Google Cloud Storage vs Seafile
Google Cloud Storage
cloud.google.com
Seafile
seafile.comSide by side
| Figure | Google Cloud Storage | Seafile |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.01/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 9 | 18 |
| Spec score · Cloud storage | 9.5 (#2) | 9.3 (#8) |
| Spec score · Cloud Storage Services | 9.2 (#6) | 8.8 (#20) |
| Company facts | Gartner lists Google as founded in 1998 with headquarters in Mountain View, California. | LinkedIn lists Seafile Ltd as a privately held Beijing software company founded in 2012 with 11–50 employees. |
| Founded | 1998 | 2012 |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Notable release | On October 13, 2026, object enrichments entered Preview, attaching machine-generated metadata to eligible images and PDFs. | Seafile 13.0 launched January 5, 2026 with metadata, multiple views, hierarchical tags, AI, SeaSearch and SeaDoc 2.0. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.6 out of 5 from 603 reviews | 4.4 out of 5 from 55 reviews. |
| Rating on Google Play | 4.1 out of 5 from 906K reviews | 3.9 out of 5 from 1.76K reviews. |
| Security controls | Official security features include IAM access policies, encryption, retention policies, retention locks and signed URLs. | Official features include client-side encrypted libraries, two-factor authentication, remote wipe, audit logs and antivirus scanning. |
| Self-hosting | Google documents Cloud Storage as a Google-managed service accessed through Google endpoints and does not describe an on-premises self-hosted deployment. | Seafile offers Docker-based community and professional server deployments for organizations running their own infrastructure. |
| What it does | Google Cloud Storage is a managed, scalable object-storage service that stores data as objects inside buckets. | Seafile is an open-source workspace for storing, organizing, syncing, sharing and collaborating on files and documents. |
Plans
Google Cloud Storage
- Archive storageFree
- Cloud Storage Archive storageFree
- Cloud Storage Coldline storageFree
- Coldline storageFree
- Free tierFree
- Cloud Storage Nearline storage$0.01 a month
- Nearline storage$0.01 a month
- Cloud Storage Standard storage$0.02 a month
- Standard storage$0.02 a month
Seafile
- Community EditionPrice not published
- Pro Edition — 3 usersPrice not published
- Pro Edition — 10–249 users$48 a year
- Pro Edition — 250–499 users$44 a year
- Pro Edition — 500–749 users$40 a year
- Pro Edition — 750–999 users$35 a year
- Pro Edition — 1000+ usersPrice not published
- SeafilePlus Cloud — Trial PlanPrice not published
- SeafilePlus Cloud — Team Plan$8 a month
- Plus Edition Trial PlanFree
In their own words
Google Cloud Storage
Google Cloud Storage is a managed service for storing unstructured data in buckets. Its storage classes—Standard, Nearline, Coldline, Archive, and Rapid—cover different access patterns, while Autoclass and Object Lifecycle Management can move or delete objects under access-based or custom rules. Data can be used with BigQuery, Managed Service for Apache Spark, and Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. Transfer options include online, offline, and SFTP methods. Security controls include IAM access controls, encryption at rest and in transit, retention policies, and signed URLs. Soft delete is enabled by default with seven days of retention, and Object Versioning can preserve overwritten or deleted objects. Dual-region and multi-region buckets replicate data across separated regions for 99.99% availability. Users can access the service through the browser-based console, client libraries, command-line tools, or JSON and XML APIs. Always Free usage has monthly limits for storage, operations, and qualifying transfer in three US regions. Other charges may apply for operations, retrieval, replication, and network use, with rates varying by location and storage class.