Perfect for own usage, small team and even business. Interested? Get your own copy of FileCloud Community Edition now. You will like it as I do…
