ownCloud is free/open source software - you have no obligation to use ownCloud's servers or pay them anything - you can download both the client and server sour

ownCloud is free/open source software - you have no obligation to use ownCloud's servers or pay them anything - you can download both the client and server source code, host the server on your own machine, and connect to that with the client. ownCloud run a business where they can host a copy of the server software for you, if you don't have your own machine or a usable connection - but there's no requirement to use that - you could spin up an instance in Amazon's cloud or elsewhere too.