NevTan Drive vs Nextcloud

Self-hosted or hosted? That's the whole decision.

Comparing these two feature by feature misses the point. Nextcloud is software you run; NevTan Drive is a service you sign into. Almost everything else follows from that one difference.

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The short answer

Nextcloud is open-source software you host yourself. You provision the server, you apply the updates, you take the backups, you fix it at 2am — and in exchange the data never leaves hardware you control, and you can change the software itself.

NevTan Drive is hosted. There is no server to run, no upgrade to schedule, and the editors are part of the product rather than an add-on you install and maintain. You trade direct control of the machine for not having to operate one.

When Nextcloud is the better choice

You have a policy or legal requirement to keep data on hardware you own or in a specific location you control.
You have the operational capacity to run, patch, monitor and back up a server — and to keep doing it.
You want to read or modify the source, or to self-host for its own sake.
You want to choose your own editing stack and are happy to install and maintain it alongside the core server.

When NevTan Drive is the better choice

Nobody on your team wants to be responsible for a file server, its backups, or its upgrades.
You want PDF, document, spreadsheet and presentation editing included and maintained, rather than added on.
You want share links with expiry dates and passwords working out of the box.
You want your files and your mail in one account and one storage pool without wiring two systems together.

Why teams switch from Nextcloud

The privacy position was right; the maintenance was not. The reason they self-hosted was to keep control of their data, and that reason survives a move to a host that does not scan, mine or advertise against it.
The upgrade window kept slipping. Patching, certificate renewal and application upgrades are real work, and they are the first thing dropped in a busy quarter.
An untested backup is a hope. Handing that to someone whose job it is removes the risk nobody on a small team has time to rehearse.
The editing add-on was the fragile part. Document editing that ships with the product cannot break on the next upgrade.
Managed, with the same privacy position. Moving off your own server does not mean giving up the reason you ran one: no content scanning, no advertising, and no model trained on your files.

Moving from Nextcloud

Download your files from your Nextcloud instance, or copy them from the server's data directory.
Create a NevTan account and open My Drive.
Upload the folders with the Upload folder button, which recreates the folder structure on the way in.
Re-create shares in Drive, and decide per link whether it should expire or need a password.

Once everything is across, you can decommission the server — which for most small teams is the largest saving in the move, and it is not a line on any price list.

Questions

NevTan Drive vs Nextcloud, answered

The things people ask when they are weighing Nextcloud against NevTan Drive.

Is NevTan Drive open source?

No. NevTan Drive is a hosted product operated by NevTan, Inc. If being able to read and modify the source is a requirement for you, Nextcloud is the right answer and we would not try to talk you out of it.

Can I self-host NevTan Drive?

No. NevTan Drive runs as a hosted service, which is what lets it ship with the editors, previews and sharing controls already working and maintained. Self-hosting is precisely the trade Nextcloud exists to make.

What do I stop having to do if I move off a self-hosted server?

Provisioning and patching the server, applying application upgrades, monitoring uptime and disk, running and testing backups, renewing certificates, and maintaining whatever editing add-on you installed for documents.

Ready to try it on your own files?

Create a NevTan account and upload a folder. Nothing in Drive is behind a paywall.

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