Fast and scalable ownCloud Infinite Scale

Everything Must Go

The ownCloud Infinite Scale (oCIS)enterprise file-sharing and syncing software stack is a fast and scalable yet complete rewrite of the classic ownCloud. The current version of oCIS is the technology preview 1.8.0 (as of July 2021). Go, Vue.js, and a modular approach replace the outdated PHP, database, and POSIX filesystem the older versions needed. In internal documents, ownCloud promises up to 10 times better performance than ownCloud 10.6.0 published in December 2020 and, so far, the last PHP-based ownCloud variant.

Some History

A shooting star in 2010, ownCloud hasn't make it into the news that much recently, other than with its fork Nextcloud [1]. Whoever thinks that might be attributed to Nextcloud's media success and big community misses the point, though. Over the years, the two companies that once were one have developed in completely different directions. Nextcloud focused on its community and web front end, a web app store with many community apps targeting the growing market of web desktops like Microsoft 365, whereas ownCloud quietly improved the back end and dealt with enterprise needs of (not just) their customers by refactoring the software and making it faster and more robust.

In hindsight, it almost looks like shared work, but it never was. After all, some of these different expectations inside management were why the company broke up in 2016 – but that is another story. Today both companies claim to be very successful with their approaches, and jokes have it that both are convinced they are light years ahead of their competitor.

PHP vs. Performance

Now in mid 2021, a big change is about to come. ownCloud is diverging from the common path and presents a complete rework of the back end. Over the years, the ownCloud developers had to realize the

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