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 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
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.
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.
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 😬
Wild, for me it was basically as simple as picking the unraid setup and pressing go - way less difficult than my first experience with Nextcloud (which was back before the All In One).
@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)
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).
Thanks for the writeup! I think bidirectional sync is what I’m used to but very few solutions seem to support it outside of the big tech ones, like you mentioned. Perhaps I need to re-evaluate whether I truly need it; I guess it’s not often I switch between editing a document on my phone to my laptop and need those changes synced instantly, and I did find a way to get Cryptomator to immediately upload any pictures or screenshots I take. I would still like my Obsidian notes files to upload instantly too, though, I think.
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?
A computer.
I actually moved away from classical self-hosted cloud storage solutions after trying the usual suspects like opencloud, nextcloud etc.
And for me the time and effort (also the ressource-hogging if you don’t use quite overpowered servers) just weren’t worth it. Not when the used interfaces most of the time are open standards anyway and simpler solutions do the job:
Radicale for contacts and dates via a webdav subset. Webdav concidently being widely supported for integrating online storage into any filesystem (or as the backend for several other things like for example syncing my bookmarks over several devices and browsers). SFTP or the million tools being just a frontend for it.
One shiny platform like for example Nextcloud to do it all might be nice for a lot of users when they have someone dedicated to maintain it. But for selfhosting (as in: mainly for myself) the constant attention needed to fix stuff was quite tedious.
When I think of “Google Drive” or “Dropbox” alternatives nowadays it’s just a drive hooked up to some low-spec device and accessed via one (or several) already existing open standards.
(Bonus point: that lost phone is simply cut off by deleting its keys - unlike so many dedicated platform where you have to manage -if you even can- multiple dedicated users and their rights just to easily separate your personal access from your devices that are by design not all equally secure.)
Same. None of that self-hosted cloud storage is going to save you from data loss in the event of a fire or theft unless you plan for offsite.
I just use rclone with Backblaze B2, end-to-end encrypted with my own private key, and call it a day.
I have a mirrored BYOD setup for my media server but its all stuff I can download again. Its just an onsite cache with a little redundancy against a failed drive.
Run Nextcloud all-in-one containers and I literally have to do nothing, ever, to manage it.
One shiny platform like for example Nextcloud to do it all might be nice for a lot of users when they have someone dedicated to maintain it. But for selfhosting (as in: mainly for myself) the constant attention needed to fix stuff was quite tedious.
I have run nextcloud for many years, I would love to know what this “constant attention” you talk about is.
Occasionally I need to run an “occ” command after an install to fix some indexes, but other than that I don’t do much?
Occasionally I need to run an “occ” command after an install to fix some indexes
That then fails and breaks it (in about 1 out of 3 cases). Which requires rolling back everything, running the commands again pre-update, then updating and praying to not have to do another re-install (~ 1 out of 5).
Yeah, over the past 5 years or so I can’t say I’ve had to do a lot with it either. There was a time I accidentally nuked it, but that’s why I had a backup.
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
I set up Opencloud to give it a try, set up to sync my photo folder from my phone, meaning to just spin it up and then delete it. I then got called out of the house on an errand and forgot all about it until 4 weeks later when I redid my WireGuard settings. While the tunnel was failing to connect I got complaints about it not being able to find the server, I knew I had fixed it once it stopped popping error messages at me. Just checked and there is 1.3gb of photos in there I never noticed it syncing. It was a bit of a nuisance to get going but seems to just run as a spot to throw a bunch of files and access them on the go. At least based on my accidental 4 week impact assessment.
