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Ask HN: Google Drive/Office 365 alternatives
My partner runs a small charity in the UK whose office infrastructure is based on Google Drive. (Sheets, spreadsheets, email, etc). Her trustees are advising that since Google cannot guarantee that her data is being stored in the UK (apparently?), they need to migrate. Like seemingly every organisation these days, they're looking at MS Office 365. But having a partner with GNU and emacs stickers all over their laptop, she's wondering what alternatives are out there. It'd need to be low (or better no) maintenance, comparable in cost to Office 365 and quality too. It could be web-hosted or based on Next/OwnCloud or something, as long as it works without a load of pain points. Oh and UK-hosted too. I assume others here must have thought this through already, so thought I'd ask the hivemind!
- viraptor 6y agoYou'll have to check with their support about how the location is selected, but https://zoho.eu https://zoho.eu exists and I'm happy with their services. I'd check the specific requirements though. Even DPA doesn't really require hosting in the UK, but UK or country with matching privacy requirements, which in most cases means whole EU is ok.
- pratio 6y agoWe recently moved our Office365 data to Uk. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/moving-data-to-new-datacenter-geos?view=o365-worldwide https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/mo... Google apps are a good alternative to Office365 but we haven't found anything that matches Excel. We're a fintech so there's no way around excel. You'll also have to deal with users who are using excel files locally.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- unixhero 6y agoAgree. Having an Excel, Powerpoint and Word license together with Storage is a killer feature. Mostly because I need it in the corp environment.
- andylynch 6y agoMicrosoft seems generally very good at supporting data residency for their customers, didn’t know they have a UK Geo (never had to check but knew about the Swiss one) but it is 100% sensible for their customers.
- Bad_CRC 6y agoIn [next|own]cloud you can install libreoffice online and have a sheets/documents/presentation with online editing.
- Fnoord 6y agoYep, it is called Collabora Online Development Edition (CODE). Here's the website [1] which also contains installation instructions. [1] https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/ https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/
- micdr0p 6y agoHeard good things about https://www.zoho.com/ https://www.zoho.com/
- rootsudo 6y agoWhy? O365 is free if she's a charity, look into tech-soup, which is the distributor for o365 for non profits. Oh, GNU/emacs? Well, You can run your own OSS openoffice/sunoffice (whatever it's called nowadays) and file sharing but it's alot of work and not no maintenance. site: https://www.techsoup.global/ https://www.techsoup.global/
- newyorker2 6y agoLibre, apache, onlyoffice, google, microsoft and someone mentioned zoho. So many players in the market. Wonder if there's a player that can complete with the likes of office365's feature set .
- nl 6y ago> Her trustees are advising that since Google cannot guarantee that her data is being stored in the UK (apparently?), they need to migrate. She should push back on that, since there is no legal basis for it (except in very specific circumstances). It would be cheaper to get competent legal advice than do a shift like this for many offices.
- twoslide 6y agoThis is correct. Current legislation (GDPR and the UK's implementation in the 2018 Data Protection Act) does not require data to be stored in the UK. G Suite is definitely GDPR compliant, could the trustee be raising vague concerns without good cause (they do that). There are other reasons to switch from Google, but that's not one of them.
- johnchristopher 6y agoIs the UK still bound to the GDPR though (considering Brexit) ?
- DanBC 6y agoYes. GDPR is the EU regulation, but member countries incorporated it into their domestic legislation. In the UK that's the Data Protection Act 2018. To remove GDPR from the UK we'd have to change the data protection act.
- number6 6y agoDo you know if the Brexit would invalidate the act? I am not an expert on UK Law but I also wondered if it is possible that the reference on the GDPR would still be valid
- AndrewDucker 6y agoAt that point the UK could revoke or change the law. But it wouldn't automatically vanish.
- markuman123 6y agonextcloud with onlyoffice
- pratio 6y agoAs the user rootsudo mentioned, you might be able to use O365 for free if its a small charity. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/nonprofit/office-365-nonprofit-plans-and-pricing https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/nonprofit/offi... https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/nonprofits/eligibility https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/nonprofits/eligibility You can create an account and upload the documentation https://nonprofit.microsoft.com/en-us/getting-started https://nonprofit.microsoft.com/en-us/getting-started
- DanBC 6y agoTrustees are not usually experts in data protection law, so I'd ask the trustees to be providing a lot more information. At a minimum they need to explain: 1) What law they think is being broken (and they need to actually link the specific clause) 2) Why they think G Suite is breaking it (and they need to describe that breach in terms of the law they think is being broken). 3) How much they're prepared to spend on changing from G Suite to something else, including costs of migrating data, checking it's correct after migration, re-training, and any possible software and support costs. G Suite claims it's GDPR compliant. https://cloud.google.com/security/gdpr https://cloud.google.com/security/gdpr
- andylynch 6y agoThey are probably thinking about brexit and the UK data protection act - but this shouldn’t need any action since UK GDPR has an amendment which recognises EU data protection standards as adequate for the UK.
- sgt 6y agoThe answer is pretty obvious - use a desktop based office suite. It's very hard for smaller players to compete with web apps like Google Apps and expect similar quality. With desktop apps you have full control. I would suggest looking into OpenOffice (or LibreOffice I guess), or simply just paying for Microsoft Office. Then you can use Office365 but download the apps and store files locally (or somewhere shared).
- pabs3 6y agoOpenOffice is not very well maintained, I would go with LibreOffice these days.
- tmaly 6y agoWe have both at the office. I have found the opposite to be true. OpenOffice is able to open certain xlsx files where as LibreOffice cannot open them. I cannot just downloaded the latest versions. I am stuck with what is available on RHEL.
- davidgerard 6y agothis would be absolutely amazing, given that AOO's OOXML support is rudimentary. Which version of each, and what precisely happens?
- livre 6y agoDo you mean you are not allowed to install the latest versions or that you are not allowed to download anything? If you can still download things you could give the LibreOffice AppImage[1] a try. [1] https://www.libreoffice.org/download/appimage/ https://www.libreoffice.org/download/appimage/
- pabs3 6y agoIf your version of RHEL supports Flatpak, I would suggest using that (or the AppImage posted by someone else). https://www.libreoffice.org/download/flatpak https://www.libreoffice.org/download/flatpak Either way, the fact remains that the OpenOffice development community imploded and takes a long time to even fix security issues.
- bartread 6y agoSeriously, just use Office 365. Otherwise you'll forever be dealing with a constant low grade stream of interoperability glitches. Yes, file formats are usually interchangeable. No, that interchangeability is not perfect, especially once you get away from word processing and into spreadsheets and presentations. The majority of people your partner has to work with outside of their charity will be using Office so these small issues will constantly cause friction and frustration. Does your partner want to waste time on those issues or do they want to focus their energy on the good work of the charity? And, since we're talking about a charity, O365 is probably available at a reduced price, or even free.
- benrmatthews 6y agoIn the UK, Charity Digital Trust offers free licences for charities using Office 365: https://charitydigital.org.uk/products/microsoft-365-nonprofit-cloud-subscription https://charitydigital.org.uk/products/microsoft-365-nonprof...
- rz2k 6y agoFor nonprofits in other countries it is worth looking at the TechSoup Global Network which will point you to different countries' equivalent of the charity digital exchange. https://www.techsoup.global/ https://www.techsoup.global/
- chiefalchemist 6y agoI have a pro bono client that went through TechSoup. TS was generally very helpful and knew the MS product line, and so on. They added value.
- adwww 6y agoWhy do you have to purchase through some random other charity, instead of just buying direct from microsoft.com?
- turnerc 6y ago
- codegladiator 6y agohttps://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-online/ https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-online/ not related to them, not even a user.
- adav 6y agoUK registered charities get Office 365 for free. In my experience it’s currently the best choice. I supported all the technical aspects of a friend’s charity in their early days. Originally set them up on Zoho for cheapness before they were a fully registered charity. Zoho worked but caused plenty of pain for their less computer proficient users (volunteers and trustees). The Zoho UX is very clunky and the team required a lot of support. Migration to Office 365 made everyone very happy because of the familiarity (everyone is used to it from work). The charity requires less support time now and no longer complain about Zoho’s limitations.
- GoblinSlayer 6y agohttps://degooglisons-internet.org/en/list/ https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/list/ I guess, they are in France though.
- sto_hristo 6y agoGet a self hosted cloud like nextcloud and create accounts for each user. Nextcloud will allow you to expose directories as webdav shares which you can mount on each user's computer. Then just use desktop office suite like libre office to do all work that will be inherently saved online. Users will be able to share their documents freely between each other. You will never the conveniences of the a paid powerhouse developed by thousands of people over the years, but for next to nothing cost and a little bit of effort you can be just as productive.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y agoWhat would you say to a simpler system of having Subversion hosted in an office for sharing the docs and LibreOffice to edit them? No cloud, and it takes very little training to use SVN with a gui client.
- sto_hristo 6y agoThis idea sounds viable from my point of view. Whatever OP finds best for their needs.
- aborsy 6y agoI am no expert but Nextcloud requires a bit of set up and maintenance. With the server exposed to the internet, shared folders and multiple users, you have to worry about security if you could be a target. You need more than one server for back up. I would still suggest this approach; just saying it takes a bit of work.
- sto_hristo 6y agoWhile it does take considerable effort to set it up in the beginning, maintenance later on, at least in my case, is next to nothing. Updates happen via single click from the Admin UI and only happen when you invoke them, at your convenience. For security it does allow 2 factor auth and the admin account has all the tools to manage users and query what they have shared. While it's not an enterprise solution... but for their use case, and with the amount of features it offers, i think it's something worth considering even with the non trivial initial setup tax.
- sys_64738 6y agoiCloud.
- nuker 6y agoAmazon WorkDocs and WorkMail
- crazygringo 6y agoNote that since 2018, Google does allow you keep your data in Europe, though not specifically in the UK: https://support.google.com/a/answer/9223653?en https://support.google.com/a/answer/9223653?en (Though this may involve upgrading to a paid business license for G Suite, if your partner is currently using the free charity tier.) Just because of the headache involved in transferring, I'd ask her to check with legal again. It would be very unusual to require UK-based storage specifically. If that truly is a requirement, then cloud storage is basically not an option. Just keep everything as Office documents on a local network hard drive and set up recurring backups to an off-site location (probably your partner's home).
- jeffbee 6y ago> though not specifically in the UK Since Google doesn't have any datacenters in the UK, Google clearly cannot guarantee that your data is stored there. In fact it is guaranteed that your data is not stored there. https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/ https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/
- e12e 6y ago> It would be very unusual to require UK-based storage specifically. Maybe not so unusual post brexit? I'm not sure how UK domestic equivalent of GDPR ends up now and after re-negotiation with EU/EC? ed: see also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24398861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24398861
- quicklime 6y agoI'm not sure if this meets all your needs around data sovereignty, but Quip is an alternative that does collaboratively-edited documents.
- freddyym 6y agoCheck PrivacyTools.io's recommendations.[1] Disclosure, I'm a team member there. 1. https://www.privacytools.io/software/productivity/ https://www.privacytools.io/software/productivity/
- philshem 6y agoProtonDrive coming soon: https://protonmail.com/blog/protondrive-security/ https://protonmail.com/blog/protondrive-security/
- windthrown 6y agoIt sounds like this charity is looking for an entire software suite (spreadsheets, documents, etc) not just email and cloud storage.
- pellaeon 6y agoThere's OpenAppStack https://openappstack.net/ https://openappstack.net/ . It is currently in beta but very promising.
- 7ewis 6y agoI believe charities can use G Suite for free, plus I know for sure there is a setting where you can tell them to store your data in the EU, US or no preference. However I don't believe there's a way to tell them to use the UK specifically.
- sidcool 6y agoI recommend Zoho. Less expensive and great quality.
- Gys 6y agoLess expensive? Could you please elaborate? I looked at their website and there is no pricing at all. Only 'Contact sales'. Even the 'sign up for free' does not explain what I could possibly get 'for free'. If they are cheaper than it would beneficial to them to write that in a headline ;-)
- sidcool 6y agoPricing: https://www.zoho.com/one/pricing/ https://www.zoho.com/one/pricing/ Plan Details: https://www.zoho.com/one/plan-details.html https://www.zoho.com/one/plan-details.html I am not affiliated to them.
- patel011393 6y agoI recommend considering AirTable if the group is willing to try something new or check out: Notes + PM -> notion.so Word -> notion.so PowerPoint -> slidebean.com or pitch.com Excel/Access -> still AirTable Outlook -> amazing email UX via hey.com for $99/year I got many of these via alternativeto.net and producthunt.com
- dqv 6y agoI'm not sure what features nextcloud has, but mailinabox.email does have it as well as email and is very easy to manage. You're going to need someone who can run the updates, but other then that I've been using it for the last 5 years and it has been VERY easy to keep running. I'm running ours on a $10 DigitalOcean box.
- christefano 6y agoThanks! I found this helpful. To anyone else also just learning about Mail-in-a-Box: “Mail-in-a-Box is based on Postfix, Dovecot, Z-Push, Roundcube, Nextcloud, Apache SpamAssassin, Postgrey, Nginx, @konklone’s nginx config, and more.”
- qafy 6y agoI worked IT for a small org one summer that used the Synology suite for all their internal operations. It is basically a self hosted completely OOTB clone of Google Drive, Docs, Gmail, etc I now use it personal stuff as well. Pros: - All the creature comforts of mainstream suites such as realtime collaboration, comments, history, etc. - 2-way compatible with Office and Google so you can import docs to and from those suites. - Encrypted document support - Self hosted Cons: - Requires you to own a synology NAS to host it. https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/office https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/office https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/mailplus https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/mailplus https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/drive https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/drive
- nvahalik 6y agoI had a buddy that has a Synology NAS and he runs a DB server on it... it's horribly slow. Speed-wise how do these compare? It may not be an apples-to-apples comparison, but it was unbelievably slow even for small operations.
- jmnicolas 6y agoIt depends on your NAS processor. I have the cheapest one drive Synology at home, it's unbearably slow. At work I bought a faster one and it's OK.
- aborsy 6y agoRegardless of where the servers are located, I would worry about a company such as google having access to the data (that is not end to end encrypted).
- chromedev 6y agoGoogle is FedRAMP compliant, however if you need to make sure it is encrypted then that is what rclone is for. You could setup an rclone encrypted mount and then share it on the local network.
- illuminated 6y agoI've been using Kolab [0] for years for self hosting the email, calendar and tasks. There is an official integration with Seafile which gives you a "Google Drive"/"One Drive" experience (you can also integrate it with NextCloud), while recently there's been Libre Office integration available which gives you word processing, spreadsheets and presentations in your browser; I'm also using it. The overall experience is not as smooth as with Google or MS, but I do have Exchange protocol, file storage with management and online document editing and it works. First time it took me almost two weeks to setup everything, but I've been doing the same setup for my friends, for their small to mid sized companies for less than a week. Their main website is not managed well but they have a pretty active development community, very useful mailing list (you can browse the archive) and somewhat dated documentation but the changes are not that hard to figure out. Once everything is set, the update process and maintenance are almost automatic through the native linux package manager. [0] https://www.kolab.org/ https://www.kolab.org/
- terrorOf 6y agoLibreOffice Online ? ( https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/ https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/ )