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Reviewed by The Empire Reviews Editorial Team — Product testing & research.
We are a small in-house team that buys, uses and stress-tests every product before it is ranked. We have no sponsored placements: brands cannot pay for a higher position. When a cheaper or unaffiliated product is genuinely better, we say so and rank it first. How we test →
Updated June 2026
Nextcloud: The Best Free Self-Hosted Cloud
Nextcloud is a free, open-source self-hosted file, calendar and collaboration platform -- a private Google Workspace. Honest review.
What it is
Nextcloud is a free, open-source platform you host yourself for file storage, calendars, contacts, document editing and team collaboration -- a self-owned alternative to Google Workspace or Dropbox.
The community edition is fully free; paid enterprise support exists for organisations but is not needed for personal or small-team use.
What you get for free
Community edition is 100% free. Enterprise support is optional.
Who it is for
Anyone who wants to own their cloud data on their own hardware or VPS.
Our take
Powerful but needs a server to host. For the self-hosting crowd it is the clear #1, and it costs nothing.
Check current priceWe do not currently hold an affiliate link for this product. It is reviewed and ranked purely on merit.
Reviewed by The Empire Reviews Editorial Team — Product testing & research.
We are a small in-house team that buys, uses and stress-tests every product before it is ranked. We have no sponsored placements: brands cannot pay for a higher position. When a cheaper or unaffiliated product is genuinely better, we say so and rank it first. How we test →