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I built an Open-source Dropbox/Google Drive BOYB(Bring your own bucket)

by Zm44·Apr 6, 2026·2 points·2 comments
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AI Analysis

●●SolidShip ItBig BrainNiche Gem

BOYB architecture wraps S3 or R2 with a Dropbox UI without migrating data.

Strengths
  • •Decouples UI from storage, allowing cheap R2 backends with polished sharing interfaces.
  • •Virtual bash filesystem offers unique CLI-like traversal for developers managing bucket data.
  • •Modern stack with tRPC and Drizzle ensures type safety across the monorepo.
Weaknesses
  • •Competes directly with mature giants like Nextcloud and OwnCloud offering more features.
  • •Hosting sharing links requires uptime, defeating the serverless bucket cost advantage entirely.
Target Audience

Developers managing object storage buckets

Similar To

Nextcloud · Cyberduck · FileRun

Post Description

Last week Swyx nerd-sniped me into building an Open-source Dropbox.

Here is Locker: An Open-source Google Drive/box/Dropbox alternative - Provider agnostic (S3, R2, vercel blob, local) - BYOB (Bring your own bucket) - Virtual file system - QMD Search plugin

Locker is designed to sit on top of your bucket, so you can use whatever provider you like best (Or just use a local disk)

BOYB means you don't have to self-host to use your own bucket, just add your keys via the hosted UI, and you're good to go

Locker itself can act as its own S3 bucket, meaning you can generate Locker keys and use them in other applications to have data saved directly to your locker.

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