Cloud vs. Self-Hosted

A self-hosted deployment runs the core, open-source file-sharing platform nothing to configure or opt into here. This page just sets expectations for what that includes, so you're not left wondering why something you saw mentioned elsewhere in these docs doesn't show up in your own instance.

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What Self-Hosting Includes

• File upload, storage, and management (public/private, passwords, expiration)
• File collaborators and edit suggestions
• URL shortener
• OCR on uploads
• Account settings, 2FA, sessions
• Admin Panel: user management, storage/email integration config, audit logs
• The full REST API for the above (files, urls, profile, analytics)
• Flicker and other third-party client integrations (ShareX, Flameshot, etc.)

What's Not Included

A handful of pages and API routes exist only on embrly.ca's own managed instance things tied to running Emberly as a hosted (SaaS) product rather than the core platform (billing/plan upgrades, custom domains, team squads and Discovery profiles, the public leaderboard, and the marketing site itself). If a doc page you're reading mentions one of these, it applies to embrly.ca, not your self-hosted instance those pages carry their own callout saying so.

Since there's no billing path on a self-hosted instance, every account effectively runs under the default free-tier storage and upload limits. If you want different limits for your users, adjust them directly at the database level, or in your own fork.

Why This Split Exists

Emberly the open-source project and Emberly the hosted product share one codebase. Cloud-specific pages and routes are gated centrally at the infrastructure level, so self-hosted instances automatically get a smaller, focused surface area without anyone having to maintain a separate stripped-down fork.