Google DriveAbout Puter
Puter asks a fun question with a serious answer: what if your cloud storage were a whole operating system? It boots a complete desktop in your browser — files, apps, terminal, even games — backed by storage you control.
As a Google Drive alternative it covers uploads, folders, sharing and previews, but the app platform is the differentiator: developers build and publish web apps that run inside Puter, making it a personal cloud you can extend.
AGPL-3.0 licensed and one of GitHub's fastest-growing projects, Puter runs self-hosted with Docker in about a minute — a genuinely private, surprisingly delightful home for your files.
What makes it different
A full OS-style desktop — file manager, apps, terminal — served from your own machine.
Store, organize, preview and share files on infrastructure you control.
Run and build web apps inside Puter, with an SDK for developers.
Docker up and running in under a minute on any modest server.
Node.js
DockerThe honest read
- Full private alternative to Drive-style storage
- Delightful, fast desktop UX
- Extensible app ecosystem + SDK
- Trivial Docker self-hosting
- Very active development
- No native Office-style editing suite
- Sync clients are still maturing
- Novel model won't suit everyone
- Collaboration lighter than Google's
Quick answers
Yes — Puter is open source under AGPL-3.0 and free to self-host. Puter.com offers a hosted version with free storage if you don't want a server.
For storage, organization, previews and sharing, yes. If you live in Google Docs' real-time editing, you'll still want a docs tool alongside it.
Puter presents a full desktop in your browser — windows, apps, a file system, a terminal — so your cloud behaves like a computer, not just a folder.
One Docker command; it runs comfortably on a small VPS or home server.
Yes — an SDK and app platform let you build and publish apps that run inside Puter.
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