In Defence of Nextcloud
I've seen a reasonable amount of critique of Nextcloud online. Personally, I think that it is great.
I think that the critiques are:
- It's bloated / tries to do too much
- Hard to manage
- Y does X better than Nextcloud
- Something about calendars
Now, I pay for a managed instance of Nextcloud through Cloudamo and have done since June 2021 ( It'd been so long, I had to check). Before that I'd experimented with self-hosting both OwnCloud and Nextcloud, but there was nothing permanent.
What I like
I like that Nextcloud is, more or less, a drop in for quite a few cloud based services. I use Nextcloud for:
- Syncing files to my phone/tablet
- Calendars / Contacts
- Securely sharing files
File Sync
I had seen some criticism about syncing multiple computers. I don't sync the entire home directory to Nextcloud, I use it as a way of sharing specific files between devices.
I use my tablet for sheet music when I'm with my band. I can prepare music then sync to my tablet on the go.
I also sync all my and my wife's phone photos up to Nextcloud, then bring them into Digikam on my pc and manage as a single library. Sharing the upload directly between users was super simple.
I did try and use syncthing, but I had no end of problems and conflicts. No idea why. I think it also felt like quite an overhead to have running constantly when my files didn't change that often.
I have seen Immich suggested as an alternative for syncing photos, but Nextcloud already does it and I'm not sure what I'd gain.
Calendars / Contacts
I don't remember why, but my wife and I have a shared calendar with a caledar user. Something about not being being able to write to each other's calendar. Anyway, a shared calendar user for our shared calendar is fine.
Contact sync is fine.
I had seen Radicale as an alternative for calendars, but the people who mentioned it also said they wouldn't recommend.
Securely Sharing Files
I recently got financial advice. I was easily able to share a folder that the advisors were able to get my financial information. Nice and easy.
I also share band files with my band. Recordings were made, sheet music, etc. They have write ability so all good.
What I don't like
Occasionally, I've had to raise tickets with Cloudamo for assistance. Usually around updates going awry, but I think this is driven by updating in the browser.
I had a problem where the sever ran out of space when it shouldn't have. I think it was because I was trying to backup Signal, but a large hidden lock file was the only thing syncing. Cloudamo directed me to some adim area and I got it working.
Occasionally, the photo sync goes a bit weird and I manually upload a file, but then who hasn't had a similar problem with one of the big corporate *drives.
That's the extent of my criticism. I was easily able to solve problems by raising tickets. They probably would have been easier to resolve if I self-hosted, but I think I would have other problems. So not much critique really.
Conclusion
Maybe Nextcloud is trying to do too much. I'm not sure, it's got quite a few features and I like using them. I could replace Nextcloud with several lighter-weight services, but I think that might cause me more problems.
Don't get me wrong, I like to [self-host] (https://huginn.uk/2026-self-host-update), but I am a kind of lazy self-hoster. I don't want to trouble shoot all the time.