DataFrugal™

What is DataFrugal?

DataFrugal is a structured, policy-ready platform that unifies cloud storage and usage abstraction across your own cloud accounts. It’s designed for engineering, product, finance, and media teams who need precision, scalability, and compliance without the overhead of managing raw cloud primitives.

Instead of exposing low-level API metrics, DataFrugal wraps cloud complexity into a clean, automation-friendly API layer and offers predictable billing across storage, data transfer, and usage. You can use it standalone or alongside tools like AWS, Google Drive, or OneDrive.

Whether you're backing up VMs, archiving logs, managing compliance snapshots, or preserving personal content, DataFrugal provides:

• Flexible billing across storage, API calls, and data transfer
• Usage visualization by account and user usage
• Secure, scalable storage with versioning and search support
• Enterprise-grade security with AES-256 encryption, BYOK, and IP whitelisting
• End-to-end visibility into enterprise storage—automated and manual—enabling pattern recognition and usage insights
• Support for large files up to 5TB with hyper scalar pricing

With an intuitive drag-and-drop UI for humans and powerful REST APIs + CLI tools for automation, DataFrugal balances usability with system-grade efficiency—making your storage and analytics smarter.

Key Features & Benefits

• Unified Usage & Storage Analytics:Centralized visibility into how data and resources are consumed—by team or feature.
• Flexible Billing Models: Enable usage-based billing.
• Enterprise-Grade Security: Zero-trust architecture, IP-based access controls, BYOK support, and compliance-ready encryption.
• Role-Based Dashboards: Tailored views for Admins, Member, Support, and Billing to ensure data clarity and governance.
• Access Anywhere with Simple UI : Browser based interface for managing, uploading, and accessing data from anywhere.
• Predictable Pricing: Transparent bundles covering user licenses, subscription, and storage—flexible slab-based model ensures cost savings without imposing storage caps.
• Search & Versioning: Easily label, locate, track, and manage versions of files or data snapshots.
• Data Leak Prevention: Native restriction on sharing outside orgnisation with control over access point via whitelisted IP's.

Getting Started

Welcome to DataFrugal — your all-in-one platform for efficient data storage, secure sharing, and advanced analytics. Whether you're an individual user or managing a large organisation, this quick-start guide will walk you through setting up your account, configuring your environment, and making the most of our features.

Our platform supports automatic onboarding, flexible subscription plans, regional dedicated storage options, and seamless integration with cloud providers like AWS and Wasabi.

DataFrugal – Get Started in Minutes

DataFrugal offers three flexible onboarding paths to suit different user types, domains, and deployment preferences. Whether you're an individual creator, an enterprise team, or provisioning via Azure, onboarding is fast, secure, and tailored to your setup.

1. Public Email Onboarding – Shared Storage, Instant Access:

Ideal for individual creators, small teams, or families.

Users signing up with public domain emails (e.g., ajay.admin@gmail.com) can instantly access shared storage tiers with usage-based billing.

The first user selects “Create Your Own Group”, chooses a subscription, and pays a one-time setup fee. This user becomes the group admin.

Subsequent users (e.g., john.member@gmail.com) who wants to join Ajay's group select “Join an Existing Group”, enter the admin’s email (ajay.admin@gmail.com) & sends Join request, Once accepted, both users can start collaborating instantly.

2. Direct Onboarding with Custom Domain – Dedicated Storage:

Designed for organisations with self-managed domains (e.g., john.doe@mydomain.com).

The first user selects “Create Your Own Group”, chooses the appropriate plan and storage region, and completes the one-time setup fee.

During onboarding, the user provides organisation details (tax info, contact details) and configures whether future users from the same domain (@mydomain.com) are auto-linked or require manual invites.

Once completed, a dedicated storage subscription is provisioned for the domain.

Note: The selected storage region selected during onboarding is fixed and cannot be changed post-setup.

3. Onboarding via Azure Marketplace – Dedicated Storage, No Setup Fee:

To avoid double billing, make sure you subscribe via the Azure Marketplace. This is the only way to ensure you are charged solely for the DataFrugal subscription. If you skip this step and onboard directly, both Azure usage costs and DataFrugal charges may apply.

Need help or more details? Visit our Getting Started Guide, explore our Getting Started Guide, explore our FAQs, or reach out to support@datafrugal.com.

Before getting started, it’s essential to understand the difference between Dedicated and Shared environments. Your choice will influence how team members are onboarded, how storage is allocated, and how your subscription is structured.

Understanding the Dashboard

Main Dashboard View

The Main Dashboard serves as the default landing view where users can manage their files and folders. This central interface allows you to perform core actions related to file storage, such as uploading, organizing, and performing quick actions on your documents.

• Upload files by dragging and dropping them directly
• Create new folders to organize your data
• Use quick actions like Rename, Move, Delete, Share, and Refresh
• Search for files or filter them by type, name, or modification date

This view provides full access to storage functionalities, enabling users to manage and interact with their private data effectively.

Shared Items View

The Shared view displays all folders that others have shared with you. This section helps you collaborate with teammates or external users by keeping all shared resources in one accessible location.

• View items shared with your account
• Use actions like Refresh, Download, Clone, and View Details
• Identify the sharer via “Shared by” column

Only shared folders appear here. If no files are shared yet, this view will remain empty until someone shares a folder with you.

Restore Items View

The Restore dashboard displays all previously deleted items—folders or files that can still be viewed or acted upon. This view helps retrieve deleted content without immediately restoring it.

• Browse all deleted folders and files.
• Use Refresh to sync the latest deleted records.
• Download deleted files before permanent removal..
• View Details of any deleted item.
• Use search and filter tools to quickly locate deleted data.

This interface is helpful for reviewing deleted items without restoring them, giving you visibility and control over what's been removed from your drive.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

DataFrugal provides a flexible role-based access control (RBAC) system to ensure that users only see and interact with features that are relevant to their responsibilities.

Each user in DataFrugal is assigned a role, and each role comes with a customized dashboard experience and access permissions. The main roles include:

• Admin – Access to resource management, user controls, and group sharing, with limited billing permissions.
• Member – Can collaborate in groups, view role-based reports, and access shared resources, but cannot change billing or administrative settings.
• Billing – Can manage subscriptions and payments, monitor usage analytics, and access billing-related groups, but cannot modify user roles or organisation-wide settings.

Each role gets a tailored dashboard with tools and resources relevant to their responsibilities. Below are examples of how dashboards vary based on user roles:

System Admin Settings

The System Admin role in DataFrugal has full platform access. It governs organisation setup, user roles, security policies, billing, and critical administrative actions.

1. Sharing & Group Management

• Create & Manage Group – Create new groups and manage members for team or project-based collaboration.

2. Account & organisation Settings

• Access Control – Manage org policies.
• Link Accounts – Choose manual onboarding to optimize license usage by sending invite links, or enable auto-onboarding for seamless colleague setup and faster team activation.
• Change Ownership – Migrate data ownership.

3. Role & Access Control

• RBAC – Assign and update user roles.

4. Billing & Analytics

• Payments – Handle transactions and plans.
• Monitor Usage – Analyze usage and limits.

Member Settings

The Member role in DataFrugal is a limited-access user role designed for team collaboration. Members can participate in shared groups and access relevant system reports but cannot modify administrative or billing configurations.

1. Group Collaboration

• Create & Manage Group – Create new groups and manage members for team or project-based collaboration.

2. Reporting & Visibility

• Reports & Controls – Access role-based reports such as user activity, file access, and subscription details.

Billing Settings

The Billing role in DataFrugal is responsible for managing payments, subscriptions, and monitoring data usage trends. It provides financial and operational insights without access to account or user management settings.

1. Group Collaboration

• Create & Manage Group – Create new groups and manage members for team or project-based collaboration.

2. Billing & Analytics

• Payments – Make secure online payments and manage billing methods.
• Monitor Usage – Analyze resource usage trends and stay within budget.

3. Reporting & Controls

• Reports & Controls – Access reports on users, files, and subscription metrics relevant to billing.

Quickstart Guide - API Access

Jumpstart your integration with DataFrugal using our developer-friendly REST API. Visit the API Access section for essential curl examples to help you get up and running quickly. Learn how to create folders, upload files using Multipart Upload, and automate key operations in your data pipeline—all through simple and secure API calls.

Usage Overview

DataFrugal offers flexible, secure, and efficient agent for uploading, downloading, sharing, and cloning data. Whether you're a non-technical user or a system administrator, the platform supports multiple interfaces to suit your workflow.

Common cURL Actions

Automate common tasks like bulk uploads, file listing, access token refresh, and region-specific transfers using predefined cURL templates or the CLI's command generator.By clicking the Download URI action, you can instantly copy a ready-to-use cURL command.

Integrations

DataFrugal is built for seamless integration across cloud ecosystems, developer tooling, and enterprise data platforms. Whether you're using it as a standalone solution or alongside your existing infrastructure, DataFrugal integrates effortlessly to eliminate vendor lock-in and reduce complexity.

df-agent (Command-line Agent):

A powerful Linux-compatible CLI tool for interacting with DataFrugal via API. The df-agent is ideal for developers and system administrators to automate routine tasks like file uploads, downloads, deletions, folder creation, and resource sharing directly from the terminal.

• Supports secure file operations such as upload, download, delete, and share.
• Offers advanced flags like -replace for overwriting resources, -v for version-specific downloads, and -folder for folder creation.
• All actions are performed via HTTPS using API authentication through -u (username) and -p (password) or pre-configured values in application.properties.
• Helpful for scripting, automation via cron jobs, and integrating DataFrugal into CI/CD pipelines or backup workflows.
• Comes with built-in help: run ./df-agent -help to list all supported flags and usage examples.
• Note: Currently available for Linux systems only. Multipart uploads are supported.




Download-API Client



API Access:

Use the OpenAPI-compatible REST API to build custom integrations with DataFrugal. Our interactive Swagger-based documentation makes it easy for developers to explore and implement functionality quickly and securely.

• Full Endpoint Coverage: Access endpoints for uploads, downloads, sharing, metadata, and more.
• Interactive Swagger UI: Try API calls in-browser using real-time parameters.
• Clear Request/Response Formats: Know what payloads to send and expect.
• Secure Authentication: Use API keys for controlled access.
• Automate Your Workflows: Perfect for integrations, CI/CD, and scripting.
• Live & Versioned Docs: Access v1.0.0 documentation directly anytime.

View DataFrugal API Docs (v1.0.0)



OAuth2 Identity Providers:

Supports Google, Microsoft, and credential-based login. Ensures verified mail and secure identity management across organisations.

• Supports login via Google, Microsoft, and custom credentials.
• Verified email-based authentication.
• Secure, centralized identity management across organisations.

Backup Integration:

Seamlessly integrates with enterprise backup tools like Bacula. Schedule automated calls to df-agent with database files, log archives, and reporting artifacts — ideal for back-office compliance and recovery workflows.

• Replace legacy FTP flows with secure HTTPS-based transfers. Reduce setup time and operational costs.
• Save infrastructure costs by offloading archival data from SSDs to cloud storage.

Zero Trust Security Integration:

• Zero Trust Security Integration: Promote region/IP-based access control and BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) support—ensuring secure, regulated data access.
• Supports BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) for custom encryption key management.
• Improves compliance and enhances access control for sensitive data.

Whether you're backing up high-value assets, connecting your enterprise cloud stack, or building automation pipelines with agents and APIs—DataFrugal delivers integrations that scale with your growth.

Billing & Plans

DataFrugal offers a straightforward and transparent billing system tailored to meet the needs of all user types—from individuals to enterprises. This section covers everything you need to know about available plans, discounts, payment methods, and how to manage invoices effectively. Whether you're exploring plan options or managing existing subscriptions, you'll find the tools and information you need right here.

Available Plans Overview

Explore our flexible pricing plans designed to suit individuals, startups, and large enterprises. Visit the pricing page to see detailed information about features, storage limits, and usage allowances, and choose the plan that fits best.

Invoice Management:

Admin users can view and pay invoices directly from the dashboard. Support teams are available to assist with invoice edits such as updating billing details, correcting tax information.

Billing is usage-based and fully transparent. You can set usage alerts and simulate monthly invoices using your live usage data.

FAQ

For more information, visit the full FAQ section at www.datafrugal.com.

Support

Contact Us:

Need help or have a question? We’re here to support you:

• Email us:support@datafrugal.com
• Want a faster way to reach us? Just fill out our contact form and we’ll get back to you shortly.

Feature Requests

Have ideas to improve our platform? We welcome your suggestions and prioritize them based on demand and feasibility.

Submit a Support Ticket

For technical issues, bug reports, or assistance, please submit a ticket using our online support form.