Seafile is an open-source file sync and share platform. See 2026 pricing for the free Community Edition and paid Professional Edition, plus key features.
Seafile is an open-source file synchronization and sharing platform founded in 2012 by Daniel Pan and Jonathan Xu, who began developing the underlying sync-and-share concepts as graduate students several years earlier. The company operates as a globally distributed team with offices in Beijing, China, and Singapore.
Unlike consumer cloud storage services, Seafile is designed to be self-hosted on an organization's own servers or private cloud, giving IT teams control over where data lives. It is commonly compared to other self-hosted file sync platforms such as Nextcloud and ownCloud.
The free Community Edition provides core file synchronization and sharing, desktop and mobile clients, and web-based file management. The paid Professional Edition adds enterprise administration tools including an advanced admin console, detailed audit logs covering logins, file access, updates and deletions, and integration with LDAP, Active Directory and SAML for centralized authentication.
Professional Edition also supports server clustering for high-availability deployments, which is aimed at larger organizations that need Seafile to scale across multiple servers with minimal downtime.
The Community Edition is free and open source. The Professional Edition is free for up to 3 users, offered at a flat 100 US dollars total for up to 9 users, and then priced per user starting around 48 US dollars per user for 10 to 249 users, scaling down for larger deployments to roughly 35 US dollars per user for 750 to 999 users.
Custom pricing is available for deployments of 1,000 or more users. Educational institutions receive a 50 percent discount and public sector organizations receive 25 percent off Professional Edition licensing.
Yes. Seafile's Community Edition is free and open source. A paid Professional Edition is available for organizations that need enterprise administration, audit logs, and clustering.
Seafile was founded in 2012 by Daniel Pan, who serves as CEO, and Jonathan Xu, who serves as CTO.
Seafile operates as a globally distributed team with offices in Beijing, China, and Singapore, backed by Seafile Ltd. and SeaCloud Labs Pte. Ltd.
Professional Edition is free for up to 3 users, 100 US dollars total for up to 9 users, and then scales per user, starting around 48 US dollars per user for 10 to 249 users, with further discounts at larger user counts and custom pricing above 1,000 users.
Yes. Seafile is designed to be self-hosted on an organization's own servers or private cloud infrastructure, which is one of its main differentiators from consumer cloud storage services.
Yes. Educational institutions receive a 50 percent discount and public sector entities receive 25 percent off Professional Edition licensing.
Both are open-source, self-hostable file sync platforms. Seafile is often noted by reviewers for its sync performance and block-level deduplication, while Nextcloud offers a broader built-in app ecosystem.
The Seafile website and product interface are offered in Chinese, English, and German.