this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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117
I don't get the love for Nextcloud - alternative for just files? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
88 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I tried Nextcloud a while back and was not impressed - I had issues withe the speed of the Windows sync that were determined to be "normal" with no roadmap to getting fixed. I'm now planning to move off Windows desktop so that won't be an issue - so I thought I'd try again.

I went to nextcloud.com, clicked on Download-> Nextcloud server -> All-in-one -> Docker image - Setup AIO. This took me to the github README at Docker section. I'm already running docker for other things so I read the instructions, setup a new filesystem for my data directory and ran the suggested docker command with an appropriate "--env NEXTCLOUD_DATADIR=". I'm then left with a terminal running docker in the foreground - not a great way to run a background server but ok, I've been around for a while and can figure out how to make it autostart in the background ongoing. So I move on to the next step - open my browser at the appropriate URL and I'm presented with a simple page asking me to "Log in using your Nextcloud AIO passphrase:". I don't have a Nextcloud AIO passphrase and nothing I've read so far has mentioned it. When I search for it I get some results on how to reset it, but not much help. I could probably figure that out too, but after reading some more I found that Nextcloud requires a public hostname and can't work with a local name or IP address. I'm already running my home LAN with OpenVPN and access it from anywhere as "local" - I don't really want to create a new path into my home network just for Nextcloud.

I'm sorry - I know this sounds like a disgruntled rant and I guess it is. I just want to check that I'm not missing obvious things before I give up again. All I want is a simple file sync setup like onedrive but without the microsoft.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I haven’t used nextcloud in years, but last I read about it was to avoid AIO at all cost. There is another version and for some reason AIO was shit and not AIO was OK. Can’t remember why though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That seems to be the case. Really sucks that the documentation at nextcloud.com directs people to the AIO. I guess they hope that if you have a bad time trying to install your own server you might buy their cloud service.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

It's the easiest way to get stuff running, so I'm guessing that's why. But it's far from the best way.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Nextclouds docker setup is an absolute disaster, I don't blame you for giving up. It's also slow as molasses to sync anything.

A couple things to look at, I would probably say look at KaraDAV first.

  • KaraDAV, this is a simple webdav server that's compatible with the Nextcloud sync clients. Uses SQLite for a DB so setup is super simple. Has a basic web based file browser too.

  • Owncloud Infinite Scale, still a bit of a setup, but it's better than what Nextcloud offers.

  • Syncthing, this is my current setup, just a robust and solid file sync program. You can pair it up on your server with something like SFTPGo or KaraDAV to provide a web file manager and WebDAV server if you need that. Downside is there's no selective sync or virtual folder support.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's just Docker in a nutshell.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

No it's not, docker-compose stacks are quite nice and easy to manage.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

simple webdav server that's compatible with the Nextcloud sync clients

Now THAT is interesting - when I was last experimenting with Nextcloud I learned that the files part is just a webdav server. Unfortunately I also learned that they have a bit of a handshake before the webdav so the client wouldn't work with my apache2 webdav server. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

it is like complaining about wordpress. it is there. it has many devs. it does a lot quite ok. take or leave it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Try Synching. Its More of a file sync than file share/Cloud but it's very lightweight and works without issue. I use it to sync many of my important files to have them always accessible offline on all devices.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

I wanted something that has OnlyOffice integration and basically an selfhosted Google Drive, so tried Nexcloud as the most popular solution... but.. it was a pain to set up, its internal workings make handling reverse proxying a pain and it feels extremely slow.

I will try out Seafile, they seem to have just the 2 things I need and nothing more.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I haven't used nextcloud but it seems frustrating that there isn't any really good selfhosted file cloud. Nextcloud is really chunky and inefficient but it seems to be the best option despite that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There are a few decent options, all with some caveats:

  • Seafile - wicked fast, but uses a funky disk format, so you need either a FUSE layer or the web UI/API to access anything
  • OCIS/OpenCloud - default install uses a funky file format, but you can change this to POSIX if you want (experimental on OCIS, might be default now on OpenCloud?)
  • others - probably work fine, but they get less blog attention

I'm playing with OCIS and I like it so far. There was some funkiness when I had things misconfigured, but now that it's working, I like it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I've heard of seafile but i remember something about it turned me off, ocis on the other hand sounds awesome, owncloud but written in go? I will definitely look into that and thanks for the recommendation.

That's right I need native drive mounting into dolphin and Macos finder. Seafile doesn't have it for any linux file Explorer which means it won't work for me.

I think Ocis does have it though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you just want read-only access to seafile, you can use the FUSE extension, but it only works in read-only mode.

For OCIS, look at the POSIX driver, which stores files in a normal directory structure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

Yeah I need read and write, I will look at posix for Ocis though.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

And here I am having used it for a decade and perfectly happy. I try other ones like Owncloud every once in a while and find them lacking. It was slow once upon a time but if you changed to postgres and used redis, it improved immensely. Today it's quite fast and the sync has been working great for a long time.

Use docker-compose with the AIO and it'll be a lot easier to manage. There's example compose files in the github repo.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, I can see how someone that has "grown up with it" could be happy. But as and experienced sysadmin coming at it for the first time - the documentation is a bit lacking.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Well, when I moved to the AIO, the documentation was plain wrong on several points. I submitted a bunch of changes that I had to do to make it work and they worked those changes in for the most part. Now it seems pretty workable, as a friend of mine used it to set his instance up and said it seemed to go fairly smoothly.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

I'm in the process of (very slowly) migrating my household from Windows to Linux and am currently testing Nextcloud as a replacement for OneDrive. In my case, I set it up using pikapods.com because I want offsite storage. The server part of the setup was incredibly easy because the host did all the work.

Getting my Linux client setup was kind of a pain (especially compared to the Android and Windows clients), but everything seems to work ok so far. Of course, I'm only backing up a small amount of data so far, so I can't comment on the efficiency or speed for a major backup.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Alternatives? https://filebrowser.org/

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

i am hoping for opencloud / ocis, a go rewrite of owncloud

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

I am waiting for opencloud to finish its calendar implementation. The only thing I have reservations about is the fact it doesn't use a database to store file info. Not sure I trust their approach

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Agreed, nextcloud is a beast with lots of whistles, if you don't need them you can have simpler solutions

This my approach here https://wiki.gardiol.org/doku.php?id=selfhost%3Afileserver

And I stated using AList which is a funny piece of software that has great potential. See here https://wiki.gardiol.org/doku.php?id=services%3Aalist

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

by now i use nextcloud for everything except files. i do use it a lot for e.g. contacts, calendar, etc.

sshfs is simply a godsend for true instant easy multidevice file access

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

Here I am just glad I'm not the only one. lol.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

If you want to self host your contacts and calendars and have multiple users, I still don't think there is anything better. I hope Open Cloud gets there eventually, but right now its only the beginning.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Honestly I hate all these file sharing self hosting things. Looking at you nextcloud owncloud syncthing seafile etc. They all suck. All I want is NFS support in android, that's my only pain point accessing my files from anywhere from my home network. I can already VPN/wireguard into my network from anywhere, but I can't grab an ebook or mp3s off my NFS server from my phone or tablet, I have to have some other dumb infrastructure for it. Just (#@$^* put NFS in android already!!!

/endrant

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

NFS seems a poor choice for mobile when simply losing the link will cause end user troubles.

I hard dropped it years ago when a momentarily dropped link would mean you needed to reboot the client machine or you'd lock up for minutes at a time trying to poll the mounted directory. (which, when pinned in a gui file manager, meant every time I opened the file manager or a save dialog box, my entire system would just lock up for minutes at a time)

I use an unholy combination of smb and sshfs now, since they can fail gracefully where NFS just can't.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yes! There used to be a little utility that could map a SMB share in Android, but that got killed years ago.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

MaterialFiles (available on F-Droid) is capable of SMB. Unfortunately encrypted connections are not supported.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

I could never figure out NFS ... ( it only works with unix usernames??) But since I have smb servers I can use that with Android

[–] [email protected] 43 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Agreed, Nextcloud has gone from a lean little personal cloud to a hulking enterprise hub.

If you're after something that'll just sync your files between devices, try Syncthing. If you need files available online, maybe something like filestash or, like somebody else suggested, SFTPgo.

There are also tiny, lean calendar and contact server apps out there if you decide you need those. After self hosting NC for years I'm really happy spreading out the tasks over dedicated services rather than having all my eggs in one basket.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I replaced Nextcloud with syncthing (files) & radicale (calendar, contacts & todos)

No-one used the calendar on NC, they just used their phones, Outlook, etc

No-one used the photo gallery on NC - that's now Immich ... again, with syncthing.

During the early days, just doing an update would break things.

For a small home setup, NC is too big, too clunky and just not the right tool.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

Totally different for me:

  • NC-calendar syncs two different calendars (work and private) accross all my devices.
  • NC Photos with Memories organizes 2 TB of photos and has all the functions Immich has.
  • NC Password Manager syncs my Passwords
  • I share big files with my clients via NC and photo albums to friends and family.
  • NC syncs and organizes different Input-folders for my paperless-ngx-server.
  • I update NC with a small script, works every time

So it replaces at least 5 different Programs. And it's 80 % private use, 20 % for my business. Not too big, not too clunky, just the right tool.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

I love syncthing!! I have one VM with only debian an syncthing and that machine is backed-up frequently. All others PC's and vm's syncthing to that one machine.

All of them sync ~/downloads

All machines I use for coding also sync ~/code

My desktop machines sync ~/documents.

And so on. Works great (for me)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

the base install is still pretty lean, its only hulking if you enable all their new junk, but if you don't enable all that, the default, at least when installed it was quite lean.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah setting it up the way you want is a pain, but I like it mainly for backing up photos from my phone automatically, as well as, syncing podcasts and music between devices since I moved away from Spotify and start using things like AntennaPod and Gramophone

I got 20TB in my server, might as well use it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Oh wait, were you looking for alternatives? I guess this also works: https://filebrowser.org/

Its just web veiw to file server instead of only using things like smb or nfs

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