// the find
mickael-kerjean/filestash
:file_folder: File Management Platform / Universal Data Access Layer (without FUSE)
Filestash is a web-based file manager that abstracts over 20 storage backends (FTP, SFTP, S3, SMB, WebDAV, IPFS, and more) behind a single UI. The plugin architecture is the real pitch: storage, auth, file viewers, and search are all swappable interfaces. It's aimed at organizations that need a self-hosted file access layer over heterogeneous storage rather than developers who want a simple S3 browser.
The IBackend interface is genuinely minimal and well-designed — 8 methods, implement it and your storage is first-class. The file viewer ecosystem is unexpectedly deep: DICOM, Parquet, DWG, embroidery formats — most projects don't bother with these. Active maintenance with a push as recently as yesterday. The vanilla JS frontend with no framework dependency means the UI loads fast and doesn't carry npm baggage.
The plugin system sounds great until you try to use it: most advanced plugins (antivirus, quota, versioning, search backends) live outside the open source repo and require a commercial license, which the README buries. The frontend build is a custom bundler in plain JS with no documentation on how to modify or extend it — good luck adding a feature. Self-hosting documentation is thin; the Dockerfile exists but production hardening (TLS termination, auth integration, storage credentials rotation) is left entirely to you. Session handling stores backend credentials in the session, which is a security posture many enterprise environments won't accept.