Files, shared folders and calendars for the whole organisation, on storage you control, with sharing rules set by your directory.
- Replacing
- Google Drive, by Google LLC
- With
- Nextcloud, Collabora Online
- Runs on
- Your servers, or Pilae Cloud in Switzerland and the EU
- Migration
- Included in onboarding, at a fixed price
Why teams leave Google Drive
Files are the whole organisation
Contracts, payroll exports, board papers, research data. With Nextcloud on your own machines, the storage sits in the country you choose and under your control.
Sharing that follows your directory
Groups from Keycloak or Entra ID decide who sees which folder. A leaver loses access to every share at once, and external links expire by policy.
Capacity sized to your data
Storage is a question of disks and object storage, not of per-user quota tiers. A team that needs a terabyte gets one.
Google Drive vs Nextcloud operated by Pilae
| What is being compared | Google Drive | Pilae |
|---|---|---|
| Where files are stored | In Google infrastructure, with data regions for eligible Workspace editions. | On your premises or on dedicated machines in any of 12 Pilae Cloud regions, six of them in Switzerland and the EU, with backups at a second site in the same jurisdiction. |
| Editing documents | Google Docs, Sheets and Slides in the browser, with real-time co-editing and strong Office compatibility. | Desktop editing through the sync client. In-browser co-editing of Office formats with Collabora, licensed separately. |
| Sync and access | Drive for desktop, mobile apps and the web. | Nextcloud desktop sync client, mobile apps, the web and WebDAV. Existing file shares mount as external storage. |
| Calendars and contacts | Part of Google Workspace, alongside Gmail and Meet. | Calendars, contacts and tasks in Nextcloud, over CalDAV and CardDAV, usable from any standard client. |
| Sign-on and sharing controls | Google accounts, SAML SSO, admin console and data loss prevention on higher editions. | Sign-on through Keycloak or Entra ID, group-based shares, link expiry and password-protected links set by policy. |
| Operation | Fully run by Google as a SaaS product. | Daily encrypted backups with monthly restore tests, planned upgrades by the Pilae Agent, 60-second probes. |
| Pricing | Per user, per month, as part of a Google Workspace edition. | On request, sized to your storage and your team. No per-user storage quota tier. |
Self-hosted file sharing for your organisation
Google Drive is easy to use, and Docs set the standard for editing together in a browser. For many organisations the question is where the files sit, under which law, and who else could be asked for them. The data sovereignty guide sets out how Swiss and EU buyers weigh that.
Nextcloud gives your staff shared folders, a desktop sync client, mobile apps, calendars and contacts, on storage you control. Pilae deploys it on your premises or on dedicated machines in any of 12 Pilae Cloud regions, six of them in Switzerland and the EU, and data residency states where each piece runs, backups included. It is the file layer of our sovereign workplace, and Collabora Online runs beside it for editing Word, Excel and PowerPoint files in the browser, together and in real time.
Moving off Google Drive without losing track of sharing
Copying files is the easy part. The work is in the sharing: who had access to what, which links went outside, and which shared drives map to which teams. We rebuild that against your directory as part of the fixed-price migration. The step-by-step version is in our guide to moving from Google Drive to Nextcloud.
After the switch, the Pilae Agent plans each Nextcloud upgrade, tests the apps you rely on and applies it in your window after your approval. Backups are daily and restore-tested every month. Pricing is on request. Tell us how much you store and we come back with a sizing.
Moving from Google Drive to Nextcloud
Size the storage
How much there is, how much is live, and how much is shared outside the organisation. The answer sizes the machines and the object storage before anything moves.
Convert and copy the files
Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are converted to Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats; everything else copies as it is. Folder structure comes across per user and per shared drive.
Rebuild the sharing
Drive permissions do not transfer. Shared drives become group folders mapped to your directory, and external shares are listed so each one is renewed on purpose.
Roll out the sync client, then close Drive
The desktop client is installed ahead, a final delta copy runs on the day, and Drive goes read-only. Licences end at the next renewal.
The apps that replace Google Drive
Nextcloud
Files, calendars and shared documents for the whole organisation, on storage you can point at in a room you control.
Replaces Google Drive, Dropbox, SharePoint
Collabora Online
In-browser editing of Word, Excel and PowerPoint files beside Nextcloud, on your own hardware or in the Pilae region you choose, so no document passes through someone else's cloud.
Replaces Microsoft 365 for the web, Google Docs