I’m thinking seriously about getting Google out of my life, and trying NextCloud.
Looking to get a personal account through a managed provider.
Does anyone have any experience with it?
How does it compare to ownCloud?
Any hosts I should look at or avoid?
Any apps I should get for it, or avoid?
Any issues I should be aware of before I switch?
@ajsadauskas @asklemmy I host Nextcloud on an computer at home using docker. Nextcloud is great as a file, calendar, contact server to replace Google drive and their calendar and contacts sync service.
It does not do photos well at all, neither the memories plugin nor the photos plugin, IMHO. If you are looking to replace Google Photos and are able to self host, I would recommend Immich.
I’m going to go ahead and disagree with Memories not doing photos well. If you have it and Recognize setup properly, they replicate nearly all google photos features.
@Routhinator Maybe, but I had considerably less trouble setting Immich up than memories. I had to try to install extra stuff to the docker container itself, IIRC. I seem to remember python libraries and things needing to be installed. Immich, I just spun up and it worked. The hardest part was GPU passthrough, but that is not even a requirement to use it nor was it terribly difficult.
That said, I moved on fairly quickly and respect your opinion. If it works for you, then it is the correct tool.
I trialled the self hosted NextCloud for a while, but the quality of apps is just meh. So instead I bought a Synology NAS. Turned out their apps are actually on par with Google. And you own everything.
My only advice would be to go full NextCloud at first for simplicity instead of trying to integrate it with other services.
That being said, if later on you’re looking for a way to store images I’d highly recommend Immich, I just finished setting up my own hosting setup a few days ago and it is gorgeous.
Does immich have a good way to hide or lock certain photos? I’d love to share most of my photo library with my friends but there are some photos I want backed up that I’d rather not share
Kind of, you can share individual albums so it is possible to share all but one. This may or may not be practical though depending on your album structure.
Another option is to share your entire library but archive the photos you don’t want to be seen.
It would be good of there was an official feature for this but these are currently the two best options.
Late to the party but just another vote for Nextcloud. I used a paid subscription initially but then took the plunge, bought a Pi 4 & SSD for storage then read up & figured out how to self host.
It was my first experience with Linux, I fell over many times but dont give in as after all the hair pulling & teeth grinding it becomes rewarding & even a little “fun” when you get there & then become confident enough to take on & complete further Pi projects.
The Pi can handle Libre Office (synced through Nextcloud, handled on mobile by Collabora Office).
Whilst you’re at it, why not sync the notes you’ll inevitability make on your self hosting journey through your Nextcloud instance? Try Joplin & do away with Google Docs, Evernote etc into the bargain
I recommend portknox.net. One of the Nextcloud team suggested them to me, and they are pretty awesome.
@ajsadauskas @asklemmy I have been using Nextcloud on a cheap Australian VPS for a few months now. It is far from a perfect solution, it is slow, the quality of it’s apps are… mixed, BUT, I prefer it over the big tech solutions I used to use by far.
If you do want to go down this route, I recommend getting a cheapo VPS (4 GB of ram will do the job) or setup an old laptop or PC as a home server, then chuck the Nextcloud AIO docker image on it. It handles everything for you and makes life easy.
2 weeks ago, I suscribed to a pre-installed Nextcloud service. IT IS SO WORTH IT!!! It’s much more that what I was expeting. Data storgage of course, but tons of super usefull apps. Deck to replace Trello, News for rss feeds, Only Office for an online suite, Memories for picture, a very usefull media player, and much more. In the age of AI, I’m never again storing anything on Google or MS storage. We nees to take the internet back, fuck the GAFAM.
I selfhost my own nextcloud for notes and documents that I would like on my phone but not via google.
It is not a google docs/gmail/whatever replacement. They’ve spent the past few years hardening it and pushing for all the hallmarks of enterprise first software (e.g. making it a complete fustercluck to not have a proper domain name) but you still have stability and performance issues and the occasional upgrade issue that fucks up everything
I would also point out that if you aren’t selfhosting, what are you actually getting out of this? You are just spreading your data out to other companies who are often less transparent about how they monetize you.
