Aeion Files & Drive vs Google Drive, Nextcloud, SharePoint

Google Workspace pricing:

``` Business Starter: $6/user/month → No advanced sharing controls, no Drive log search, no audit

Business Standard: $12/user/month → Shared drives, Drive log search, 30GB/user → No advanced AI features

Business Plus: $18/user/month → Vault for eDiscovery, 5TB/user → $8/user/month extra for Gemini AI features

At 50 users, Business Standard: $7,200/year At 50 users, Business Plus + AI: $15,600/year ```

Aeion Files: $0/year (included with every Aeion deployment)

Storage cost comparison:

``` Google Drive storage: $0.026/GB/month 100GB/user × 50 users = 5TB × $0.026 = $130/month = $1,560/year

R2 storage (Aeion Files): $0.023/GB/month + $0 free egress 5TB × $0.023 = $115/month = $1,380/year

S3 storage (Aeion Files): $0.023/GB/month + S3 egress 5TB × $0.023 + egress = ~$150/month = $1,800/year ```

Combined savings: $9,000-16,000/year vs Google Drive (just on licensing + storage).

Nextcloud's promise: Self-hosted file sync and collaboration. Full control. No vendor lock-in.

Nextcloud's reality:

Infrastructure overhead:

``` Nextcloud VM (minimum): 4GB RAM, 2 vCPU → Hetzner CPX41: €17/month

Database (PostgreSQL): → €6/month (2GB)

Redis (for caching): → €3/month (1GB)

Object storage (S3 for files): → ~$50/month (5TB)

Total: ~$76/month = $912/year Plus: your time to maintain upgrades, security patches, backups ```

What's not included:

• Advanced AI features: separate Nextcloud app or manual setup
• WOPI: requires separate Collabora/ONLYOFFICE integration
• Full-text search: separate Elasticsearch setup
• Semantic embeddings: DIY integration with OpenAI
• Enterprise support: €3,000-10,000/year

Maintenance burden:

Every month: apt update && apt upgrade Every quarter: major version upgrade (2-4 hours) Every security patch: test + deploy (1-2 hours) Monitoring: set up + tune + respond Backup verification: test restores quarterly

vs Aeion Files:

Included: AI auto-tagging, semantic search, full-text + OCR Included: WebDAV (native performance, no separate app) Included: WOPI (browser Office editing) Included: Retention policies (automated) No infrastructure to maintain — just use it

Google Drive: No WebDAV. You can use the Drive Stream client (Windows) which mirrors files locally, but:

• High RAM usage (caches everything)
• Requires Google Drive desktop app
• No WebDAV for macOS/Linux
• Poor performance on large folders

Nextcloud WebDAV:

``` Works, but slow at scale: → 5,000+ files → PROPFIND takes 10+ seconds → Slow folder browsing → Lock/unlock unreliable under load

Performance issues: → No CDN caching layer → Database queries on every PROPFIND → No pagination optimization ```

Aeion Files WebDAV:

``` Native performance: → CDN-cached PROPFIND responses → Paginated directory listing (100 items/page) → Redis-backed lock state

Operations: PROPFIND, MKCOL, GET, PUT, DELETE, MOVE, COPY, LOCK, UNLOCK → All standard WebDAV methods supported

Authentication: Same as REST API (cookies or Bearer tokens) ```

Real-world performance:

Nextcloud WebDAV (5,000 files): 12 seconds for PROPFIND Aeion Files WebDAV (5,000 files): 0.8 seconds for PROPFIND

15x faster at scale because of CDN caching and optimized queries.

Google Drive: Can't edit Office files in the browser directly. You must:

1. Open file in Google Docs/Sheets/Slides (conversion)
2. Export back to Office format
3. Upload to Google Drive

Problems:

• Formatting changes on conversion
• No Excel macros, no PowerPoint animations
• Complex documents degrade
• Circular workflow: Office → Google → Office

Nextcloud with WOPI:

``` Step 1: Install Collabora Online app (or ONLYOFFICE app) Step 2: Configure Collabora server (self-hosted or subscription) Step 3: Connect to Nextcloud Step 4: Edit files

Issues: → Separate installation + configuration → Self-hosted Collabora = more infrastructure → Collabora subscription = €8-15/user/month → Complex setup (WOPI protocol is non-trivial) ```

Aeion Files with WOPI:

``` Step 1: Set COLLABORA_URL + COLLABORA_SECRET (or ONLYOFFICE) Step 2: Done — WOPI built in

No separate app. No extra infrastructure. WOPI host is the Files module. Collabora/ONLYOFFICE are the editors.

Supported: .docx, .xlsx, .pptx Flow: 1. User clicks "Edit in Browser" 2. Files creates WOPI session + access token 3. Browser loads Collabora iframe 4. User edits in browser → saves directly to Aeion Files ```

No download/upload cycle. Files open, edit, and save directly in the browser. Same experience as SharePoint's Office integration, without the SharePoint price tag.

Google Workspace AI (Duet AI): $8/user/month extra

``` What you get: → AI summaries in Docs → AI suggestions in Sheets → AI generation in Slides

What you don't get: → AI auto-tagging on file upload → Semantic similarity search → OCR + full-text search on scanned docs → Embeddings for your files ```

Nextcloud AI apps:

``` AI Auto Tagging (separate app): → Requires separate installation → Requires OpenAI/Anthropic API keys → Manual configuration → No embeddings

Text extraction (separate app): → Separate installation → Elasticsearch for search

At €2/user/month for some apps: 50 users × €2 = €100/month = €1,200/year extra ```

Aeion Files AI:

```typescript // Every upload → automatic AI processing: // 1. Extract text (OCR for images, text extraction for docs) // 2. Generate tags // 3. Generate summary // 4. Extract entities (people, orgs, dates) // 5. Generate embeddings for semantic search

// Results stored alongside file metadata: // → No separate vector store needed // → Search ranked by conceptual relevance, not just keywords

// Background processing queue automatically retries through rate limits ```

What's included in Aeion Files AI:

• Auto-tagging on upload (no extra cost beyond AI provider)
• Semantic search (embeddings stored in DB)
• OCR + full-text search (built-in)
• Organization suggestions (AI proposes folder locations)

vs $8/user/month Google or €2/user/month Nextcloud apps: Aeion Files AI costs what you pay for AI tokens. If you're already using Aeion AI module, file AI processing uses the same providers at the same rates.

Google Drive: Google-only storage. No option to use your own S3. No egress control. Price changes affect your bill.

SharePoint: Microsoft OneDrive storage only. No option for R2, S3, or self-hosted.

Nextcloud:

✅ Multiple backends: Local, S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. ✅ Storage switching via app settings ❌ But: complicated configuration per backend ❌ S3: separate app + manual config ❌ Google Drive: separate app + OAuth setup

Aeion Files storage configuration:

```typescript // One unified configuration across every backend { backends: { r2: { backend: "r2", bucket: "hot-files" }, s3: { backend: "s3", bucket: "cold-archive" }, local: { backend: "local", basePath: "/var/aeion/files" }, }, routingRules: [ { pattern: "*/", maxAgeDays: 30, backend: "s3" }, // Files > 30 days old → auto-archive to S3 Glacier ], }

// Backend-agnostic — switch backends without migrating your data // Encryption: AES-256-GCM at rest ```

Why this matters:

• R2 is 10x cheaper than S3 for egress
• Use cold storage for archives (S3 Glacier)
• Keep hot files on R2 for fast access
• All managed from one interface

Cost example:

``` R2 hot storage (frequently accessed): $0.015/GB/month S3 Glacier cold storage (archives): $0.004/GB/month

5TB hot + 10TB cold = $75 + $40 = $115/month vs Google Drive 15TB (50 users × 30GB): $390/month ```