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My Own Suite

Seafile

Replaces Dropbox / Google Drive

Files & sync Medium resources

Seafile is a self-hosted file sync and sharing server for private libraries, browser access, desktop sync clients, mobile clients, and share links.

Install it from Suite Manager → Apps — once running it lives at seafile.<your-domain> and on your Home dashboard.

What you can do

  • Sync files across devices — Use Seafile desktop and mobile clients with a MOS-hosted server.
  • Share libraries and links — Create private libraries and share files or folders from the web interface.
  • Keep storage self-hosted — Store Seafile data and metadata in package-owned MOS volumes.

A self-hosted Dropbox alternative

Seafile does the job people use Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud Drive, Box, Proton Drive, pCloud, and Sync.com for, on a server you own: the same everyday task, without a subscription and without an account at a company that also keeps your data. If you arrived comparing one of these, this is the app My Own Suite installs in its place — its privacy posture below says exactly what it does and does not send anywhere.

  • Dropbox alternative
  • Google Drive alternative
  • OneDrive alternative
  • iCloud Drive alternative
  • Box alternative
  • Proton Drive alternative
  • pCloud alternative
  • Sync.com alternative

Good to know

  • Resource needs: Medium resources — This package starts Seafile plus MySQL and Valkey, so it is heavier than the first single-service MOS packages.
  • Package-provided privacy notes (not independently verified by MOS): Seafile Community Edition runs on your own server with no telemetry enabled by default, storing your files and metadata in local MOS volumes.
    • Only the Seafile web service is exposed through Caddy; MySQL and Valkey stay internal to the package network.
    • External integrations such as email (SMTP), ONLYOFFICE editing, object storage, LDAP, and SSO are off by default and only reach outside your server if you enable them.
    • ONLYOFFICE document editing is enabled only after an explicit MOS integration connection.
    • Back up the Seafile and MySQL volumes before relying on this package for important files.
Try before you commit

Just want to try Seafile?

MOS is the way to grow a suite — apps installed, backed up, and updated together, all in one tailored dashboard. But if you'd rather see Seafile on its own first, we've set up a one-click deploy on Railway so you can kick the tires with nothing to install.

Install in MOS

Recommended
  • Yours to control — runs on your own machine or any VPS you pick — and can move anytime
  • One dashboard — every app you run, in one place at your own domain
  • Backups built in — back up and restore your apps in a couple of clicks
  • Fully private if you want — on your own hardware, apps can stay off the public internet entirely
  • Updates handled — version-pinned, health-checked, applied for you
  • HTTPS and domains — trusted certificates without touching DNS records
  • Apps that connect — file, calendar, and office apps work together
Get started with MOS

Try it on Railway

Good for testing
  • Live in minutes — deploy from a template, fill in a few setup fields
  • The real thing, not a demo — the same app MOS installs, running for you
  • Free trial — limited free trial for new users
  • Railway account required — a third-party cloud with its own sign-up and usage billing
  • Tied to Railway — MOS runs anywhere and can migrate; this deploy lives on their platform

Good for a test drive, not the destination — this runs on Railway's cloud, not hardware you own, and comes without MOS backups, updates, or your own domain.

Deploy on Railway

Referral link — Railway pays MOS a commission on deploys made through this button, at no extra cost to you.

Privacy assessment

This is the assessment behind Seafile's posture grade, exactly as it ships inside the package. It describes package version 0.2.4 and nothing else — install a different version and its own assessment travels with it. Reviewed 23 July 2026, due for reassessment by 23 January 2027.

What was reviewed

  • Package — version 0.2.4, content digest 2b7fc7374f0f… at commit a7b99f9bb6df
  • Seafile Community Edition (server core + Seahub) — version 13.0.21 from docker.io/seafileltd/seafile-mc pinned at 1e335e704bb0…
  • MySQL (Seafile metadata database) — version 8.0.45 from docker.io/library/mysql pinned at 99d774bf02a4…
  • Valkey (Seafile cache) — version 9.0.3 from docker.io/valkey/valkey pinned at 3b55fbaa0cd9…

Deliberately outside this assessment:

  • Seafile desktop sync clients and iOS/Android mobile apps, which connect to this self-hosted server and separately contact Seafile-operated servers for client version/update checks under Seafile's own client terms
  • Any ONLYOFFICE or Collabora Online document editor connected later through the MOS integration flow, which is assessed as its own package
  • WebDAV and third-party API clients that access the server

Evidence

Configured Read from the configuration MOS actually ships.

  • The MOS package projects only database, cache, admin-initialisation, JWT, hostname/protocol, and timezone environment into the seafile service and defines no SMTP, object-storage, analytics, or telemetry variables; ONLYOFFICE integration variables are absent until an operator explicitly connects a document editor.

    Source: apps/seafile/manifest.json

  • Only the seafile web service is published through a single app route; seafile-mysql and seafile-valkey expose no route and stay on the package-internal Docker network, so metadata and cache traffic remains inside the package.

    Source: apps/seafile/manifest.json and apps/seafile/README.md

  • Seafile file data and runtime config persist to a local data:/shared volume and MySQL metadata to a local mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql volume, so user files and metadata are held within the MOS runtime rather than an upstream store.

    Source: apps/seafile/manifest.json and apps/seafile/README.md

Documented Taken from upstream documentation, policies or source.

  • The pinned image resolves to Seafile Community Edition 13.0.21 (docker.io/seafileltd/seafile-mc, tag 13.0.21). The server core is licensed AGPLv3 and the Seahub web UI Apache-2.0; running Community Edition requires no upstream Seafile account or license key.

    Source: Docker Hub seafileltd/seafile-mc tags and the haiwen/seafile-server license file · checked 2026-07-23

  • The Seafile 13.0 seahub_settings.py configuration reference defines no telemetry, analytics, usage-reporting, crash-reporting, or version/update-check setting for the server; its only outbound-capable settings are operator-configured integrations such as SMTP, a Google Maps API key, and external SSO.

    Source: Seafile 13.0 configuration reference (seahub_settings.py) · checked 2026-07-23

  • Automatic version/update checking in the Seafile ecosystem is a desktop/mobile client feature rather than a server feature, and no server-side startup phone-home is documented for the assessed image.

    Source: Seafile desktop client issue tracker (haiwen/seafile-client) · checked 2026-07-23

  • External integrations that would produce outbound traffic - SMTP email, ONLYOFFICE/Collabora editing, S3/object-storage backends, LDAP/Active Directory, external SSO, Google Maps, and the image's own Let's Encrypt provisioning (SEAFILE_SERVER_LETSENCRYPT, default false) - are all off by default and are not enabled by the MOS package, which terminates TLS at Caddy.

    Source: Seafile 13.0 configuration and Docker deployment documentation, correlated with apps/seafile/manifest.json · checked 2026-07-23

What this review does not settle

Published rather than smoothed over. Each of these is a limit of the method, not a finding against the app.

  • No runtime network capture was performed against the pinned 13.0.21 image; the finding of no server telemetry or phone-home rests on the Seafile configuration reference and upstream documentation rather than observed packet silence.
  • Seafile's optional integrations - SMTP, ONLYOFFICE/Collabora, S3/object storage, LDAP, external SSO, and Google Maps - are inactive in the packaged default but become external data dependencies with their own terms if an operator later enables them.
  • The excluded proprietary desktop and mobile clients contact Seafile-operated servers for update checks and are governed by Seafile's client terms; only the self-hosted server package is assessed here.
  • The pinned image is Seafile CE 13.0.21, a few patch releases behind the newest 13.0.x line (13.0.25 as of 2026-07-13); a future package update should re-pin and re-verify this assessment.

Policies read

  • license — Seafile Ltd. (Haiwen) · retrieved 2026-07-23
  • license — Seafile Ltd. (Haiwen) · retrieved 2026-07-23

How this review was produced

  • Method — AI-assisted review, not yet checked by a human
  • Model — Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic)
  • Workflow — assess-app-privacy at 6a741118713a
  • Repository commit — a7b99f9bb6df

Technical reference

Maintained alongside the package at apps/seafile/README.md and rendered here as-is.

Seafile MOS Package

Services

  • seafile: Seafile Community web and file service, exposed through the single public seafile.<base-domain> app route.
  • seafile-mysql: internal MySQL 8 service for Seafile metadata.
  • seafile-valkey: internal Redis-compatible cache service.

Only seafile is routed through Caddy. MySQL and Valkey are package-internal services on the package-owned Docker network. ONLYOFFICE document editing is a separate package, connected through a Suite Manager integration rather than bundled here.

Environment Variables

The manifest supplies Seafile’s database, cache, admin, JWT, and public URL settings:

  • SEAFILE_MYSQL_DB_HOST, SEAFILE_MYSQL_DB_PORT, SEAFILE_MYSQL_DB_USER, SEAFILE_MYSQL_DB_PASSWORD
  • SEAFILE_MYSQL_DB_CCNET_DB_NAME, SEAFILE_MYSQL_DB_SEAFILE_DB_NAME, SEAFILE_MYSQL_DB_SEAHUB_DB_NAME
  • INIT_SEAFILE_MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD
  • INIT_SEAFILE_ADMIN_EMAIL, INIT_SEAFILE_ADMIN_PASSWORD
  • JWT_PRIVATE_KEY
  • CACHE_PROVIDER, REDIS_HOST, REDIS_PORT, REDIS_PASSWORD
  • SEAFILE_SERVER_HOSTNAME, SEAFILE_SERVER_PROTOCOL
  • TIME_ZONE
  • ONLYOFFICE_APIJS_URL, ONLYOFFICE_JWT_SECRET, ONLYOFFICE_INTERNAL_SEAFILE_URL, VERIFY_ONLYOFFICE_CERTIFICATE, ONLYOFFICE_FORCE_SAVE: set only after Suite Manager applies a compatible document-editor integration.

adminEmail and adminPassword are collected during package install. MySQL root/user passwords and the JWT private key are generated by MOS and stored as secret references.

Volumes And Persistence

  • data:/shared: Seafile runtime config and file data.
  • mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql: MySQL metadata.

Disable stops and removes containers while keeping routes, volumes, and stored secret references. Uninstall removes containers, routes, MOS-owned Homepage shortcuts, these Docker volumes, stored config/secrets, and integration rows.

WebDAV

The entrypoint enables Seafile’s WebDAV extension (seafdav) in /shared/seafile/conf/seafdav.conf. WebDAV clients connect at https://seafile.<base-domain>/seafdav with Seafile account credentials; the image’s bundled nginx proxies /seafdav/ to the internal daemon, so no extra route or port is needed. On a brand-new install the config file is generated during first-time setup, so if the daemon read the flag before the entrypoint patched it, WebDAV becomes available after the next container restart.

Health Check

  • http://seafile:80/api2/ping/

The MOS app agent checks this through the loopback port mapping for the public Seafile service.

Package Behavior

  • The entrypoint patches proxy-facing Seahub settings so Seafile knows its MOS app host and forwarded scheme.
  • The entrypoint enables the WebDAV extension in seafdav.conf (enabled = true, share_name = /seafdav).
  • When Suite Manager connects a compatible ONLYOFFICE provider, the entrypoint applies the allowlisted integration values to Seahub settings, and ONLYOFFICE server-side downloads and callbacks can use Seafile’s package network.