The topic of self-hosted cloud software comes up often but I haven’t seen anyone mention owncloud infinite scale (the rewrite in Go).
I started my cloud experience with owncloud years ago. Then there was a schism and almost all the active devs left for the nextcloud fork.
I used nextcloud from it’s inception until last year but like many others it always felt brittle (easy to break something) and half baked (features always seemed to be at 75% of what you want).
As a result I decided to go with Seafile and stick to the Unix philosophy. Get an app that does one thing very well rather than a mega app that tries to do everything.
Seafile does this very well. Super fast, works with single sign on etc. No bloat etc.
Then just the other day I discovered that owncloud has a full rewrite. No php, no Apache etc. Check the github, multiple active devs with lots of activity over the last year etc. The project seems stronger than ever and aims to fix the primary issues of nextcloud/owncloud PHP. Also designed for cloud deployment so works well with docker, should be easy to configure via docker variables instead of config files mapped into the container etc.
Anyways, the point of this thread is:
- If you never heard of it like me then check it out
- If you have used it please post your experiences compared to NextCloud, Seafile etc.
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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.
Open source or bust
Nextcloud needs to port over some of the old OC Documentation. Their own docs make all kinds of references and it’s always something esoteric.
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.
Pathetic state of affairs.
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.
I have no problem supporting devs but locking what should be core features behind a paywall in unacceptable for me.
I agree. I’m this case it works out for me since I’m under the 3 user limit.
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.
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 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.
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.
Maybe the NextCloud guys will follow… oh wait that would just be yet another perpetually half-finished NC thing.
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.
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,rsyncandunisonand never touch an internet server.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.
Edit- Merger info
Did not know this. Thanks!
Looks like Kiteworks invested in OwnCloud in 2014 and they still seems to be going strong with the OSS development which is a good sign.
This probably explains why there are so many active devs on the project and how they got a full rewrite into version 4 relatively quickly.
Already seems to have more features than Seafile.
2023, I remember the announcement last year. Not sure where you’re getting 2014 from, that was even before NC split off.
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.
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…
Are all files on OwnCloud E2EE weather one has a personal cloud storage account or has an account on a team were files are E2EE for all users that are apart of the same team? E2EE were the server admins cannot see anyones filea, folders, file names, folder names and other metadata?
