Foldr vs MyWorkDrive

Reaching a file server without a VPN: Foldr or MyWorkDrive?

MyWorkDrive and Foldr are the same shape: a gateway over the file servers you already run, so people get at their files from a browser, a mapped drive or a phone without a VPN and without moving anything.

That makes this a closer call than most comparisons, so here is where they differ: what each can connect to, how each treats people outside your directory, how you run it, and what you can do with a file once you have found it. See the other comparisons.

Topic
Foldr
MyWorkDrive
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.
Your own file servers and cloud storage: Windows file shares, SharePoint, OneDrive, Azure Files, Azure Blob and Amazon S3. MyWorkDrive says it “is not a hosted storage provider.”
Migration
None for files on your own storage. You connect it, or disconnect it, without moving a file.
None. MyWorkDrive describes access to files “without a VPN, syncing, or migrating data.”
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.
Read from the file server. MyWorkDrive says original file permissions are enforced and that it “can only restrict access, never elevate.”
Identity
SAML (including Google Workspace) and Microsoft Entra on Foldr Cloud and the appliance; Active Directory, LDAP and Kerberos on the appliance.
Active Directory or Entra ID, with SAML SSO and MFA through Duo, Okta or Ping. Outside people can be invited as Microsoft Entra B2B guests and are shown only the folders they are allowed. In its guest-sharing guide this is for Enterprise Plus licences, and with an Active Directory user directory plus Entra SAML each guest also gets an account created in Active Directory; with Entra ID as the directory, guests are invited in Entra ID instead.
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.
Word, Excel and PowerPoint in the browser through Office Online, with real-time co-authoring. By default the file is staged in your Microsoft 365 tenant for the session; Office Online Server on your own network and ONLYOFFICE are the alternatives.
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.
Public links with passwords and expiry, plus Entra B2B guest access. View-only sharing with watermarks, and an audit trail you can send to a SIEM.
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.
You install it on a Windows Server, on your own infrastructure or in your cloud, and it is also offered through the Azure and AWS marketplaces. Clients are a browser, a mapped drive on Windows and macOS, and iOS and Android apps.
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.
Per user. Their pricing page lists annual plans from $5 per user per month: Starter at $1,200 a year for up to 20 users, Business at $2,999 for up to 50 and Enterprise at $5,999 for up to 100. Monthly plans are $6 per user. Your files stay on your storage, so you do not pay them to hold them.
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.
Windows-centred estates that want remote access and Entra guest access to their file servers, installed on a Windows Server you run.

The MyWorkDrive column comes from MyWorkDrive’s own site (home, pricing, external sharing and Office editing pages), read on 28 October 2026. Where their pages said nothing we say so instead of guessing.

Where Foldr differs

Same starting point, different things on top.

More places to connect

Foldr adds Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, WebDAV and SFTP.

Both reach SMB shares, SharePoint, OneDrive, Azure Blob and S3. Foldr also connects Google Drive and Google Workspace shared drives, Box, Dropbox, WebDAV and FTP or SFTP, so an estate that is half file server and half Google can sit behind one sign-in.

No Foldr gateway server to maintain

Foldr Cloud is hosted, and the Edge agent keeps your firewall shut.

On Foldr Cloud there is no gateway server for you to build and patch. A file server behind your firewall joins through the Edge agent, a small program beside it that connects out to Foldr, so you open no inbound ports. If you would rather run it all yourself, the self-hosted appliance is a virtual machine in your own datacentre or cloud account.

After the file is found

Edit three ways, then search, ask Grace, collect forms and sign.

Both open Office files in the browser. Foldr offers Office for the web, Office Online Server on a self-hosted appliance, Google Workspace and its own Bureau editors (in beta today), on files wherever Foldr reaches them, SMB shares included. On top of that Foldr searches inside documents, answers questions through Grace using each person’s permissions (search results follow the permissions held at the last crawl, per file where ACL crawling is on), collects forms into a share and sends PDFs for signature from the folder they live in. We did not find those on the MyWorkDrive pages we read.

When MyWorkDrive is the right answer

You mostly need Windows file servers reachable, and outside people to have their own identity.

Foldr signs in Entra guests and directory accounts, and a link works as the person who made it, with Foldr checking that creator’s current access to the share each time it is opened. The one thing we did not find in Foldr is what MyWorkDrive does automatically: it creates an Active Directory account for each invited outside person, so the file server itself sees a named account for them. That needs its Enterprise Plus licence and a particular directory setup. If you want a named guest account per contractor created in AD for you, MyWorkDrive is the closer fit.

Curious whether Foldr would fit?

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