Files.com is the managed platform for teams that don’t want to be their own file-server vendor. SFTPGo is a capable open-source SFTP, FTP, and WebDAV server, and self-hosting it makes you the ops team, the support desk, and the compliance team. Files.com serves the same protocols and a deeper platform as a managed cloud service: patched by us, supported by real engineers, with compliance built in. Used by 4,000+ organizations and #1 in Gartner Peer Insights for managed file transfer.
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SFTPGo is a well-built open-source file-transfer server — SFTP, FTP, and WebDAV, written in Go, self-hostable on Linux, Windows, Docker, or Kubernetes, free under the AGPL. For a team with the engineering to run its own infrastructure, it’s a legitimately good piece of software, and we’ll say so plainly.
What’s free is the license, not the operation. Self-hosting it makes you the ops team that deploys, patches, scales, secures, and keeps it up, and the support desk, because there’s no vendor to call when it breaks. The compliance evidence a security review wants is a project you own. And SFTPGo’s own answer to “make this managed and supported” is a paid Enterprise or hosted plan, so the honest comparison was never zero versus $199.
Files.com is the managed version of that whole stack. It serves the same SFTP, FTP, and WebDAV, adds automation, partner workflows, sharing, and native apps, and brings SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, and a tamper-proof audit trail, all patched, scaled, and supported by us, so none of the operational load is yours.
With self-hosted open source, when something breaks at 2 a.m. the person on call is you. There’s no vendor SLA, no one to escalate to. Files.com comes with real engineers who know the platform and answer the phone, on every plan. The thing you depend on for partner file transfer has someone behind it who isn’t you.
Running SFTPGo means you deploy it, patch it, scale it, secure it, and keep it up. Files.com is a managed cloud platform, and none of that is yours. It scales without you sizing a server, it’s patched by us, and an on-premise Agent reaches the systems that stay in your data center.
SOC 2 Type II, a HIPAA BAA, a GDPR DPA, and a tamper-proof audit log come with Files.com. With a self-hosted server, the certifications, the evidence, and the controls a security review asks for are a project you own. The software doesn’t hand them to you.
SFTPGo is a capable SFTP, FTP, and WebDAV server. Files.com adds the work around the transfer: automation on arrival, partner onboarding, sharing for people, and native apps with a mountable drive — a platform, not a building block.
The license is free; running it is not. The engineering time to deploy, patch, secure, and support a production file server is the real bill, and SFTPGo’s own answer to “make it managed” is a paid Enterprise or hosted tier. Files.com publishes a flat price for the whole platform, run for you, so the comparison is honest total cost, not zero vs. $199.
“Our previous solution was on-prem, so we had to allow a third-party vendor onto the entirety of our network. What’s great with Files.com is that this isn’t the case. Everything is being handled at the cloud-based level, whether it’s inbound or outbound on our network.”
What buyers ask most when comparing Files.com to SFTPGo.
SFTPGo is good open-source software, and if your team wants to self-host and has the engineering to own a production file server, it’s a real and reasonable choice. Files.com isn’t free, and we won’t pretend the trade doesn’t exist. But most teams would rather not be their own file-server vendor: the patching, the on-call, the scaling, the compliance evidence. If that’s you, Files.com gives you the same protocols and a deeper platform, run and supported for you, at a published price.
The same protocols and a deeper platform, managed and supported for you — with compliance built in and no server to host, patch, or be on call for. Start a free trial or talk to our team.
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