Introducing Datei

Datei is an open source, self-hosted file management platform. This is the first post on the new Datei blog.

Introducing Datei

Welcome to the Datei blog!

“Datei” is German for file.

But also for document. And dataset. Basically anything you really don’t want to lose.

Datei is an open source, self-hosted file management platform. The source code is available on GitHub.

Do we need another document management solution?

Yes. I’ve used Google Drive for years, and it no longer cuts it. I want my personal documents organized and fully under my control.

So I’m using this post to share how I think we should organize our documents, and to put the values we’re building Datei on into writing. Code gets cheaper every day; the vision behind it should only get sharper.

Datei core values

1. Performance

Performance comes from technical excellence. We don’t want to ship software that’s inefficient, wastes memory, or runs loops it doesn’t need. It should always take the optimal path. Good design counts just as much: when something is designed well you find the button faster, and when it’s built well you get the response quicker.

It’s also the sum of many small choices and trade-offs. We picked Go, PostgreSQL, and object storage.

And it’s not just the software that should be fast. We want fast releases and blazing-fast community support too.

2. Integrated

You get documents from everywhere: emails, letters, messages, chats, downloads. They land on your laptop, your phone, or on paper.

We want to support standard formats like WebDAV, so you can bring whatever client you like and still plug Datei into the way you already work.

WebDAV also makes moving in easy: point your file manager at Datei and copy your existing documents straight over, no separate migration tool required.

3. Secure

Your documents have to be safe, protected from third-party access and accidental deletion. So we don’t just store the latest version of a document; we keep the full history of every version with event sourcing. You can time-travel to any point in its history. That history is what unlocks the rest, more intelligence, more automation, more performance, because you can always undo every step. It’s the same confidence you get working with code.

4. Intelligent

Why do we still use folders? Why do we tag things by hand? Why can’t we just search every document?

Datei gives every document a markdown representation, makes search actually work, and lets your agents read your documents. Fair question: doesn’t that ship everything off to inference servers? Today, partly, yes. But local models keep getting better, and you’ll be self-sufficient sooner than you think.

5. Sustainable

We build in the open, and we build to last. We’re a VC- and YC-backed company (S24), and Datei isn’t our first product. We sunset a package manager for Kubernetes and we run a software distribution platform that we hope to use to ship Datei itself one day.

Who is Datei for?

We want anyone to be able to self-host Datei. If you’re comfortable setting up and maintaining your own infrastructure, you can use it for free for your personal documents. In return you get the latest version as it lands, and we hope you’ll send feedback, tell people about it, and enjoy using it.

How to get started with Datei

Head over to the documentation to learn more and run it yourself.