filebrowser

📂 Web File Browser

⭐ 34,571 stars on GitHub · 🍴 3,819 forks · 📜 License: apache-2.0 · 💻 Language: Go

What is filebrowser?

A lightweight web UI over a server directory is often all you need, and File Browser does that without dragging in a full storage platform. Its differentiator is simplicity: a single Go binary that turns a folder into a browser-accessible file manager.

Main components

• Web-based file manager for browsing a configured server directory
• Upload, download, rename, move, copy, delete, and organize files from the browser
• File preview support for common formats, useful for quick checks without downloading
• In-browser editing for text-based files and configuration snippets
• User management and permissions for controlling who can access what
• Material Design-style Vue interface that feels familiar on desktop and mobile
• Simple deployment model: run the binary, point it at a path, and put it behind your preferred reverse proxy if needed

Clear use cases

• Expose a home lab storage folder through a clean web interface without installing Nextcloud
• Give non-technical users controlled access to upload or download files on a VPS
• Manage media, backups, documents, or config files on a NAS from any browser
• Add a quick file administration panel to a small internal server or appliance
• Share a project directory with a team when SFTP is too awkward and a full collaboration suite is overkill

The biggest strength is its minimal operational footprint — File Browser is easy to deploy, easy to understand, and does exactly what the name says. Compared with commercial cloud drives or larger self-hosted suites, it skips sync clients, office integrations, and workflow features in favor of direct, fast access to files you already store on your own machine.

That focus is also the trade-off. The project describes itself as feature-complete and maintenance-only, so you should choose it for stability and simplicity, not for an expanding roadmap. If you need collaborative editing, advanced sharing policies, desktop sync, audit-heavy enterprise controls, or object-storage-native workflows, you’ll likely outgrow it. But for a private server, small office, lab box, or embedded admin UI, that restraint is exactly why it works so well.

Best for sysadmins, homelab users, and small teams that need a no-nonsense self-hosted web file manager over an existing directory.

Topics: the project is tagged with popular topics:

• 🏷️ file-browser
• 🏷️ file-manager
• 🏷️ file-sharing
• 🏷️ go
• 🏷️ material-design
• 🏷️ self-hosted
• 🏷️ vue

📸 Screenshots

Quick install

The project supports Docker Compose:

git clone https://github.com/filebrowser/filebrowser.git
cd filebrowser
docker compose up -d

Check the README in the repo for required env variables.

Minimum system requirements

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• One-command docker compose up -d deploy in 2 minutes
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• Daily snapshot backup
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Resources

• 🔗 GitHub: filebrowser/filebrowser
• 🌐 Homepage: https://filebrowser.org
• 📚 Official docs: see README in the repo
• 💬 Community: GitHub Issues + Discussions

Article compiled from GitHub data on 05/05/2026. Star/fork counts may have changed — see live numbers via the GitHub link.