Filestash
Hacker ApprovedRanked 4 of 6 self-hosted file managers by recommenders
People recommend Filestash as a self-hosted web frontend that connects to almost any storage through a plugin system. The most common caveat is thin documentation that makes setup harder.
People recommend Filestash as a self-hosted web frontend that connects to almost any storage through a plugin system. The most common caveat is thin documentation that makes setup harder.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 88%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 9 years
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 7.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Connects to almost any storage
“it's entirely stateless and act as a proxy translating S3 call onto whatever you have connected in the other end”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “MinIO repository is no longer maintained” “I've done exactly that with the Filestash virtual filesystem plugin that can connect to any possible storage”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “FUSE is All You Need – Giving agents access to anything via filesystems” “easy to install self-hosted frontend for virtually any type of storage”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Stop paying for Dropbox/Google Drive, use your own S3 bucket instead” - Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026)”
Plugin-based architecture
“this framework seems to be really well implemented, I really like the plugin and interface based architecture”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “MinIO repository is no longer maintained” “they had Filestash working on top, effectively we did some custom plugins”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “MinIO repository is no longer maintained” “has a far bigger ecosystem of both storage and auth plugins”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Alternatives to MinIO for single-node local S3” Easy single-binary self-hosted install
“is a good web-based example of such a thing, ignore all the guff about needing docker since you can just run the whole thing from a single self-compiled binary”
Comment from 13 Jun 2026 in “Nextcloud Hub 26 Spring: Built together, designed for the future” “easy to install self-hosted frontend for virtually any type of storage”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Stop paying for Dropbox/Google Drive, use your own S3 bucket instead” Proxies your storage, you keep it
“it's entirely stateless and act as a proxy translating S3 call onto whatever you have connected in the other end”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “MinIO repository is no longer maintained” “we don't own your storage, you do. Filestash is just a proxy.”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “I Just Want Simple S3”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Little documentation, hard to set up
“I really like how the software is setup, but there is almost no documentation. This makes it hard to setup.”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “MinIO repository is no longer maintained” Distrust of LLM co-created code
“I don't put much trust in projects co-created with LLMs”
Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “What 81,000 people want from AI”
Other self-hosted file managers people recommend
The four most recommended other self-hosted file managers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| copyparty | 39 | 9 | 81% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Samba | 36 | 21 | 63% | 12 | — | — |
| NFS | 20 | 18 | 53% | 9 | — | — |
| FilestashThis page | 15 | 2 | 88% | 10 | 9 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| FileBrowser | 8 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
32 of the 33 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Run filestash as a partial GoogleDrive replacement”
“I have been working on exactly this with Filestash”
“has a far bigger ecosystem of both storage and auth plugins”
“The 80% is the fast core that focus on file management”
“This is exactly what I've done”
“tons of stuff Dropbox never did”
“is a good web-based example of such a thing, ignore all the guff about needing docker since you can just run the whole thing from a single self-compiled binary”
“we don't own your storage, you do. Filestash is just a proxy.”
“I didn't know Filestash, but it looks great!”
“I believe that is miles ahead of even Dropbox itself”
“it is really a high quality software piece that solved a lot of pain points for me”
“In the POC I ran, I mapped a whole wordpress site as a fs which was versioned controlled via git”
“easy to install self-hosted frontend for virtually any type of storage”
“I don't put much trust in projects co-created with LLMs”
“you added a lot since last time I saw your repo”
“where everything is treated as a filesystem with fine-grained control to handle authorisation”
“you can now access your Dropbox over FTPS, SFTP, S3, or MCP”
“get full auditability, with the audit trail being tamper proof, traceable, timestamped and non-repudiable”
“I really like how the software is setup, but there is almost no documentation. This makes it hard to setup.”
“Is this some dark pattern or what?”
“they had Filestash working on top, effectively we did some custom plugins”
“filestash looks pretty sweet”
“this framework seems to be really well implemented, I really like the plugin and interface based architecture”
“it's entirely stateless and act as a proxy translating S3 call onto whatever you have connected in the other end”
“I use it extensively in my OSS work”
“I've done exactly that with the Filestash virtual filesystem plugin that can connect to any possible storage”
“from the landing page I'm still not entirely sure what it actually does”
“Glad to see the project is still succeeding!”
“The base product is open-source and I make money from custom builds, additional plugins, paid support”
“Cool project, gave it a star and bookmarked it.”
“have been very happy with it”
“I made one such lightweight alternative frontend”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.