BenchRank
#29 in Storage & CDNUpdated 2026-08

Seafile

by Seafile · Self-hosted, open source file sync and share

BenchRank score

39 — BenchRank score out of 100

Screenshots of Seafile

Homepage · Seafile

Homepage of Seafile

Overview

Seafile is an open source, self-hosted file sync and share system. Files sync across desktop, mobile and virtual drive clients, can be viewed and edited online, and can be shared with read/write, read-only or preview permissions down to sub-folder level. Custom file properties drive table, gallery, kanban and map views, and it includes collaborative docs (SeaDoc) and a wiki.

Best for
Teams that want to self-host file sync and sharing with custom file properties and views
Pricing
Community Edition is free and open source; the on-premises Pro Edition is free for 3 users, $100/year in total for 9 users, then $48/user/year from 10 users, falling to $35/user/year at 750-999 users, with 1000+ by quote.
Runs on
AndroidmacOSWindowsLinuxCLI

Strengths and trade-offs

Strengths

  • Community Edition is free and open source
  • Custom file properties with table, gallery, kanban and map views
  • Per-subfolder permissions, plus password and expiry on share links
  • Built-in collaborative docs (SeaDoc) and team wiki

Trade-offs

  • Free use is capped at 3 users; beyond that a paid annual licence is needed
  • You host and maintain the server yourself; a Docker image is provided
  • Support beyond basic email costs $5,000/year, or $120/hour ad hoc
  • No self-serve checkout: you email sales and pay by invoice or bank transfer

How Seafile markets itself

A structured read of the promise, proof and page design on Seafile’s captured homepage.

Homepage capture

“A new way to organize your files”

  • Angle: Outcome / benefit-led
  • Hero: Product screenshot

Pricing

Published plans and prices from Seafile’s own pricing page.

How this score is made up

Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.

  • MCP support

    Whether an agent can drive the product through the Model Context Protocol, and how much setup that takes.

  • Documentation

    Publicly reachable docs — coverage, freshness, code samples and machine readability.

  • Agent friendliness

    How readable the site is to an automated client: llms.txt, structured data, server-rendered content, crawler access.

  • Pricing transparency

    Whether real prices are published, self-serve signup exists, and usage costs are knowable without a sales call.

  • Customer sentiment

    Third-party ratings, shrunk toward the catalogue mean by review volume and corroborated across independent sources.

  • Changelog

    A public, dated record of what shipped and when — the clearest signal that a product is still alive.

  • Marketing site structure

    Whether the site answers a buyer's questions: clear positioning, the pages that matter, and accessibility.

  • Page speed

    How fast the site loads for real visitors: Chrome UX Report 75th-percentile LCP, INP and CLS, with a Lighthouse mobile run standing in where a site has too little traffic for field data.

  • Operational trust

    Status page and incident history, security disclosure, compliance and data-processing documentation.

Measured, but not part of the score

Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.

  • Openness

    Source availability, self-hosting, data export and open standards. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — paid SaaS is not worse for being paid SaaS.

  • Maintenance

    Release cadence and repository activity. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — it is only measurable for open repositories.

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Where this comes from

The Seafile pages BenchRank reads when it scores the product — its documentation, release notes, status and security pages, and its repository where there is one.

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