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.
Is it Free Software? In the repo is a LICENSE file, saying it’s Apache licensed. But I also found an EULA saying it’s not Free Software…
I only read the beginning but it says you can use it for private deployments but can’t use it commercially. Seems reasonable. Any specific issues?
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.
https://github.com/owncloud/ocis?tab=readme-ov-file#end-user-license-agreement
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters IoT Internet of Things for device controllers NAS Network-Attached Storage SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.
[Thread #841 for this sub, first seen 1st Jul 2024, 16:05] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
I run seafile, but holy shit do I regret looking at the source code.
Why is that?
There was something wonky with the mapping of OIDC attributes to user properties, so I decided to look at the seahub source and see if it would be easy to fix.
Turns out, the whole thing is held together with hope and spit. Literal beginner code.
Also looking through some of the issues and comments on github about no plans to implement basic features (file search on the android app) does not inspire confidence at all. One of the reasons I’m hoping the OwnCloud rewrite is good.
Maybe the NextCloud guys will follow… oh wait that would just be yet another perpetually half-finished NC thing.
Fuck their fucking cookies.
Everyone moved to NextCloud by now
I know, I did as well.
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)
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.@JubilantJaguar I do similar but with syncthing. It’s treated me very well so far.
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.
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
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.
One of the first interaction I witnessed from the forgejo guys was this PR:
https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/pull/27455/
The interaction and stubbornness of earl-warren felt like it was just that, provoked drama.
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.
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.
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.
Get an app that does one thing very well rather than a mega app that tries to do everything.
I agree. I am not a fan of Nextcloud. Moved to OwnCloud a while back. No ragrets.
@Lem453 don’t feel bad. They’re not promoting it and no one covered it. It was DOA. I’m not happy with nextcloud performance but this isn’t it chief.
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.
@Lem453 that’s fair, I was meaning more when it arrived last year it was basically unusable. Hopefully it gets better!
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.
FYI there is an upcoming storage driver that can solve this issue
