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.
Usually in the platform’s own cloud. Files are uploaded into it and managed from there.
Migration
None for files on your own storage. You connect it, or disconnect it, without moving a file.
Usually required. Files move into the platform to be shared and governed from inside it.
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.
Set inside the platform, rather than read from the storage you already run.
Identity
SAML (including Google Workspace) and Microsoft Entra on Foldr Cloud and the appliance; Active Directory, LDAP and Kerberos on the appliance.
Varies by vendor and plan. Check their current documentation.
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.
Varies by vendor and plan. Check their current documentation.
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.
Varies by vendor and plan. Check 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.
Varies by vendor and plan. Check 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.
Varies by vendor and plan. Check their current documentation.
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.
Varies by vendor and plan. Check 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.
The platform runs in the vendor’s cloud. Where a vendor offers customer-side components, check what they cover.
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.
Typically a per-seat subscription. Leaving means moving your files back out.
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.
Greenfield deployments where the storage destination is open. Teams that want a single vendor for the whole stack and are happy to put their data inside it.
