Filen Is the Open-Source Drive That Will Not Read Your Files

Filen is a zero-knowledge cloud drive: files are encrypted with AES-256 on your own device before upload, the encryption key never leaves your machine, and the desktop and mobile clients are open source. It hosts in Germany. Paid plans start at €1.99 a month for 200GiB.¹

Filen does not publish a free-quota figure on its marketing site or its pricing page. What it does publish is a set of guarantees, and for a particular kind of user those are worth more than a gigabyte count.²

The plans, measured

Prices measured on 22 October 2026. Vendor plan terms, allowances and prices change without notice, so treat every figure on this page as a dated snapshot rather than a permanent fact. Where a number here differs from the vendor's own pricing page, the vendor's page is correct and the figure above is simply older than it.

There is also a Pro X tier at €39.99 a month for 10TiB. Plans stack rather than replace, so buying two Pro I plans gives 400GiB rather than a single upgrade.

Why the free quota is not printed

That is not an omission in this article, it is the state of the vendor's own site. Filen's pricing page lists the paid tiers with clear figures and does not state the size of the free allowance in the same way.

Rather than quote a number that cannot be sourced from the vendor, the honest position is this: the free tier exists, it is zero-knowledge like every paid tier, and the quota should be treated as a starting allowance to confirm at signup rather than a figure to plan around. Anyone quoting a precise number without pointing at Filen's own page is guessing.

The open-source clients are the differentiator

Any storage provider can say it cannot read your files. Filen publishes the code that does the encryption, so the claim can be checked rather than believed. Its desktop, mobile and web clients are open source and auditable.

That matters more than it sounds. Sync also offers end-to-end encryption on every tier, but its clients are closed. The guarantee is the same on paper; only one of the two can be independently verified.

Germany as a jurisdiction

Files are stored in German data centres and the company operates under EU data protection law. With zero-knowledge encryption this matters less than it would otherwise, since the provider holds nothing readable to hand over, but jurisdiction still governs metadata and account records.

For anyone whose reason for choosing a storage provider is regulatory rather than personal, that combination, German hosting plus zero-knowledge plus auditable clients, is the specific thing pCloud's EU region does not offer at any tier.

What the free tier is actually for

Testing whether the client behaves on your systems. Filen has clients for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS plus a web interface, and Linux support in particular is where consumer drives usually come apart.

It is also a reasonable place for a small set of genuinely sensitive files: identity scans, password backups, recovery codes. Files that are painful to lose and worse to leak, and which do not need much space.

What the paid tiers cost relative to the field

Two hundred gibibytes for €1.99 a month is competitive with any 200GB tier in this category, and 2TiB for €8.99 undercuts most 2TB plans. GiB and GB are close enough in practice that the difference does not change the comparison.

Prices are in euros and exclude any VAT that applies, so a European buyer will see a higher total at checkout than the listed figure.

How it compares

On privacy guarantees Filen and Sync are the only two providers in this directory that encrypt client-side by default on every tier, including free. Filen has the auditable code; Sync has a more established product.

On free space, MEGA gives 20GB and Google gives 15GB, both far more generous on paper. Neither encrypts before upload.

Frequently asked questions

Is Filen free?
Filen has a free tier with the same zero-knowledge encryption as paid plans, though the exact quota is not published on its pricing page.

Can Filen read my files?
No. Encryption happens on your device and the key is derived from your password, so the server stores ciphertext only.

Is Filen open source?
The clients are open source and auditable. The server is not fully open in the same way Nextcloud is.

Where is my data stored?
In Germany, under EU data protection law.

What happens if I lose my Filen password?
Without your password the data cannot be decrypted. That is the cost of zero-knowledge storage.

Plan structure, pricing and encryption claims verified against Filen's own pricing page and site on 22 October 2026. Filen does not publish a free-quota figure on that page, so none is quoted here.

Sources

1. Filen pricing: filen.io/pricing.
2. Filen: filen.io.

All sources are the vendor's own plan or documentation pages, checked on 22 October 2026. Plan terms change without notice, so confirm current limits before you rely on them.