I've been running Nextcloud for family collaboration purposes since before the fork from Owncloud. I've been pretty happy with it overall.
My biggest gripe with it is the increasing schizophrenia of the UX devs. One thing I _loved_ about Nextcloud was that they paid a lot of attention to making it easy to navigate and use. The newer UX "enhancements" seem to be all about maximizing (useless) whitespace and making every widget as spherical as possible. The calendar UI used to be a joy to use, now it's the most frustrating calendar I have ever seen.
On the plus side, if you're using the docker image, upgrades are a breeze. Just bump the tag on the image, redeploy, and you're done. (It did take a _lot_ of effort to migrating my existing data to the docker container, though.)
I also use Roundcube as my main email client. I've looked at bunches of them, but Roundcube is the closest thing to a web-based Thunderbird that I have seen. Unfortunately, this had a UI "update" too and now practically nothing can be customized the way I prefer. If someone forks Roundcube and brings back the old theme, I will switch to it tomorrow.
Maybe this has been improved, but I remember thinking that and then it biting me because updating to the latest image (linuxserver/nextcloud) wasn't actually updating nextcloud itself, just the environment (php, etc.)
When I realized this, I had to go through several major nextcloud upgrades, incrementally going from one major version to the next.
Then it bit me again a few months later where nextcloud updated their maximum supported php version, and the docker image I was on quickly bumped the bundled php version to the new maximum, so the older version of nextcloud suddenly refused to start - even to run the updater. I ended up finding the max version check in nextcloud's php code and commenting it out, after that I was able to run the nextcloud update manually.
After being bit twice, I finally automated the full process so that the nextcloud software is updated in addition to the environment.
It's even easier with the all-in-one (aio) solution. Upgrades via a simple UI, automatic Borg Backups, etc.
I run this on hetzner cloud with one storagebox for the files and one storagebox for the backups. Runs nicely, gets updates, and as the storageboxes do automatic snapshots, I have double backups.
> Unfortunately, this had a UI "update" too and now practically nothing can be customized the way I prefer. If someone forks Roundcube and brings back the old theme, I will switch to it tomorrow.
?? The old skins (Classic and Larry) are still available as plugins via PHP composer, aren't they?
I'm running on "bare metal" Digital Ocean VPS (like god intended), and I just use the web-based updater and it works well. APT on Debian handles everything else.
> The newer UX "enhancements" seem to be all about maximizing (useless) whitespace and making every widget as spherical as possible.
I have used Firefox my entire life and sometime back they added really stupid whitespace between the address bar on both ends. Every single time I reinstall the browser on a new OS I see it and remove the whitespace. It drives me up a wall. It looks so gimmicky and like a complete waste of a UI that didnt need to be changed.
Sometimes the best UI decision is to leave things as-is, especially if your UI has been plenty standard.
I also have Nextcloud running on docker using linuxserver.io image and the upgrade process is a breeze. I usually upgrade by running watchtower once a month to update my docker images.
Why do you have to wait for someone to fork it? Can’t you just not update to the bad version? I thought that was a major appeal of hosting your own email client like this.
And given the email protocols won’t ever change, I would assume it’ll continue working the same for a decade or more.
(My only guess is a security worry, but this seems like a rather niche thing that something this niche would be unlikely to be attacked unless I were targeted by some state-level actor)
>On the plus side, if you're using the docker image, upgrades are a breeze. Just bump the tag on the image, redeploy, and you're done. (It did take a _lot_ of effort to migrating my existing data to the docker container, though.)
As much as people rag on Snap, Nextcloud being available on it is also super convenient if one doesn't feel like using Docker.
I really wish someone would make an alternate frontend for nextcloud. The backend is pretty solid from what I can tell, but the web UI is basically unusable.
I kept upgrading the server because I thought the abysmal performance was a backend bottleneck. But no, if I turn on profiling in my browser, I can see it taking geologic ages to do... Whatever it's doing. The server is mostly idle just waiting for the browser to respond.
> if you're using the docker image, upgrades are a breeze. Just bump the tag on the image, redeploy, and you're done.
Or you could just run Watchtower beside it and it will automatically update your docker containers. https://github.com/containrrr/watchtower If you are OK with automated updates.
What happened to modern UX design? In the 90s it was driven by hard science and serving users. Now it feels like a competition to prevent anyone from accomplishing even the simplest task. Why do modern UX designers have such contempt for their users?
>On the plus side, if you're using the docker image, upgrades are a breeze.
I've had problems that required fiddly manual interventions twice after updating to a new major version.
And what keeps me from using it for anything other than File synching is the lack of a functioning integrated backup mechanism. There is a plugin, but it's unusable shite (tries to keep the entire data in memory, big has been open for years), and I really don't want to depend on a self-made combination of Filesystem and DB backup.
> It did take a _lot_ of effort to migrating my existing data to the docker container
Or you could just use some external storage. Like SMB or something. And then you would learn what updates aren't 'a breeze'. And there is no built-in SMB support in the default container.
Since I'm running it since OwnCloud days too, I have an opinion on it and it's Not. Good.
Desktop client for Windows is miserable and sucks:
a) you have something with a name longer than 30 symbols? You know need to guess what the full path of that file in the error log
b) this is like 4th year when you have an option to see the errors in a separate window, except it's... empty. Not an empty error log, it' empty window
c) Oh, best part: if the client decided to update it would kill your Explorer first (like -9), install the it's shit and then... force reboot your machine without any questions
d) when you click on the client icon in the notification area it shows multiple icons what you would thing would do something. Except it's just opens the web-interface of the instance
For years mobile client couldn't work properly with a self-signed certs, which is quite ludicrous for a solution boasted as the pinnacle of self-hosting.
UI overall is shit, it's a legacy of early 2010 concepts with Googlisation on every not needed aspect. And just outright stupid ideas, which 2.5 developers at NextCloud couldn't test, like littering EVERY (sorry for caps) folder you navigate through the web interface with README.md. And shitting bricks on non case sensitive mounts, because yes, it's hard.
Server side is always running to pump out new versions, while abandoning and deprecating addons. Oh, addon you are using is now deprecated, besides being made a mere year ago? Tough luck. Stay on the supported NC version. Except it's not supported anymore because it's a year old now version.
Oh, since 2016 it's no longer a file syncing solution, it's collaboration software or even groupware. That means there are now office suite, chat, contact lists and whatever else, including an email client. This also explains why did NC 'bought' RC. Except all those parts are not integrated good.
And finally it's a PHP app with a tons of legacy code. As soon as something breaks you are drowning in multiple screen heights of errors of PHP code. And consequently all performance troubles are solved by throwing RAM and CPU at the instance.
no company in the world is going to maintain 2 separate software products that compete with each other. They will be merged, my prediction is 12 to 18 mos
"Neither will Roundcube replace Nextcloud Mail or the other way around. ... Nextcloud Mail will evolve as it is, focused on being used naturally within Nextcloud."
We just swapped out our old webmail system (made from twigs, mud and spit) for a nice and elegant Roundcube install with custom plugins and I was already dreading having to change it.
I really tried to make Nextcloud work for me but it was too much. I‘ll pay the enshittified Dropbox premium soon.
Some bugs I encountered in a few hours of testing and trying to make it work.
The Mac auto-update installs an incompatible version to my OS; the website offers only the new incompatible and an old version that also doesn’t work (OS can not scan the app). The solution is to find a suitable version from a hidden FTP, user-unfriendly.
Some files had modification timestamps on 1.1.1970 that causes obscure sync issues on Mac. Either run some arbitrary database scripts to fix this or a simpler solution is to ‘touch’ all affected files.
The Windows Client consistently shows random minus bytes, hangs, and freezes.
The Windows Client is stuck in a loop of calculations and transmissions. Also a reinstallation is impossible as AppData folder isn’t deleted during uninstallation.
A successful complete reinstall downloads all the existing files individually, creating conflicts with identical(!?) local and server files. Why is the file hash not checked before the download? It’s frustrating and seems poorly designed.
All bugs have open GitHub issues I didn’t bother to include. Some have open PRs for years. The last bug is open for 5 years now.
I hate nextcloud with a passion and I just hope they can govern a project like roundcube... used it for 20 years even through the whole roundcube next debacle. That said roundcube itself is not an oss project with a clean track record.
Nextcloud is the OSS equivalent of IBM and ticking boxes so it's easy for management to pull the trigger but every feature is just a half-assed buggy implementation. Gobbling up OSS funds and fucking up government projects that try to rely on it. It's a disgrace.
I've been a very happy Roundcube user for a decade without a single problem. Also worth mentioning, their CLI update script just works without a hitch.
I'd like to see Nextcloud adopt Roundcube's commitment to reliable software. I've tried migrating my calendars, reminders and contacts several times, but it's never worked reliably. There were often subtle problems such as missing calendar entries that simply disappeared without a trace.
This is wonderful news! Nextcloud gets an additional product offering for an important aspect (email!), and RoundCube gets resources in the way of dev. staff (and possibly other benefits from NextCloud funding)...and ALL of it is open source, self-hostable, and good tech.! Kudos to RoundCube and NextCloud folks!
Speaking of Roundcube: If you're hosting it without apache (as in: without htaccess support), make sure the logs directory and files aren't exposed publicly. They can contain access tokens and even encrypted passwords (encrypted with a default password unless manually changed during installation), and follow a known file structure, so it's quite common for people to get owned this way.
Given Nextcloud's track record that doesn't bode well for Roundcube's future. We tried to make Nextcloud work for us for years, but it's just too terribly clunky, unstable, bug-ridden, and customer hostile. I hope none of that rubs off on roundcube.
Nice to hear. After several (abandoned) attempts and installing NC from scratch it seems to me that Nextcloud matures well. I like the focus on hub/groupware. Still some details from time to time which annoy me (and probably could be improved). But in general, Nextcloud is great! And using AIO (all-in-one docker image) it's really simple to install and maintain the server. -- So happy to have a good alternative to the Microsoft365 offerings!!! I do think Roundcube found a good place.
I really want to like Nextcloud. I had it all set up perfectly earlier this year with their "AIO" setup. Then some upgrade came along and completely destroyed my install, couldn't get the containers to start after that, couldn't figure out how to debug it; seemed like the only way to get it back on its feet was to wipe and start over. I wiped; I haven't started over yet.
Comments here seem to suggest that Nextcloud isn't worth it. Later today I'm supposed to talk with some folks at IT looking for an in-house file-sharing/collaboration tool that Dropbox/GoogleDrive is (or was, because after GoogleDrive price hikes our institution ditched them). I was going to suggest Nextcloud as a possible option to investigate...
Nah, nextcloud is a reasonable enterprise file-sharing/collaboration tool.
What you are seeing here is a lot of people trying to use it as a file synchronization tool, and discovering that it's bloated beyond reason (because well, it's a file-sharing/collaboration tool) and the file sync functionality isn't even as good as you'll get from specialized tools.
The root problem is that nextcloud started as a file sync tool, and moved into other niche, and never bothered to communicate it.
NC is trying to do a lot, but it's not doing anything particularly well. It feels like their development resources are spread too thin to really polish any of the features. If you just need file sharing, there are some projects that focus on that that tend to work pretty well. I have also tried running NC with OnlyOffice, but that seems to break every two weeks. And even if it works, Google's tools are just so much better. I would even choose O365 over this.
Yeah, you need to run away from Nextcloud as far and as fast as possible.
I made the mistake of recommending it and setting it up for my 10 person team earlier this year and it has only been constant headaches.
Reporting bugs to GitHub is especially frustrating because the devs will just discard them, regardless of how well documented and reproducible they are. There was a mess with its Postgres connection pool where it would quickly run out of available slots if you used Collabora, the Google Docs clone, the devs rejected the bug reports without a second thought although there were many users who reported the problem.
This last hour I've been fighting it trying to reset a user's password, it says that it "cannot decrypt the recovery key".
I check whether the recovery key is enabled for that user, it says "Recovery key is not enabled".
I check whether encryption is enabled, it reports it as "false".
It's by far the flakiest piece of software I've used in 2023.
If you're going to do this, look for a proven stable Nextcloud solution. I followed one of the many guides on the web a couple of years ago to install Nextcloud on Debian, which worked, but the first major update broke it. I couldn't fix it because I didn't know why it broke. You wouldn't want to be in that situation with employees waiting for service to be restored.
Since then, I've been running an always-on Syncthing instance as a "cloud hub" and that's been great, though I doubt it would scale well.
I don’t know… the overall tone seems to be a bit too negative for me here.
I have used Nextcloud at home for years now without issues and we also used it at a large university where it worked just fine (from a user perspective; I don’t know if it gave the administrators nightmares). I do agree that they should invest more time in polish and stability and less in swanky new features that many won’t need, but that would not lead me to discourage anyone from using (or at least trying) Nextcloud.
It'll depend on your requirements. Keep in mind that Nextcloud is the largest on-prem collab platform out there, so more users means more complaints... It is used in huge enterprise and government installations so it can definitely work, but it needs a decent setup. For a small company, use the Nextcloud AIO container I would say. For a big one, get Nextcloud Enterprise (starts at 100 seats) to make sure you get any issues addressed quickly.
I guess it's fine if you want a widely integrated solution that can do a lot of different things.
I'm using it only for myself, so definitely not representative of using it in a company but maybe my experience helps.
The just working part, at least for me, are the calendar and contact plugins. Never had any issues with those.
File sync with the desktop client works mostly fine on Linux where I use it most of the time. However, I've run into issues with it on Windows. Using the automatic bandwidth limit for example might cause Explorer to freeze. [1]
Also forget about the automatic upload feature in the Android client, I switched to FolderSync for a reliable experience.
I've managed to get OnlyOffice working, Collabora Office previously broke for some reason. However latest upgrade also broke OnlyOffice. The solution for this is to put the secret and authorization headers into config.php in addition to the OnlyOffice plugin settings. [2] No idea why, but that is a thing.
My Nextcloud runs as a normal PHP application and I haven't had any issues with upgrading yet. Going from, I think, version 23 on Debian 11 to 27.1 now on a different machine running Debian 12 since I started using it.
Maybe I should find something more focused on file syncing, but the all-in-one approach of Nextcloud and its various plugins makes trying some new services very easy.
Realize that many people who work for competitor products will bash it here. It is a best of class rather than best of breed solution tailored to organizations who want a secure on prem suite like O365. Some apps are best of breed, but you can find many better alternatives to specific apps. File sharing and collaboration is one of its strongest offerings. I think you will be amazed at all the sharing options available. When you need the tight integration between several apps and central administration, it is a great suite. It changed my life in a good way.
Oh no... Roundube was the top selfhosted email client. Nextcloud is great, but having everything and the kitchen sink maintained within and by it is worrying.
It would be nice if Nextcloud would come in small modules, and one could effectively run only webmail, and add more features in the future on demand. Having everything in one just increases attack surface and makes more work managing it all.
What I would like to have is a small Nextcloud installation (max. 200MB, preferably even smaller) that I can host on a ultra-cheap tiny server. I just need file sync, calendar and contacts. The total size of the synced files isn't much either.
Nextcloud used to be small enough for this, but they kept adding things, bundling word processors and other stuff I don't need, meanwhile making the contacts and calendar optional. I have had to move to a larger server only for this reason, to keep Nextcloud at a supported version.
Does Syncthing have contacts and calendar syncing? Any others? I like having a central server.
Will Roundcube still be a seperated project or will it be included in Nextcloud? If they integrate it to heavily in the Nextcloud stuff I won't be using it anymore. :-)
Since we're talking about email, contacts, calendars and files, thought it might be useful to summarize what I tried and landed on. Note that I'm only using it for my own personal setup, not shared with a company:
- SyncThing - current solution for some of the filesync I'm doing (mainly personal projects). I have a small server at home that works well as an "always on" client that I can access.
- OwnCloud - used to use it for files, cal and contacts. It's much lighter than NextCloud, pretty easy to setup. I've had corruption issues with the files, which arguably might have been my configuration - and made me leave it behind
- Radicale + infCloud - Used it for a while for contacts and calendar. It's working well, and the API being carddav+caldav, you can use anything you want to sync. The main issue I had was that you can't sent and invite, which is a hassle.
- NextCloud - current solution for calendar and contacts. I'm using it mainly because my shared hosting is providing an instance with my contract, and they handle backups. I don't like the UI much, it's slow and a bit clunky, I mainly use it when I want to invite someone. I don't use files. I tried using their mail solution but never made it work. I'm using Davx5 to sync on my phone, and the carddav/caldav sync on mac. I may be moving at some point.
- Rainloop - very good alternative to roundcube. My only grief with it is that I never figured how to search across folders.
- Roundcube - pretty good, and lots of plugins you can use to make it do what you want.
- Also used a simple SSH + SCP client to do file sync'ing. I'm just hesitant with that, since someone getting access would mean full access to the server.
[+] [-] bityard|2 years ago|reply
My biggest gripe with it is the increasing schizophrenia of the UX devs. One thing I _loved_ about Nextcloud was that they paid a lot of attention to making it easy to navigate and use. The newer UX "enhancements" seem to be all about maximizing (useless) whitespace and making every widget as spherical as possible. The calendar UI used to be a joy to use, now it's the most frustrating calendar I have ever seen.
On the plus side, if you're using the docker image, upgrades are a breeze. Just bump the tag on the image, redeploy, and you're done. (It did take a _lot_ of effort to migrating my existing data to the docker container, though.)
I also use Roundcube as my main email client. I've looked at bunches of them, but Roundcube is the closest thing to a web-based Thunderbird that I have seen. Unfortunately, this had a UI "update" too and now practically nothing can be customized the way I prefer. If someone forks Roundcube and brings back the old theme, I will switch to it tomorrow.
[+] [-] jklinger410|2 years ago|reply
Problem with free and open source software is that you have to follow the passion of the devs, which can sometimes optimize out of usefulness.
Because of this, I think this is very bad news for roundcube.
[+] [-] nfriedly|2 years ago|reply
Maybe this has been improved, but I remember thinking that and then it biting me because updating to the latest image (linuxserver/nextcloud) wasn't actually updating nextcloud itself, just the environment (php, etc.)
When I realized this, I had to go through several major nextcloud upgrades, incrementally going from one major version to the next.
Then it bit me again a few months later where nextcloud updated their maximum supported php version, and the docker image I was on quickly bumped the bundled php version to the new maximum, so the older version of nextcloud suddenly refused to start - even to run the updater. I ended up finding the max version check in nextcloud's php code and commenting it out, after that I was able to run the nextcloud update manually.
After being bit twice, I finally automated the full process so that the nextcloud software is updated in addition to the environment.
[+] [-] jacomoRodriguez|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iggldiggl|2 years ago|reply
?? The old skins (Classic and Larry) are still available as plugins via PHP composer, aren't they?
[+] [-] encom|2 years ago|reply
I'm running on "bare metal" Digital Ocean VPS (like god intended), and I just use the web-based updater and it works well. APT on Debian handles everything else.
[+] [-] ekianjo|2 years ago|reply
upgrades are a breeze even without docker... the self updating function of nextcloud works very well.
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|2 years ago|reply
I have used Firefox my entire life and sometime back they added really stupid whitespace between the address bar on both ends. Every single time I reinstall the browser on a new OS I see it and remove the whitespace. It drives me up a wall. It looks so gimmicky and like a complete waste of a UI that didnt need to be changed.
Sometimes the best UI decision is to leave things as-is, especially if your UI has been plenty standard.
[+] [-] iamspoilt|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xp84|2 years ago|reply
> [ their useless UX designers ruined it ]
Why do you have to wait for someone to fork it? Can’t you just not update to the bad version? I thought that was a major appeal of hosting your own email client like this.
And given the email protocols won’t ever change, I would assume it’ll continue working the same for a decade or more.
(My only guess is a security worry, but this seems like a rather niche thing that something this niche would be unlikely to be attacked unless I were targeted by some state-level actor)
[+] [-] TheCapeGreek|2 years ago|reply
As much as people rag on Snap, Nextcloud being available on it is also super convenient if one doesn't feel like using Docker.
[+] [-] calamari4065|2 years ago|reply
I kept upgrading the server because I thought the abysmal performance was a backend bottleneck. But no, if I turn on profiling in my browser, I can see it taking geologic ages to do... Whatever it's doing. The server is mostly idle just waiting for the browser to respond.
It's almost impressive how bad it is.
[+] [-] zikduruqe|2 years ago|reply
Or you could just run Watchtower beside it and it will automatically update your docker containers. https://github.com/containrrr/watchtower If you are OK with automated updates.
[+] [-] mulmen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zilti|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brazzy|2 years ago|reply
I've had problems that required fiddly manual interventions twice after updating to a new major version.
And what keeps me from using it for anything other than File synching is the lack of a functioning integrated backup mechanism. There is a plugin, but it's unusable shite (tries to keep the entire data in memory, big has been open for years), and I really don't want to depend on a self-made combination of Filesystem and DB backup.
[+] [-] justsomehnguy|2 years ago|reply
Or you could just use some external storage. Like SMB or something. And then you would learn what updates aren't 'a breeze'. And there is no built-in SMB support in the default container.
Since I'm running it since OwnCloud days too, I have an opinion on it and it's Not. Good.
Desktop client for Windows is miserable and sucks:
a) you have something with a name longer than 30 symbols? You know need to guess what the full path of that file in the error log
b) this is like 4th year when you have an option to see the errors in a separate window, except it's... empty. Not an empty error log, it' empty window
c) Oh, best part: if the client decided to update it would kill your Explorer first (like -9), install the it's shit and then... force reboot your machine without any questions
d) when you click on the client icon in the notification area it shows multiple icons what you would thing would do something. Except it's just opens the web-interface of the instance
For years mobile client couldn't work properly with a self-signed certs, which is quite ludicrous for a solution boasted as the pinnacle of self-hosting.
UI overall is shit, it's a legacy of early 2010 concepts with Googlisation on every not needed aspect. And just outright stupid ideas, which 2.5 developers at NextCloud couldn't test, like littering EVERY (sorry for caps) folder you navigate through the web interface with README.md. And shitting bricks on non case sensitive mounts, because yes, it's hard.
Server side is always running to pump out new versions, while abandoning and deprecating addons. Oh, addon you are using is now deprecated, besides being made a mere year ago? Tough luck. Stay on the supported NC version. Except it's not supported anymore because it's a year old now version.
Oh, since 2016 it's no longer a file syncing solution, it's collaboration software or even groupware. That means there are now office suite, chat, contact lists and whatever else, including an email client. This also explains why did NC 'bought' RC. Except all those parts are not integrated good.
And finally it's a PHP app with a tons of legacy code. As soon as something breaks you are drowning in multiple screen heights of errors of PHP code. And consequently all performance troubles are solved by throwing RAM and CPU at the instance.
/rant
[+] [-] preya2k|2 years ago|reply
Roundcube is on a whole other level in terms of stability and robustness compared to Nextcloud.
I'm also glad that the current Nextcloud client will be replaced, because it's not very good right now.
[+] [-] phpisthebest|2 years ago|reply
no company in the world is going to maintain 2 separate software products that compete with each other. They will be merged, my prediction is 12 to 18 mos
[+] [-] stratom|2 years ago|reply
"Neither will Roundcube replace Nextcloud Mail or the other way around. ... Nextcloud Mail will evolve as it is, focused on being used naturally within Nextcloud."
[+] [-] smudgy|2 years ago|reply
We just swapped out our old webmail system (made from twigs, mud and spit) for a nice and elegant Roundcube install with custom plugins and I was already dreading having to change it.
[+] [-] youdontknowjuli|2 years ago|reply
Some bugs I encountered in a few hours of testing and trying to make it work.
The Mac auto-update installs an incompatible version to my OS; the website offers only the new incompatible and an old version that also doesn’t work (OS can not scan the app). The solution is to find a suitable version from a hidden FTP, user-unfriendly.
Some files had modification timestamps on 1.1.1970 that causes obscure sync issues on Mac. Either run some arbitrary database scripts to fix this or a simpler solution is to ‘touch’ all affected files.
The Windows Client consistently shows random minus bytes, hangs, and freezes.
The Windows Client is stuck in a loop of calculations and transmissions. Also a reinstallation is impossible as AppData folder isn’t deleted during uninstallation.
A successful complete reinstall downloads all the existing files individually, creating conflicts with identical(!?) local and server files. Why is the file hash not checked before the download? It’s frustrating and seems poorly designed.
All bugs have open GitHub issues I didn’t bother to include. Some have open PRs for years. The last bug is open for 5 years now.
[+] [-] velcrovan|2 years ago|reply
Just a month ago there was news of a RoundCube XSS zero-day that was widely exploited (https://cyberpedia.medium.com/state-sponsored-cyberattacks-l...).
Don’t use RoundCube!
[+] [-] wkat4242|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zetobal|2 years ago|reply
Nextcloud is the OSS equivalent of IBM and ticking boxes so it's easy for management to pull the trigger but every feature is just a half-assed buggy implementation. Gobbling up OSS funds and fucking up government projects that try to rely on it. It's a disgrace.
[+] [-] joeig|2 years ago|reply
I'd like to see Nextcloud adopt Roundcube's commitment to reliable software. I've tried migrating my calendars, reminders and contacts several times, but it's never worked reliably. There were often subtle problems such as missing calendar entries that simply disappeared without a trace.
[+] [-] milliams|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mxuribe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AndroTux|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] creshal|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chappi42|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw555chip|2 years ago|reply
What are the odds, a positive article relating to Nextcloud posted on HN the same day a negative article is posted about Owncloud on Reddit.
[+] [-] jordemort|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonnycomputer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcosdumay|2 years ago|reply
What you are seeing here is a lot of people trying to use it as a file synchronization tool, and discovering that it's bloated beyond reason (because well, it's a file-sharing/collaboration tool) and the file sync functionality isn't even as good as you'll get from specialized tools.
The root problem is that nextcloud started as a file sync tool, and moved into other niche, and never bothered to communicate it.
[+] [-] this_user|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clawoo|2 years ago|reply
I made the mistake of recommending it and setting it up for my 10 person team earlier this year and it has only been constant headaches.
Reporting bugs to GitHub is especially frustrating because the devs will just discard them, regardless of how well documented and reproducible they are. There was a mess with its Postgres connection pool where it would quickly run out of available slots if you used Collabora, the Google Docs clone, the devs rejected the bug reports without a second thought although there were many users who reported the problem.
This last hour I've been fighting it trying to reset a user's password, it says that it "cannot decrypt the recovery key".
I check whether the recovery key is enabled for that user, it says "Recovery key is not enabled".
I check whether encryption is enabled, it reports it as "false".
It's by far the flakiest piece of software I've used in 2023.
[+] [-] ipcress_file|2 years ago|reply
Since then, I've been running an always-on Syncthing instance as a "cloud hub" and that's been great, though I doubt it would scale well.
[+] [-] ar0|2 years ago|reply
I have used Nextcloud at home for years now without issues and we also used it at a large university where it worked just fine (from a user perspective; I don’t know if it gave the administrators nightmares). I do agree that they should invest more time in polish and stability and less in swanky new features that many won’t need, but that would not lead me to discourage anyone from using (or at least trying) Nextcloud.
[+] [-] jospoortvliet|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RealStickman_|2 years ago|reply
The just working part, at least for me, are the calendar and contact plugins. Never had any issues with those. File sync with the desktop client works mostly fine on Linux where I use it most of the time. However, I've run into issues with it on Windows. Using the automatic bandwidth limit for example might cause Explorer to freeze. [1] Also forget about the automatic upload feature in the Android client, I switched to FolderSync for a reliable experience.
I've managed to get OnlyOffice working, Collabora Office previously broke for some reason. However latest upgrade also broke OnlyOffice. The solution for this is to put the secret and authorization headers into config.php in addition to the OnlyOffice plugin settings. [2] No idea why, but that is a thing.
My Nextcloud runs as a normal PHP application and I haven't had any issues with upgrading yet. Going from, I think, version 23 on Debian 11 to 27.1 now on a different machine running Debian 12 since I started using it.
Maybe I should find something more focused on file syncing, but the all-in-one approach of Nextcloud and its various plugins makes trying some new services very easy.
[1] https://github.com/nextcloud/desktop/issues/5031
[2] https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/onlyoffice-nextcloud/issues/60...
[+] [-] kornhole|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ape4|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] poisonborz|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] butz|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] INTPenis|2 years ago|reply
I see people on selfhosting forums asking for alternatives.
It would be sad if they swallowed roundcube, which I remember as a decent web email client.
[+] [-] gpvos|2 years ago|reply
Nextcloud used to be small enough for this, but they kept adding things, bundling word processors and other stuff I don't need, meanwhile making the contacts and calendar optional. I have had to move to a larger server only for this reason, to keep Nextcloud at a supported version.
Does Syncthing have contacts and calendar syncing? Any others? I like having a central server.
[+] [-] ekianjo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nik736|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charles_f|2 years ago|reply