I find it really weird that something as simple as the basic functionality of nextcloud seemingly can’t be implemented in a stable and lightweight manner.
Nextcloud always seems one update away from self destruction and it prepares for that by hoarding all the resources it can get. It never feels fast or responsive. I just want a way to share files between my machines.
There are other solutions, I know, but they’re all terrible in their own way.
Exactly, Seafile is the best I’ve found so far but a clean re write of the basic sync features would be great.
Seafile for example has full text search locked behind a paywall even though tools like Elasticsearch could be integrated into it for free. Even the android app as filename search locked behind a paywall. You have to log into the website on your phone if you need to search.
You can get a free Seafile Pro license if you create an account with them. Limited to 3 users, iirc. That’s what I’ve been running and really using it to keep stuff on phone, desktop, and laptop reachable from any of the devices. I love it.
If you only need file syncing, there are better options than Nextcloud. But Nextcloud is the only real option if you want to create a full suite of replacements for office365 or google thanks to the large plugin ecosystem.
All I want is Nextcloud Files and Calendar in one place. If there’s something that can do that more performant and with a similarly nice gui i’d be all over it
Seafile is not FOSS, as I understand it. But I tried it anyway, since I also found Nextcloud bloated.
In the end I went back to the purest strategy of all: peer-to-peer. My files are synced between devices over the local network using ssh, rsync and unison and never touch an internet server.
What puts me off of Owncloud is the new ownership. I couldn’t care less if it’s written in the blood of Christ, if I have to worry about the rug getting pulled out from under me for self-hosting, it’s a no-go for me, Joe.
Nextcloud works well for me and has for years. The people that don’t like it can go use this, and we’ll see you back in a couple of years when it goes open-core or worse.
Ya it was bought by kiteworks which provides document management services for corps (which explains why that mention traceable file access in their features a lot).
That being said, they bought them in 2014 it seems and it’s been a decade nowCorrecting: they were bought very recently, they have been accepting corporate funding for more than a decade however. That’s not bad in and of itself.
I have no issue with corporate funding. I have an issue when a company gets to make all the decisions. Lot of good software has gone to hell when the shareholders need profit now instead of seeing a long term vision.
We’ll see, but I’ve been around this rodeo enough to just avoid it from the start and take some pain now instead of putting in effort that’s going to be wasted later.
I personally will never use nextcloud, it is nice interface side but while I was researching the product I came across concerns with the security of the product. Those concerns have since then been fixed but the way they resolved the issue has made me lose all respect for them as a secure Cloud solution.
Basically when they first introduced encrypting folders, there was a bug in the encryption program, and the only thing that ever would be encrypted was The Parent Directory but any subfolder in that directory would proceed to not be encrypted. The issue with that is that unless you had server-side access to view the files you had no way of knowing that your files weren’t actually being encrypted.
All this is fine it’s a beta feature right? Except for when I read the GitHub issue on the report, they gaslit the reporter who reported the issue saying that despite the fact that it is advertised as feature on their stable branch, the feature was actually in beta status so therefore should not be used in a production environment, and then on top of , the feature was never removed from their features list, and proceeded to take another 3 months before anyone even started working on the issue report.
This might not seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but as someone who is paranoid over security features, the projects inaction over something as critical as that while trying to advertise themselves as being a business grade solution made me flee hardcore
That being said I fully agree with you out of the different Cloud platforms that I’ve had, nextCloud does seem to be the most refined and even has the ability to emulate an office suite which is really nice, I just can’t trust them, I just ended up using syncthing and took the hit on the feature set
It all depends on your threat model, I own my Hardware as well but I’m still not going to use a software that is shown to me that they don’t take security seriously but I’m also more paranoid than most
Saying files are encrypted when it is not true is an issue, regardless of who owns the host box. Even for a small instance that is private family or friends.
There’s a particularly toxic combination of ignorance, laziness, NIH and hubris that you need to make a mistake like that, and I want it nowhere near my servers.
I use owncloud infinite scale and overall its rock solid. The downside is the lack of plugins. Nextcloud has been nothing but trouble for me and every update was a mess so I decided to try OCIS and for my need I was extremely satisfied.
Now, I admit, I’m not one to get carried by the drama in the FOSS sphere (still use Gitea) but I do agree there is an history to the separation of owncloud and nextcloud that can make some people uncomfortable. Having a choice is good I believe.
Thank your for providing first hand perspective. I’ll probably try to spin up a docker deployment for testing.
I don’t really plan to use many of the plugins since I think that was the down fall of NextCloud. Trying to do everything instead of doing it’s core job well.
Now, I admit, I’m not one to get carried by the drama in the FOSS sphere (still use Gitea)
This is a bit of a “bell curve meme” situation. I’m extremely about the drama, and I’m back to gitea. The forgejo guys are good at branding, but I’m not seeing great project stewardship. I’ll take my chances with the commercial guys for now.
Hmm. I guess that works, too. I'm just a nerd and really like Free Software. Almost exclusively use it. My phone runs a custom ROM with just a few unfree apps and without Google services, all my computers run Linux. Even the internet router does, and my IoT smart sockets run Tasmota or ESPHome. I like the 4 freedoms and the culture behind it. I participate and regularly contribute. All of that is mostly personal preference. I guess I could as well live comfortably with using Google Drive, but I choose not to. Source-available software would allow me to look at the code, something proprietary software doesn't allow. But that's pretty much it. I often can't remix and share it as I like. I don't have the freedom to decide to use it as it pleases me. And depending on the exact license, I can't even invite my friends and family to use the services I set up...
It's just the line I draw. And with the software I really rely on and use daily, I'm pretty strict. Either it provides me with the Four Essential Freedoms of Free Software as lined out by RMS in the eighties, or I don't volunteer to use it. I have no issues though with other people making different choices.
That’s indeed confusing. The wording linked below suggests the eula is for packages distributed by owncloud. so to my understanding the source itself and any third party packages don’t need to care about it.
Apache isn't a copyleft license. I guess they (and everyone) can just copy or compile it, make it a derivative work and say it's now non-free and terms and conditions apply.
I mean the GitHub repo has a license file which says it's Apache 2.0. And 3h) of the EULA says it doesn't apply to open source components. So it kinda doesn't apply to itself. I think you're right, it's Free Software after all and them saying "Some builds [...]" means it's the binaries distributed by them. IANAL and it kinda contradicts the Apache license which explicitly states I am allowed to redistribute copies both modified and not modified and both in object and source form. I'm not sure why they do it and if there are components missing in the GitHub repo.
What’s up with Owncloud? Why did devs leave for Nextcloud? And what happened to prevent that from happening again?
I too dislike that Nextcloud is in PHP, but if Owncloud went closed-source, then opened it up again (not saying that’s the story here), who’s to say it won’t happen again? Putting my eggs in that basket might seem quite dangerous as I don’t want my server to suddenly stop working and sit behind a paywall or something because management decided they want to make a quick euro.
I don’t remember all the details. They never went closed source, there was a difference in opinion between primary devs on the direction the project should take.
Its possible that was related to corporate funding but I don’t know that.
Regardless it was a fork where some devs stayed with owncloud and most went with NextCloud. I moved to NextCloud at this time as well.
OwnCloud now seems to have the resources to completely rewrite it from the ground up which seems like a great thing.
If the devs have a disagreement again then the code can just be forked again AFAIK just like any other open source project.
The point of the post is that there is a very active full rewrite of the whole thing trying to ditch all the tech debt that NextCloud inherited from the OG owncloud (php, Apache etc)
I would have used Owncloud Infinite Scale but the fact you can’t use your own existing files makes it a complete non-starter for me. I don’t want my files locked behind Decomposed FS.
Unless I’ve read things wrong, which is entirely possible.
I’ve been running OC10 for a while now and have hit a few bumps here and there. I didn’t realize OCIS is available as a self hosted thing. Since first reading this thread a while ago I’ve been working on getting it running. Using docker I manage to get it to open to a blank blue page where I’m supposed to be able to log in but the form doesn’t show up no matter what browser I use. I may look into it again in the future…
I mean software that’s actively being developed can’t be called DOA. Even if it’s garbage now (and I don’t know if it is) doesn’t mean it can’t become useful at a future date.
Its not like a TV show where once released it can never be changed.
I had a horrible experience with nextcloud on a pi. I have a great experience on a good server. It stores files. It does that very well for me. Clients work reliable.
Nextcloud apps are sometines good and sometimes not. It can do everything. One should let navidrome serve music and not nextcloud. Mealie is for recipes. Jellyfin for videos and immich for images. Paperless for documents.
Nextcloud is file storage, backup, syncing and maybe collab. That’s what I expect and that’s what I get.
I had NextCloud on a Ryzen 3600 with NVME zfs array. While faster that my previous Intel atom with HDD + SSD cache, Seafile blows it away in terms of speed and resiliency. It feels much more reliable with updates etc.
What’s crazy is that I tried NC on my server, which is a HP Microserver G8 hosting 13 total services. And it ran like crap. Tried the standard and AIO versions. On a whim tried NextcloudPi on a Pi4 and it has been awesome! Web interface is still pretty sluggish but I use apps that sync to NC most of the time like:
Quillpad for Google Keep type notes and checklists
Floccus for bookmarks sync
Deck for Kanban
Gnome online accounts for desktop and laptop connection with documents
So far it’s been flawless. I doubt it would run well with more than a few users though.
I wanted to spin up OCIS but for some reason ran in to difficulties with the Docker container. I forget what the issues were, but I already had a solid Nextcloud instance running so I didn’t dig very hard. Would like to revisit it some day.
However, since then Owncloud has been bought out, causing some worry.
Oh never mind, I saw this finding announcement for 6M and assumed it was the same company. Looks like they have many corporate investors…doesn’t inspire too much confidence.
Although they are still using the Apache 2 license and you can see they are very active in github. It does look like it’s a good FOSS project from the surface.
owncloud.com
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