Pydio Cells is an open-core, self-hosted enterprise content management (ECM) and file sharing platform built specifically for organisations that need full control over their data, without compromising on collaboration or compliance.

Unlike SaaS-only platforms such as Dropbox or Google Drive, Pydio Cells runs entirely on your own infrastructure — whether on-premises, in a private cloud, or across a hybrid environment. This means your sensitive documents never touch a third-party server. Paired with a no-code workflow automation engine (Cells Flows), real-time document co-editing, granular access controls, and built-in GDPR compliance tooling, Pydio Cells delivers the full breadth of enterprise ECM features in a single, unified product — with none of the data sovereignty trade-offs.

Yes — 100%. Pydio Cells is deployed entirely on infrastructure you own and control: your on-premises servers, a private data centre, or a cloud tenant you manage (AWS, Azure, GCP, or Kubernetes). At no point does your data pass through Pydio's servers.

This is a fundamental architectural difference from platforms like Microsoft SharePoint Online or Dropbox Business, where your files ultimately reside in a vendor-managed cloud. For regulated industries — healthcare, finance, government, legal — or any organisation subject to GDPR, NIS2, or sovereign data requirements, this distinction is not a preference; it is a compliance necessity. Pydio Cells gives you the key, and only you.

Pydio Cells was designed with compliance at its core, not bolted on as an afterthought. Because the platform is fully self-hosted, your organisation retains complete control over where data is stored, who can access it, and for how long — the three pillars of GDPR accountability.

Out of the box, Cells provides: comprehensive audit logs with per-user, per-file traceability; granular access controls and role-based permissions; configurable data retention and lifecycle policies (via Cells Flows); AES-256 encryption at rest and in transit; expiring and password-protected share links; and watermarking on shared documents. These are not add-ons — they ship with the enterprise edition as a unified compliance toolkit, making Pydio Cells a natural fit for organisations navigating GDPR, HIPAA, NIS2, or sector-specific regulations.

For organisations seeking a self-hosted alternative to SharePoint that avoids Microsoft ecosystem lock-in, or a more unified alternative to Nextcloud that doesn't require assembling an app ecosystem, Pydio Cells is a strong fit.

Where SharePoint demands significant Microsoft 365 licensing, Active Directory dependency, and a complex admin ecosystem, Pydio Cells ships as a single, dependency-light binary with enterprise-grade features — SSO (SAML2, LDAP, OpenID Connect), real-time document co-editing via Collabora or OnlyOffice, no-code workflow automation, and audit logging — all in one product. Where Nextcloud gives you a platform to build from, Pydio Cells gives you a finished enterprise product. Thousands of enterprises and public institutions across Europe and beyond have already made the switch.

Cells Flows is Pydio's built-in, no-code workflow automation engine — and it's one of the capabilities that most clearly separates Pydio Cells from competing self-hosted platforms.

With Cells Flows, administrators and power users can automate document lifecycles, approvals, notifications, retention policies, and third-party integrations — without writing a single line of code. 

Pydio Cells was built on a Go-powered microservices architecture specifically to handle the demands of large-scale enterprise deployments. File transfers of up to 5TB are supported natively, making it one of the few self-hosted platforms capable of handling large engineering, media, or scientific datasets without custom workarounds.

For scaling, Cells 4.0 introduced a fully stateless, Kubernetes-native architecture — meaning you can scale horizontally from a single-node deployment all the way to a globally distributed multi-region cluster, without changing your configuration philosophy. Storage backends include local filesystems, S3-compatible object storage, Azure Blob, and Google Cloud Storage. Whether you are running Cells for 50 users on a bare-metal server or 50,000 users across a distributed cloud infrastructure, the architecture grows with you.

Yes. Pydio Cells integrates natively with both Collabora Online and OnlyOffice to deliver real-time, browser-based co-editing across all major document formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, ODT, and more) with no client installation required.

Multiple users can edit the same document simultaneously, with live cursor tracking and change attribution. Because Cells is self-hosted, the document processing also stays within your infrastructure — unlike Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace where co-editing depends on third-party cloud servers processing your content. For teams handling sensitive contracts, financial models, or confidential reports, this means real-time collaboration without ever exposing document contents to an external service.

Pydio offers tiered plans to match organisations at every stage. The open-source Community edition is free for up to 10 users and gives full access to core features. The Enterprise Distribution unlocks the full platform — Cells Flows automation, advanced compliance tooling, enterprise SSO, multi-site federation, watermarking, and Level 3 support with guaranteed response times.