There are a lot of self-hosted Google Drive alternatives out there, one of the biggest being Nextcloud. Complete with Nextcloud Office which aims to replace Google's entire suite of document software, enthusiasts are spoiled for choice these days. However, one little-known alternative that I personally see as the best replacement for Google's overall suite of services (if you care about privacy more than anything else, that is) is CryptPad. It's a privacy-focused open-source end-to-end encrypted online collaboration application, and the myriad of options it has match and even surpass some of Google's own offerings.

CryptPad is designed to minimize how much data is shared with the provider of the instance, and pretty easy to set up. However, you can also use the official instance instead if you wish.

4 CryptPad is privacy-first

Privacy by design

First and foremost, before getting into how CryptPad puts privacy first, it's important to understand what it's up against. Google clearly outlines in its own privacy policy that it collects all data that goes through your account, which includes your spreadsheets, documents, and more. It may say that it won't do anything with your private data, but nothing prevents it from doing so in the future.

CryptPad, meanwhile, comes in two formats: a self-hosted version that you can deploy yourself, or an online version supplied by the French company behind it. You'll get 1GB of free storage, and you can pay to access additional storage tiers. Self-hosting is already the better option for privacy, but even then, the online version uses end-to-end encryption which was implemented from the ground up as it was developed. It uses modern encryption algorithms so that not even they can see your data.

You can see this for yourself when you host your own instance of CryptPad. In fact, the security is robust to the point that when you set your password, there Is no way to recover access to your account after the fact if you lose it. As well, if your own instance was breached, all data that could potentially be taken would be encrypted. There are other organizations hosting their own CryptPad instances if you suspect that the official instance is tampered with, or you can host your own.

3 Collaboration without sacrificing privacy

Lots of sharing options

When it comes to collaborating with other users, CryptPad makes it pretty easy. You can share it with other users who are in your contacts, or you can send a link that will give guest users access to your sheet. They can then access it according to the parameters that you set. These include:

• View
• Present
• Edit
• Access one and self-destruct

The last option is the most interesting. Essentially, this gives the user access to see your document, but once they close it, they can't see it again. They'll need to ask you for a new link, which means you can control access on a per-view basis. They don't even need an account either, though it does make it significantly easier if they make one.

2 More than just a Google Suite clone

All of Google's options and more

CryptPad offers significantly more options than Google offers when it comes to a lot of different aspects of the application. Even for file creation, there are the usual options like documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, but there's a lot more too. These include:

• Rich text
• Kanban
• Code
• Form
• Whiteboard
• Markdown slides
• Diagram

These are all easily accessible from the home page of CryptPad. Simply click the + button to create a file of any of these types, and you can immediately start working on it. While Google pretty much has all of these in place in one way or another, they're not as clearly laid out as they are here.

On top of that, the sharing options that CryptPad has are significantly better, as you have all of the same options Google does with the addition of a self-destructing link. Finally, you can create an access link that requires a password, with the option of self-destructing the file after a given date.

1 CryptPad is easy to use

Easy to use with lots of options

There's nothing difficult about CryptPad in getting started, and in fact, the official website even has the option for you to create documents and play around with it even if you don't have an account. However, creating an account is easy and requires no email verification. Once you're in, the UI is very simple to navigate. There are even a few customization options you can tweak, such as the color of your own cursor when editing a document with someone else, or the font size when using the code editor.

CryptPad has one very specific purpose, and that's managing and collaborating on documents. There's nothing more to it, and it's not trying to sell you anything. That's partially why it's so simple; it just works as-is. You log in, you access your documents, you edit what you need to, you collaborate, and you close the page. Everything that you need is in front of you, and that's part of what makes it so good.

There are many alternatives to Google out there

Of course, there are plenty of services like this out there. There's Nextcloud Office, OnlyOffice, LibreOffice, and many others. However, CryptPad's strength lies in its security promises and guarantees, and that's why there are still plenty of people who use it. If you want your data protected at all times, CryptPad is the best one out there that can guarantee your safety. If you don't care so much about encryption (because to be honest, a lot of what CryptPad does might be seen as over-the-top), then those other alternatives might suit you better. It's worth at least trying out though, because it might be your next document manager.