A little background first: I’m selfhosting our (wife and mine) files for over 12 years now, started with a simple FreeNAS folder, switched to Owncloud and moved on to Nextcloud after the split. We only really need the files part, and while it works fine in general, setting it up took more tinkering than it should’ve.
I’m also not a fan of NC’s direction, moving from file cloud hosting to a “full-stack” enterprise one-for-all solution. While that wouldn’t be an issue in general, it seems that other parts are prioritized without getting the older parts to work correctly first.
Which seems to match with the recent-ish code analysis https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Service-Navi/Presse/Alle-Meldungen-News/Meldungen/Projekt-CAOS-30_Nextcloud_250205.html (in German, although CVE entries have an English description) which found nearly 40 vulnerabilities, amongst them modules like 2FA/MFA.
So I’ve tested through most of the other options, but maybe I missed something obvious.
Requirements:
- selfhostable in a docker environment
- file storage/syncing from a central server, preferably selective sync (so Syncthing is out)
- either structured storage (folders etc) or at least structured export/backup from flat storage for application-indepentent file backup
- desktop client for Windows, mobile client for Android
- Web UI for simple browser access
- virtual file support a definite plus
Things I’ve tried:
Nextcloud
- well-working setup, definitely my “fallback” option
- no fan of the general direction development is going
Syncthing
- While working absolutely fine for sync between different devices (have it in use in a different scenario), the peer-to-peer nature is unsuitable for what I’m looking for
Pydio Cells
- server and web UI work fine, desktop and app sync didn’t really work (might be an error on my part though)
- backup fiddly due to needing cells-fuse tool for structured files, although I haven’t tested structured storage yet
Seafile
- will have to test this again, when I did years earlier the storage situation was a little tricky
Owncloud Infinite Scale
- Similar to Pydio Cells, but haven’t really tested yet due to dev exodus
- several devs from Owncloud moved to Opencloud and forked their “own” OCIS server
- first release scheduled March '25, so no testing yet
- I have hopes this might be a useful alternative, but time will tell
So: did I miss something? Any obvious software solution?
You should checkout Seafile again. It’s so easy and way faster than NC.