Foldr vs Acronis Cyber Files

Acronis Cyber Files is at end of life. Where do those file servers go next?

Acronis Cyber Files gives mobile and web access to file servers, NAS devices and SharePoint, with a Sync & Share side on top. Acronis’s notice sets end of life, end of sales and end of mainstream support for Cyber Files and Acronis Files Connect at 31 December 2025, and extended support ends on 31 December 2026, so anyone running either should plan a transition before extended support ends on 31 December 2026.

Acronis also lists a separate End of Life notice for Acronis Cyber Files Cloud, which is a different product; read its dates on Acronis’s site rather than assuming they match. Foldr does a similar job from the same starting point: your files stay on your file servers, and people reach them from a browser, a mapped drive or a phone. See the other comparisons.

Topic
Foldr
Acronis Cyber Files
Where files live
Wherever they already do: SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Google Drive, S3, Azure Blob, SMB, Box, Dropbox and more. Foldr is a layer in front. On Foldr Cloud you can also start with storage we host.
File servers, NAS devices and SharePoint, through data sources an administrator sets up for mobile and web users, plus Sync & Share storage of its own. Acronis describes mobile access to “enterprise file servers, SharePoint and NAS devices.”
Migration
None for files on your own storage. You connect it, or disconnect it, without moving a file.
File server access works through data sources that point at your existing servers, so files do not have to move for that side. The Sync & Share side has storage of its own.
Permissions
Where Foldr connects as the signed-in person (SMB, Microsoft 365, and Google Drive when it uses their account), the storage’s own permissions can still say no. Where Foldr uses a service or machine account with ACL checking switched on (an SMB share can be set that way), it reads the file server’s ACLs and checks the person’s NTFS permissions itself, and the share’s own permissions in Foldr add a further limit. Where the storage has no permissions of its own, you set who sees what once, per share, in Foldr.
Policies on the Gateway Server can restrict what someone may do even where NTFS would allow it: the guide says those settings “supersede any NTFS permissions” the client has.
Identity
SAML (including Google Workspace) and Microsoft Entra on Foldr Cloud and the appliance; Active Directory, LDAP and Kerberos on the appliance.
Internal users from Active Directory (LDAP), external ad-hoc user accounts, and configurable single sign-on.
Document editing
Edit wherever Foldr reaches the file, in Office for the web, Office Online Server or Google Workspace where you have them, or in Foldr Bureau. Bureau opens Word, Excel and PowerPoint files (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX), the OpenDocument formats, CSV and text in the browser on Foldr’s own engines, so nothing goes through Microsoft or Google, and it runs on an appliance with no route out to the internet. It edits DOCX and ODT documents, XLSX, ODS and CSV spreadsheets, and PPTX and ODP presentations. Saves leave the parts of a file you did not change as they were (an ODP save drops its stale thumbnail). The editors are beta today, and Word, Excel and PowerPoint on the desktop work alongside them.
Office Online integration through a WOPI discovery URL for DOCX, PPTX and XLSX files (an on-premises install needs an on-premises Office Online setup), and an integrated editor that an administrator can switch off.
AI assistant
Grace. Answers from the shares you’ve chosen to index and from files she reads directly for the person asking. Her live reads use the person’s storage permissions; answers from the index follow the share’s search-visibility setting and the permissions held at the last crawl. Can also draft an automation and when it runs; you review it and switch it on. From Business, an AI assistant that speaks MCP can read your files through Connected Apps, as the signed-in person and with exactly their permissions.
Not covered on the vendor pages we checked. See their current documentation.
Document capture
Captur. Intelligent extraction by default, templates for high-volume layouts. Native positional reading of text PDFs; OCR fallback for scans. MaSH routes the result.
Not covered on the vendor pages we checked. See their current documentation.
External sharing and signing
Public links with expiry, passwords and field collection on every tier. Forms from Business. Folio portals and Foldr Sign on Enterprise (add-ons on Business). People you reach by link never take a seat.
Sharing with “authorized internal and external individuals, including employees, customers, partners, and vendors,” with external (ad-hoc) user accounts.
Automation
Three surfaces, one engine. Mashup is the visual block editor; MaSH is the plain-text script checked into source control; Grace is the verbal route via the AI assistant. You can move a workflow between them, though turning a script back into visual cards may simplify or lose code the cards cannot draw. Bundle with shares and fields into a Foldr Flow file.
Not covered on the vendor pages we checked. See their current documentation.
Deploy
Self-hosted virtual appliance for your own datacentre, your own cloud account, or an air-gapped network, or fully managed Foldr Cloud with UK and EU data residency. The same Foldr Next on either; a few things follow the deployment, and we tell you which before you choose. Configuration travels between them via Foldr Flow.
Self-hosted: a Web Server and a Gateway Server that you run on Windows servers. Mobile clients can use a VPN, or a reverse proxy “without the need for an open firewall port or a VPN connection.” There are iOS and Android apps and a desktop client that can sync file server folders.
Pricing model
Foldr Cloud per-seat tiers, or a fixed annual licence on the appliance. Disconnect Foldr and files on your own storage are still where they were; files kept in Foldr Storage you copy out first.
No longer sold: Acronis’s notice puts end of sales at 31 December 2025.
Best fit
Estates that don’t want vendor lock-in, that need to keep files on their own storage for privacy or compliance, or that need a self-hosted option. Existing SharePoint, S3, SMB or mixed estates that don’t want to migrate.
Existing customers on extended support who need to plan a transition before extended support ends on 31 December 2026.

The Acronis column comes from the Acronis Cyber Files 9.0 Administrator Guide (revision 27 September 2024, dl.acronis.com) and Acronis’s support pages, read on 28 October 2026. The dates come from Acronis’s End of Life notice for Cyber Files and Files Connect; check them there, as dates and scope can differ by product and region.

What Foldr offers instead

The same file servers, with somewhere to go after 2026.

Your files stay put

Point Foldr at the file server, and nothing has to move.

Foldr connects SMB shares, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Google Drive, S3, Azure Blob, Box, Dropbox, WebDAV and SFTP. Disconnect Foldr and the files are where they were. A 30-day trial can be pointed at a copy of the same file server, so you can compare it with Cyber Files before the support window closes.

Permissions

On a file server, the server can still decide.

On SMB, Foldr can connect as the signed-in person, so the file server’s own NTFS permissions still say no, or use a service or machine account with ACL checking switched on. Cyber Files’ gateway policies can narrow what NTFS allows; in Foldr the share’s own settings do that.

Remote access

Hosted, self-hosted, or an Edge agent that connects out.

Foldr Cloud is hosted and managed, and a file server behind your firewall joins it through the Edge agent, which makes outbound connections only. The self-hosted appliance runs in your own datacentre or cloud account, even air-gapped, and can be published through the usual reverse proxy options. Cyber Files can also work through a reverse proxy; the difference is that its servers are the ones you must replace.

Devices and editing

Web app, desktop drive, iOS and Android, and editing your way.

Foldr has a web app, Windows and Mac apps that mount as a drive and keep chosen files offline, and iOS and Android apps. Documents edit in Office for the web, Office Online Server or Google Workspace where you have them, or in Foldr’s own Bureau editors (in beta today), on files wherever Foldr reaches them. Search covers the text inside documents (results follow the permissions held at the last crawl, per file where ACL crawling is on), and Grace answers using each person’s permissions.

When Acronis Cyber Files is the right answer

You are an Acronis customer inside the support window.

If you run Cyber Files or Files Connect today, your first conversation is with Acronis about what the end of life means for your licence, and what it offers in their place. If you have decided to look elsewhere, there is time: extended support runs to 31 December 2026, and a 30-day Foldr trial can sit alongside your current setup.

Curious whether Foldr would fit?

Try it free for 30 days, no credit card. Or get in touch about self-hosting.