What is ScaiDrive

ScaiDrive is an enterprise file synchronization and sharing platform. A central server stores the authoritative copy of every file; desktop, mobile, and web clients keep local copies in sync. Users collaborate in shared folders with NTFS-style permissions, send files to people outside the organization through password-protected links, and find content with full-text or semantic search.

You integrate once through the HTTP API. Whether a user is on a laptop, a phone, a browser, or calling the API from another service, the contract is the same.

What it gives you#

Block-level delta sync. Clients compute SHA-256 chunk hashes and upload only changed blocks. A 500 MB file with a 2 MB edit transfers 2 MB, not 500 MB. Chunks deduplicate across files and users — if two people upload the same attachment, it's stored once.

Central shares with NTFS-style ACLs. Shares are the unit of collaboration. Each share has members (users or groups) with roles (owner, admin, contributor, reader) and an ACL system that supports per-file and per-folder allow/deny entries with inheritance. Permissions behave the way a Windows administrator expects.

External sharing without accounts. Create a public link to a file, folder, or share. Optionally protect with a password, IP allow-list, email allow-list, expiry date, download cap, or upload-only drop zone. Every access is logged. See External Links.

Cursor-based sync protocol. Clients poll GET /api/v1/sync/changes?cursor=... and get every change since their last checkpoint. No full scans, no diffing. Conflicts surface as first-class objects with pluggable resolution strategies (LAST_WRITER_WINS, KEEP_BOTH, MANUAL, SERVER_WINS, CLIENT_WINS). See Sync Model.

Hybrid connectors. Sync content from existing SMB shares or SharePoint Online libraries without migrating. The connector keeps the external source and a ScaiDrive share in step on a schedule, mapping identities between systems. See Connectors.

Semantic search, optional. If you've attached a vectorization provider (OpenAI, Cohere, Bedrock, Hugging Face, or a local embedding model), text content is chunked, embedded, and indexed in Weaviate. Search becomes POST /api/v1/search/semantic with a natural-language query, or POST /api/v1/search/context to pull RAG-ready context for an LLM.

Multi-tenant from day one. Partners contain Tenants contain Users. Quotas and budgets enforce themselves at every level. If you're running ScaiDrive as a platform serving multiple customers, the tenancy model is already there.

What it's not#

Not a block device or filesystem. ScaiDrive exposes files and folders over HTTP, not over FUSE or SMB (SMB is a source, not a frontend).
Not a document editor. ScaiDrive stores and syncs files — it doesn't edit them. Plug in Office Online, OnlyOffice, or Collabora for in-browser editing.
Not a backup product. Versioning retains prior file versions, but ScaiDrive is primarily a sync-and-share platform. For compliance retention, see Enterprise Compliance.
Not opinionated about identity. ScaiDrive delegates authentication to ScaiKey (an OAuth 2.0 / OIDC provider). Users log in through your existing SSO — ScaiDrive just consumes the JWT.

Who it's for#

Teams that want Dropbox-for-Business without the SaaS bill. Self-host ScaiDrive on your own infrastructure.
Enterprises with SMB or SharePoint-based workflows that want a modern sync/share layer on top of existing storage.
Platforms building collaboration features that need multi-tenant file sharing with strong permission semantics.
AI-product builders that need a content store with RAG-ready semantic search baked in.

What's next#

Philosophy — the design principles behind the API shape.
Architecture — how the pieces fit together.
Quickstart — upload your first file in five minutes.