Filen The European alternative to Google Drive

Filen is an end-to-end encrypted cloud storage service from German company Filen Cloud Services UG, founded in 2020. The service includes file storage, synchronization, encrypted notes, and encrypted chat. Filen supports network drives, Smart Sync, WebDAV, an S3-compatible interface, and SDKs in TypeScript and Go. All apps are open source and available for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Encryption is performed client-side with AES-256, so neither Filen nor third parties have access to the contents.

Filen operates its own dedicated hardware in ISO 27001 certified Tier III and Tier IV data centers in Germany. No cloud services from AWS, Google, or Microsoft are used. Files are fragmented using erasure coding and stored across multiple German locations, enabling data durability of eleven nines (99.999999999 percent). The company is based in Germany and subject to the Federal Data Protection Act and the GDPR. All data remains within Germany.

Smart Sync allows files to be kept in sync across devices without storing them all locally. Rarely used files remain in the cloud and are only downloaded when needed, saving storage space on the device. The function operates with full encryption, so no plaintext data is transmitted even during on-demand provisioning. This makes Filen suitable for devices with limited local storage as well.