Hey there!

I just wanted to share a bit about my experience as a hobbyist and self-hosting enthusiast. While I may not be the most educated on the topic, I’ve been able to self-host my favorite services to avoid relying on big companies like Google and Amazon.

A few years ago, I started my self-hosting journey with Nextcloud, and it completely blew my mind. Finally, I didn’t have to rely on Google Drive anymore!

However, I quickly realized that using a Raspberry Pi made things a bit sluggish. I tried upgrading to a more powerful machine. Still slow. I then tried with an i5-4460, but it was still slow and buggy. I even tried an i3-10100, and it was still a bit of a pain to use. It seems like many others feel the same frustration, so I know I’m not alone. I often wonder how some other people claim they have no issues with Nextcloud, but hey, good for them!

Because of the tinkering it seems to need, I feel like I don’t have enough time and knowledge to make Nextcloud work as smoothly as I’d like, which defeats the purpose of self-hosting it.

That’s why I’ve been exploring other options. I gave Seafile a shot, but couldn’t figure out how to solve a “CSRF verification failed” error. Projectsend and Xbackbone are great, but they don’t quite match what I’m looking for. I also tried Cloudreve, but I wasn’t a fan of its sorting philosophy. I did find Picoshare, which I stuck with, but for a totally different purpose.

Then, I tried ownCloud for the first time. Wow, it was fast! Uploading an 8GB folder took just 3 minutes compared to the 25 minutes it took with Nextcloud. Plus, everything was lightning quick on the same machine. I really loved using it. Unfortunately, there’s currently a vulnerability affecting it, which led me to uninstall it.

I also gave OCIS a try, and it felt even faster. The interface was smooth and fluid, it was truly impressive. However, with the recent news of it becoming part of Kiteworks, I’m a bit unsure about its future.

I can’t help but wonder why so many people have been raving about Nextcloud all these years when ownCloud performs so well right out of the box. I’d love to hear about your experience and the services you use. Share your thoughts!

  • cron@feddit.deEnglish
    20·
    8 months ago

    I have been selfhosting Nextcloud now for five years (never tried selfhosting Owncloud). And you are right with the performance observation (I never managed higher upload speeds than 30 MB/second), the key difference is the application support.

    One thing that bothered me for years is how to find photos you took a while ago. While Google and Apple offer smart features, with my selfhosted setup I was always depending on the date as only way to find photos.

    The memories app for Nextcloud is a real game changer. Let me show you some of the features.

    📸 Timeline: Sort photos and videos by date taken, parsed from Exif data. ⏪ Rewind: Jump to any time in the past instantly and relive your memories. 🤖 AI Tagging: Group photos by people and objects, powered by recognize and facerecognition. 🖼️ Albums: Create albums to group photos and videos together. Then share these albums with others. 🗺️ Map: View your photos on a map, tagged with accurate reverse geocoding.

    There are many more apps, from simple tools to complete office environments. For me, this is the reason why I will continue using Nextcloud for the foreseeable future.

    • Tiritibambix@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      4·
      8 months ago

      I found the application support to be a great plus when I started using Nextcloud. Then, maybe only psychologically, it felt like bloat slowing down my setup soI started hosting standalone solutions instead.

      I totally get your enthusiasm about memories. But while I’m a photographer and have my own way of sorting stuff, I find photoprism or immich more attractive and convenient solutions.

  • CameronDev@programming.devEnglish
    71·
    8 months ago

    I’m using seafile, and you just gave me flashbacks to the CSRF nonsense. Dont remember how i fixed it unfortunately.

    I dont understand why nextcloud is so slow. I tried it out recently and its just so slow to upload files. Good to know owncloud is better, but might wait a little while before I try that out again.

  • Moonrise2473@feddit.itEnglish
    4·
    8 months ago

    the problem at least for me it’s the plugins. I need news, tasks, calendar, snappymail, music, cospend, deck, forms, onlyoffice, cookbook, gpodder sync, notes and something else. OCIS is faster but i don’t need just a simple drive…

  • minnix@lemux.minnix.devEnglish
    51·
    8 months ago

    Nextcloud is very quick IF you don’t mind applying extensive PHP and web server optimizations. This takes time and may have to be redone after upgrades depending on what changes. This is why I don’t really recommend it to those just looking to self host a simple file server.

    • mesamune@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      8 months ago

      I messed that up soooo many times it’s not funny. I eventually gave up after spending two weekends on setup and just went with vultr and a turnkey solution.

    • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      8 months ago

      AMD Ryzen 7 5700X + 32 GB of RAM: https://lemmy.world/comment/346174

      Just no. What do you consider “applying extensive PHP and web server optimizations” tho? Allowing PHP to use 10GB of RAM and infinite input time? Still doesn’t get the job done.

    • Tiritibambix@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      8 months ago

      IF you don’t mind applying extensive PHP and web server optimizations

      Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m struggling with here. It’s a bit counterintuitive for newcomers and not really friendly for beginners.

      I’m just wondering, what is your process for those optimizations? Did you happen to follow any specific documentation or resources?

  • Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyzBEnglish
    52·
    8 months ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    DNS Domain Name Service/System
    NAT Network Address Translation
    RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage
    VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)

    4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 13 acronyms.

    [Thread #326 for this sub, first seen 2nd Dec 2023, 02:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

    • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
      32·
      8 months ago

      Can someone disable this bullshit and useless bots that fill posts with garbage? Thanks.

  • deepdive@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    8 months ago

    Then, I tried ownCloud for the first time. Wow, it was fast! Uploading an 8GB folder took just 3 minutes compared to the 25 minutes it took with Nextcloud. Plus, everything was lightning quick on the same machine. I really loved using it. Unfortunately, there’s currently a vulnerability affecting it, which led me to uninstall it.

    I have no idea on how you access your self-hosted services but wireguard could help you out to access all your service from all your devices, with less security risks and only one point of failure (the wireguard port). Also this takes away most of the vulnerabilities you could be exposed to, because you access all your home services through a secure tunnel without directly exposing the api ports on your router !

    I personally run all my services with docker-compose + traefik + self signed CA certificats + adguardhome dns rewrite. And access all my services through https://service.home.lab on all my devices ! It took me some time to set everything up nicely but right now I’m pretty happy how everything works !

    About the current ownCloud vulnerability, they already took some measure and the new docker image has the phpinfo fix (uhhg). Also while I wouldn’t take their word for granted:

    "The importance of ownCloud’s open source in the enterprise and public-sector markets is embraced by both organizations.”

  • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    8 months ago

    and it was still a bit of a pain to use. It seems like many others feel the same frustration, so I know I’m not alone. I often wonder how some other people claim they have no issues with Nextcloud, but hey, good for them!

    That has been my experience, even on high end hardware. It just doesn’t get better, NextCloud is a joke full of bugs and issues and it won’t get anywhere unless the people running the project decide to actually do thing properly instead of going with the “next cool thing” at every opportunity.

    Here is a test I did with a AMD Ryzen 7 5700X + 32 GB of RAM: https://lemmy.world/comment/346174

    I spent weeks researching and trying to tweak things and at the end of the day NC always performs poorly. Most of the issues seem to be related to the poorly implemente WebUI but the desktop app also has issues with large folders. Also tried the docker version, the “all in one” similar results it simply doesn’t cut it.

    My experience with NC’s Webmail: https://lemmy.world/comment/5490189

    I can’t help but wonder why so many people have been raving about Nextcloud all these years when ownCloud performs so well right out of the box. I’d love to hear about your experience and the services you use. Share your thoughts!

    I believe the people who say they don’t have issues with it aren’t just using it, after all you can’t refute screenshots like the ones on the last link. This kinda looks a lot like the Linux Desktop Delusion, people say it can be everything to everyone and that things are just great while it fails at the most basic tasks a regular user might attempt. Since we’re on the delusional land let me link to this about LibreOffice being considered “good enough for most paperwork with good MS-Office compatibility”.

  • MasterBlaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    8 months ago

    I sidestepped all this crap by buying Synology in 2014 and upgrading 2 years ago. Sure, it isn’t FOSS, but it is very nearly plug and play.

    I configured OpenVPN for when I want to use it remotely, and self host my music, video, and family photos.

    Having the 4 drive RAID-6 gives me some security from the danger of losing data between backups.

    I store all my scanned documents, ocr’d, and keep the paper under control.