u/iamsanthosh2203

Hi everyone,

I’m a solo developer from India, and after about six months of work, I’ve just launched the public beta of Xenode Storage, an open-source, end-to-end encrypted cloud storage platform.

The product is live, the code is open source, and I’m continuing to improve it based on user feedback. Every new user gets 5 GB of free storage forever, and my long-term goal is to build a complete privacy-first ecosystem around it.

One thing I’m struggling with isn’t building the product—it’s getting it in front of the right people.
I’d love to hear from founders who have grown developer tools, SaaS products, or open-source startups.

Some questions I have:

How would you get the first 100–1,000 users?

Which channels have worked best for you (Reddit, LinkedIn, Product Hunt, X, communities, etc.)?
How do you build trust when you’re competing with established companies like Google Drive, Proton Drive, or MEGA?

If you were in my position, what would you focus on over the next 6–12 months?

I’m not looking to advertise here—I genuinely want to learn from people who have gone through this journey.

I’d really appreciate any advice. Thanks!

Edit : I used ai help to better understanding and grammar corrections

[DEV] Hi everyone,

For the last six months, I've been working on Xenode, a privacy-first cloud storage platform. My biggest goal was to make it fast without compromising end-to-end encryption (E2EE).

After a lot of iteration, optimization, and testing, I've finally reached a point where I'm happy to release the public beta.

Everything has been built by me as a solo developer, and I'm proud of how far it's come. My goal wasn't just to build another cloud storage app—I wanted to show that we can build world-class software from India that can stand alongside products like Google Drive, Proton Drive, and MEGA.

This is just the beginning.

The long-term vision for Xenode is to build a complete privacy-first ecosystem, including collaborative productivity tools, organization support, and local ML/AI integrations that respect user privacy instead of sending everything to the cloud.

One thing that's really important to me is transparency, so the entire project is open source.

I'm posting here because I'd genuinely love feedback from the community. If you notice poor UX, missing features, performance issues, security concerns, or potential vulnerabilities, please let me know. Honest feedback will help make the platform much better.

I've attached a few screenshots of the current UI/UX, and I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts.

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Link : https://xenode.in
GitHub: https://github.com/xenode-in/xenode

Edit: This post was edited with AI for grammar and readability.

How would you grow an open-source, privacy-first cloud storage startup from India?

Built an open-source, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Drive after 6 months of work. I'd love your feedback