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!
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.
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.
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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.
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.
Did you install Nextcloud with a redis instance for caching?
I don’t remember, probably not. I skipped most of the optional addons like phpmemcache.
I use the docker compose file with apache, mariadb, and redis, and it is still a bit slow even on a DIY NAS with a Ryzen 5600G.
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.