Self-hosting OpenCloud the easy way

Yulei Chen

4 min

OpenCloud is an open-source, self-hosted file sharing platform — a privacy-focused alternative to Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox. Unlike PHP-based solutions like Nextcloud, OpenCloud runs as a single binary with no database required, making it radically simpler to deploy and maintain. It's 100% open-source under the Apache 2.0 license with no usage limits.

Sliplane is a managed container platform that makes self-hosting painless. With one-click deployment, you can get OpenCloud up and running in minutes — no server setup, no reverse proxy config, no infrastructure to maintain.

If you'd rather go the manual route, check out self-hosting OpenCloud on a Hetzner Ubuntu server — it walks through the full Docker + Caddy setup step by step.

Prerequisites

Before deploying, ensure you have a Sliplane account (free trial available).

Quick start

Sliplane provides one-click deployment with presets.

Deploy OpenCloud >

Click the deploy button above
Select a project
Select a server. If you just signed up you get a 48-hour free trial server
Click Deploy!

About the preset

The one-click deploy above uses Sliplane's OpenCloud preset. The preset is built for a clean, stable default setup:

Production image (opencloudeu/opencloud) — OpenCloud offers three release types: Rolling (latest features every 3 weeks, for enthusiasts), Production (stability-focused, ~every 6 months), and LTS (long-term support with 2-year backports). The preset uses the Production channel for reliability.
Persistent storage mounted to /etc/opencloud (config) and /var/lib/opencloud (data)
Auto-initialization on first start — the preset handles the init step automatically
Default admin password is generated randomly and shown in your environment variables

Next steps

Once OpenCloud is running on Sliplane, access it using the domain Sliplane provided (e.g. opencloud-xxxx.sliplane.app). Log in with the username admin and the password from your IDM_ADMIN_PASSWORD environment variable. From there, you can customize the setup further.

Default paths

OpenCloud stores its configuration and data in two main directories inside the container:

Path	Purpose
`/etc/opencloud`	Configuration files
`/var/lib/opencloud`	User data and files

Both are mounted as persistent volumes through the preset, so your data survives container restarts and redeployments.

Collabora integration

OpenCloud supports real-time document editing through Collabora Online. To enable it, you'll need to run a separate Collabora container and configure the WOPI server. See the official Docker Compose setup for details on connecting Collabora to OpenCloud.

Storage backends

By default, OpenCloud writes files directly to disk (POSIX storage). It also supports S3-compatible storage and Ceph for larger deployments. See the OpenCloud configuration docs for storage backend options.

Logging

OpenCloud logs go to STDOUT by default, which works well with Sliplane's built-in log viewer. For general Docker log tips, check out our post on how to use Docker logs.

Cost comparison

Of course you can also self-host OpenCloud with other cloud providers. Here is a pricing comparison for the most common ones:

Provider	vCPU Cores	RAM	Disk	Estimated Monthly Cost	Notes
Sliplane	2	2 GB	40 GB	€9	charge per server
Render	1	2 GB	40 GB	~$35–$45	VM Small
Fly.io	2	2 GB	40 GB	~$20–$25	VM + volume
Railway	2	2 GB	40 GB	~$15–$66	Usage-based

FAQ

Is OpenCloud really free?

Yes. OpenCloud is 100% open-source under the Apache 2.0 license. There are no usage limits, no user caps, and no feature gates. The team behind OpenCloud offers paid support subscriptions for businesses that need priority security notifications and integration help.

How is OpenCloud different from Nextcloud or ownCloud?

OpenCloud takes a radically different approach. While Nextcloud and ownCloud rely on PHP, MySQL/MariaDB, Redis, and Apache — OpenCloud is a single Go binary that writes directly to disk. No database, no PHP runtime, far fewer moving parts. This makes it much simpler to deploy, maintain, and back up.