We selfhost Nextcloud on our local Unraid server with a backup Nextcloud instance on the old Unraid server plugged in at my parents’ house. Second redundancy is an rsync job to a pCloud account.
I mostly just use the Synology files app or samba over wireguard, and then sync a couple tb of super critical stuff to rsync.net. I have next cloud set up but all I use it for is editing my cook book from multiple devices and storing the few documents I migrated off of gdrive, but I might as well just have them in a regular folder on my nas instead.
I see NextCloud here quite a bit. What I don’t see discussed is the cloud hosting option.
Hetzner has two NextCloud offerings.
They have a storage service backed by NextCloud. I think that’s new. I don’t use that.They also have have NextCloud available as an installable app from their service.
This is what I use. https://docs.hetzner.com/cloud/apps/list/nextcloud/
I had to actually follow the directions to get it running.
And I have to patch it occasionally. Mostly, it takes care of itself.I use the cheapest 1vcpu VPC.
Yes my NextCloud service is a bit sluggish sometimes. But I’m paying like $6/month.
I’m pretty happy with it for storing music and updating my resume.
Maybe if I had the more demanding use cases like some commenters, I might not like it so much.I used to selfhost Nexcloud in OVH (or rather Owncloud back then) but I tire of the update cycle and now I’m just paying for Hetzner for their Storage Box or whatever their Nextcloud product is called. I love selfhosting and don’t mind doing it at work but for some reason Nextcloud was annoying enough for me to switch paying to someone else to update it.
I think because I got into NextCloud to “de-google”, I just accepted some maintenance load.
My intent was to manage my documents. The CORE office suite works sufficiently. Now I update my resume (and manage a few other documents) on my own website, no google.
I uploaded a bunch of music. The music apps are kinda crappy, but they also work sufficiently.
I never got around to setting up email for NextCloud. Looks like maybe I never will.
My searxng instance in my homelab died, and I nuked it. I think when I rebuild, its going on this VPC.
i don’t. i host some svcs like grimmory and plex but frankly if i lose my docs or pics whatever. after my wife died in 2011, I just havent cared too much. Like I have a good enough memory and physical pics.
/shrug
Wanted to setup opencloud but it doesn’t work without 3-4 additional containers and CNAMEs on the domain.
I simply wanted to spin it up locally and test it out, but it doesn’t accept any admin credentials whatsoever and wiping every file to completely restart leads to the same behavior.
If the simplest bit of startup flow local first time login doesn’t work, then why would the rest and why would I trust it? Also it isn’t a certificate error with not setting up SSL or something because I also tried it on my domain with all the correct certificates and got the exact same behavior. It doesn’t even allow you to try a different admin password when it claims that the last is wrong. You get one try and otherwise have to wipe the entire volume.
There are issues on github for it and workarounds with very YMMV results, for me none of it worked.
SFTP
I use rclone to mount via webdav. Works like a charm 👌
Seafile, gets the job done, is lighter on resources than Nextcloud and all its cool features, and encrypts everything so my friends can store stuff on the server with peace of mind. I also use Immich for photo backup. And am in the process of setting up Duplicati with a friend’s server. (Unraid)
idk why, I really wanted this to work but could not, for the love of me, get Seafile working properly with my setup 😬
Zfs, nfs, ssh, wireguard.
@pixeldaemon Syncthing. We have one “authoritative” fileserver running syncthing, and then a bunch of “clients” (laptops, phones) that sync up to the fileserver. This doesn’t work for, say, terabytes of movies/music, but for important stuff like photos/tax records/whatever, it means we can make changes on any “client” and it gets synced to the “server” and all the other “clients”
For more traditional cloud, I recently installed copyparty (https://github.com/9001/copyparty) w/ https://github.com/romaan7/white-gold-theme-for-copyparty
How do you set up syncthing with a host/client configuration?
I planned on setting it up with 5 devices but as soon as I got to 3 devices I started having issues and didn’t like the structure conceptually of “everything syncs to each other” vs having a “source of truth” with 2-way sync.
TBF my issues with syncthing were probably user error but still frustrated me enough that I bailed.
@yestalgia So I set up syncthing between a server and one client. Share folders between them. Figure out how you want the folder data replicated; for my phone pics, for example, the sync is one way from (phone) -> (syncthing server). For kids’ health stuff, it’s a two-way sync; because the sync might be (my laptop) <- (syncthing server) <- (my wife’s laptop), or vice-versa. Then add another client to the syncthing server, following the same process. Never sync client-to-client; always via server
@yestalgia I will say that the configuration is not the most intuitive. Part of it is just that the web UI is, imo, not that good. There’s a lot of confusing stuff exposed to users that isn’t really important for like 99% of use cases.
(who cares whether compression is metadata only or all data or none? wtf is “introducer” vs “auto-accept”? why do I need to see a random hash for device or folder id in addition to a device or folder name?)
@pixeldaemon I used to use Seafile, but it is clunky and annoying, and it will also never ever be in debian due to upstream copyright sketchiness.
My next ‘system’ I’m eyeing is Peergos!
It’s fairly clunky. The developer is a nice guy and responds really quickly, but files sometimes didn’t sync and I got an error twice where it just didn’t sync anymore.
There also isn’t a proper setup guide or documentation (but you can always add the help flag halfway through your jar usage to know what parameters you’re missing). The developer has been kind enough to help me through that though.It might just be a skill issue on my end of course. Though needless to say I moved back to something else after a couple of months (In my case to Seafile)
Also its Dutch translation is acceptable (I did that)
opencloud, i just moved from nextcloud and wow, the performance is insane.
Wanted to use open cloud but they archived their helm chart. Very niche I know, but still a shame
Nextcloud. It does the job well enough.
It took about 2 days of using nextcloud files across devices to experience unreliable syncing from Nextcloud on Android.
I installed folder sync pro on android and that has helped a lot, but it still irks me to use 2 tools when 1 should do the job.
Did you try Syncthing at all? I ran into the same issues with Nextcloud on Android and I’m trying to decide on Syncthing or FolderSync and I wanted to see what people thought. I’m currently using Cryptomator but it doesn’t do everything I’d like yet.
People love syncthing but I spent about 20-30 min on setup and found it confusing once I got beyond 2 devices. There are a couple comments in this thread between me and someone else about different setup options with syncthing.
I have been relatively happy with folder sync pro and nextcloud though. It’s worth noting that changes only instantly push when they’re made on Android first. If you edit/add/remove a file that’s in a synced folder from a computer, then folder sync pro on Android will simply use the sync interval that you set (I have mine at 15 min and have seen no battery hit, can set it down to 5 min). You can also just manually hit the sync button in FSP. But that was just one element that I was troubleshooting and thought sync was broken, but nope, that’s just how it works depending on what device did the edit/add/remove.
I currently use NextCloud, but I have been looking to move away from it. My main use case is for syncing photos and videos to the cloud from my phone (Android) and this used to work flawlessly. But, some time in early 2025, it just stopped working. I can still manually upload files and sync still works for other folders (e.g. Documents) just fine. But, photos and videos just won’t sync automatically. Not sure if there are other options which would work better, but NextCloud on Android just seems to be broke.
For photos and video I use immich, which can also hook into your nextcloud and display your stuff In its own tab, as well as allowing you to directly move pics from one to the other. Its a nice gphotos alternative that suits my needs pretty well
Yeah I just spent a few days trying to get Nextcloud on Android working and it was a disaster. I ultimately decided to use Cryptomator to handle the sync since I’m already using it on my PCs, but I’m looking at maybe Syncthing or FolderSync (not sure which is better) because Cryptomator lacks some functionality like keeping local copies and making files available to other apps like galleries, music apps, etc.
It might not have the functionality you are looking for as far as app integrations, but my progression was Dropbox -> Cryptomator over Dropbox -> rclone over Backblaze B2.
You can nest a “crypt” remote (end-to-end encryption with your own private key) over tons of cloud providers. You can mount it like a drive in Linux.
Round Sync is an Android client that can schedule cronlike backups. Pretty much set it and forget it on my phone. I delete things on my phone when I need space and every couple years go cleanup what’s in B2.
Dropbox was better priced at max capacity when I used it ($120/yr for 2TB?). My Backblaze bill started at $1/mo and is like $4/mo now. Its been a couple years since I cleaned things out and could probably cut that in half.
Thanks for the suggestion! I have a few questions, if you don’t mind: what did you like more about
rclonethan Cryptomator? Is it suitable for sync, or is it more for backups? I’m ideally looking for near-ish to real-time sync for contacts, notes, files, and pictures. Are there any frontends for Linux you’d recommend, or do you script out the functionality you’re looking to implement?what did you like more about
rclonethan Cryptomator?I wanted to leave Dropbox and ran across it. I liked the number of supported backends under one tool. I use it to access things beyond Backblaze like gdrive, SharePoint, OneDrive, Proton Drive. Well documented config file format. I was able to manage the config with Nix due to this.
Is it suitable for sync, or is it more for backups
It works great for one way sync. Bisync I never got working well enough to trust it. Bisync is nice for 3-way merges (two devices modifying files on the same cloud drive). Dropbox, gdrive, OneDrive win here. I’ve learned to live without it.
I’m ideally looking for near-ish to real-time sync for contacts, notes, files, and pictures
On a computer the fuse mounted volumes are near live. Cahce locally in a VFS. Anything else you’d have to script probably. There is rclone-watch but can’t say I’ve tested it
With Round Sync you can browse with live refresh when you move between directories, but syncing would be on a schedule. Looks like a 15m interval is the fastest frequency.
Are there any frontends for Linux you’d recommend, or do you script out the functionality you’re looking to implement?
I mostly just mount on login with the VFS cache. Use my normal file browser. One command per mount. Its rare (practically never) that I need to work on something without internet, so I don’t deal with trying to script syncs. I tried in the early days of playing with it, but fuse mounts ended up meeting my needs.
No GUI that I use outside of my normal file browser. The only thing I need to use the CLI for is cleaning up soft deleted files and old versions (Backblaze specific thing).
The just stopped working was the client stopped syncing? NextCloud decided to stop allow private made certificates with its client in 2025 and its what made me switch. I went to Syncthing which works well and is a lot faster and less resource intensive than NextCloud. I also had to move my calendars and chat as well.
The just stopped working was the client stopped syncing?
The client doesn’t seem to detect new photos as they are created/taken. If I manually upload an image from my photos folder, it syncs just fine. Files in other folders seem to sync just fine. But, photos and videos just never even try to sync.
NextCloud decided to stop allow private made certificates with its client in 2025 and its what made me switch.
This hasn’t been an issue for me. I pay for a domain and have a certificate issued by Let’s Encrypt. The only certificate errors I get are when I refresh the certificate every 6 months, and that’s just the client asking me if I want to trust the new certificate.
Syncthing
I had looked into this a while back, but it seemed to be more of a point to point solution and not a client-server system. I was aiming to have an authoritative server with everything and clients (both phone and desktop) able to pull the needed/request files. I also like the ability to share via a web link when needed. Am I wrong in that understanding?
