Sync-in

What Sync-in does

Sync-in is a self-hosted platform for storing, sharing and syncing files and working on them together, developed in France. The web interface is a full file manager with drag and drop, a smart clipboard, gallery view, sorting, filtering and file previews. Teams work in collaborative spaces with permissions per user, group or guest. Users can also create personal groups and invite external guests, each managed by a named person.

Sharing works internally and through public links with passwords, expiry dates and access limits. Documents, spreadsheets, presentations and diagrams can be edited online through Collabora Online, OnlyOffice, Euro-Office or draw.io, with Sync-in’s permissions still applied. Comments, an activity feed, notifications and file locking help with day-to-day collaboration, and full-text search looks inside Office files, PDFs and other documents.

Desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux sync files between computers and one or more Sync-in servers, with options for direction, frequency and a simulation mode. A command-line client is also available. Other devices, including phones, can connect over WebDAV.

How storage works

Sync-in’s distinctive choice is to leave files where they are. Files are not packed into a database or a special storage layout: they stay readable on the server’s filesystem, so you can back them up, migrate them or process them with other tools. The database only stores collaboration state, such as shares, comments, permissions, synchronizations and activity, rather than a full copy of the file tree. When files change directly on disk, Sync-in reconciles them with the existing metadata.

“Anchoring” links a file or folder into a collaborative space without moving or copying it, while both the original location’s rights and the space’s rights must allow each action. Admins can also attach existing server directories to shares or spaces. Full-text indexing is a separate, optional component that can use a dedicated engine such as Elasticsearch.

Self-hosting Sync-in

The documented minimum is 1 GB of RAM, one CPU core and 2 GB of disk. The Docker Compose setup runs Sync-in with MariaDB; you set a database password, token secrets and an encryption key for the authentication layer before starting. An NPM package is the other install method and needs Node.js 22.12 or later. Authentication with local accounts, OpenID Connect, LDAP, multi-factor authentication, recovery codes and application passwords is part of the open source server.

Hosted version

The developer does not run a hosted service. The Sync-in site lists partner providers in France that offer hosted and managed Sync-in, such as ASN Cloud’s ASN Drive and Mise Sur Orbite.

Limitations

There are no official mobile apps; phones and tablets use WebDAV clients. The documentation reviewed does not describe end-to-end or at-rest file encryption. Sync-in is younger and has a smaller community than Nextcloud or Seafile, so there are fewer third-party guides and integrations.

Who it suits

Sync-in fits teams, associations and public organizations that want a straightforward file sharing and sync server with online office editing, and that value keeping files in a plain, reversible layout on disk. It runs on small servers, which also makes it practical for home use.