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nextcloud vs owncloud
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nextcloud vs owncloud

gappergapper Member
edited July 2021 in General

which one do you recommend and why?

nextcloud vs owncloud
  1. winner?84 votes
    1. nextcloud
      85.71%
    2. owncloud
      14.29%
«1

Comments

  • cloud in the sky

    can produce rain

    Thanked by 1webcraft
  • Nextcloud for me.

  • hate both too many features but none of them are good enough.

    Thanked by 1angelius
  • JarryJarry Member

    Been using NC for about 3 years, but there are things I don't like:
    1. NC is using something they call "staged release": Whenever new version is released, only some selected users get it right at the beginning. Others have to wait weeks or months.
    2. Windows desktop client only for W10 (no W7, W8, W8.1)
    3. Linux desktop client only as appimage
    4. Too many new features added, none of them production-ready (talk, office, e2ee, etc)
    To be honest, I think about moving back to OC...

  • yoursunnyyoursunny Member, IPv6 Advocate

    I chose Nextcloud when I installed for the first time in 2019.
    What I read about ownCloud and Nextcloud told me that "Nextcloud is newer".
    I didn't do much research into this, but picked Nextcloud to try first, and found that it works OK, so I never tried the other.


    @Jarry said:
    NC is using something they call "staged release": Whenever new version is released, only some selected users get it right at the beginning. Others have to wait weeks or months.

    In Docker installation, you are prompted about a new release when it reaches n.1 version, to minimize regressions affect you.
    I see this as a benefit.

    If you want the latest, you can always pull the new container image as soon as n.0 version comes out.

    Windows desktop client only for W10 (no W7, W8, W8.1)

    Windows 10 and Windows 11 are the only supported versions.
    Older versions are dead and should not be connected to the Internet.

    Linux desktop client only as appimage

    I don't know about this one.
    I use WebDAV mountpoint on Linux.

    Too many new features added, none of them production-ready (talk, office, e2ee, etc)

    I have disabled most of these.
    They are taking up too much RAM on the server, and mostly useless as I'm the only user on the instance.

    Thanked by 2SinV nyamenk
  • Mr_TomMr_Tom Member, Host Rep

    @Jarry said: Windows desktop client only for W10 (no W7, W8, W8.1)

    The older client still works with windows 7 though.

  • AlwaysSkintAlwaysSkint Member
    edited July 2021

    Coincidentally, I've been looking for a NC alternative. I run a couple of instances for longer term backups and only have interest in the file encryption and data retention features. No interest at all in all the other bloat and went with NC instead of OC, for a similar reason as @yoursunny - newer.
    I've just installed seafile on a newly acquired VPS, though it lacks these inbuilt capabilities. NC data retention has never worked properly though.
    I only connect to NC with webDAV (to make use of the encryption), so client-side interfaces aren't used.

    Recommendation: NextCloud, if pushed because it has been reasonably reliable but I don't like the direction that it's going in.

  • hkbbdxhkbbdx Member

    seafile

    Thanked by 1Daniel15
  • I would recommend a portable ssd ._.

  • ericlsericls Member, Patron Provider

    @Jarry said:
    Been using NC for about 3 years, but there are things I don't like:
    1. NC is using something they call "staged release": Whenever new version is released, only some selected users get it right at the beginning. Others have to wait weeks or months.
    2. Windows desktop client only for W10 (no W7, W8, W8.1)
    3. Linux desktop client only as appimage
    4. Too many new features added, none of them production-ready (talk, office, e2ee, etc)
    To be honest, I think about moving back to OC...

    3 is not true tho, gnome even has it built in. And other de and fm all have very in depth integration

  • DrvDrv Member

    @hzhoanglee said:
    I would recommend a portable ssd ._.

    This.

  • xetsysxetsys Member

    Is there any optimized guide for nextcloud? My 1 vcore configured instance keeps on exceeding CPU limits. I wish there was a way to optimize the setup.

  • webcraftwebcraft Member
    edited July 2021

    I prefer OC for simplicity and available support discussions. Could you explain what makes NC "newer" (except the date of development/initial release)?

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @webcraft said: Could you explain what makes NC "newer" (except the date of development/initial release)?

    The date of development/initial release is what makes NC newer

    Thanked by 1yoursunny
  • @angstrom said:

    @webcraft said: Could you explain what makes NC "newer" (except the date of development/initial release)?

    The date of development/initial release is what makes NC newer

    Well, I though with "newer" something like "modern" is meant, so something like better programming technic or resource usage or whatever.

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @webcraft said:

    @angstrom said:

    @webcraft said: Could you explain what makes NC "newer" (except the date of development/initial release)?

    The date of development/initial release is what makes NC newer

    Well, I though with "newer" something like "modern" is meant, so something like better programming technic or resource usage or whatever.

    NC has more features (e.g., talk, encryption) than OC, but some people say that these features were quickly introduced and weren't (yet) well-tested. It's fair to say that NC is faster moving than OC, but as far as storage and synchronization are concerned, it may be a question whether NC is better than OC.

    Thanked by 2webcraft yoursunny
  • WebProjectWebProject Host Rep, Veteran

    @hzhoanglee said:
    I would recommend a portable ssd ._.

    How about Office 365 or Google Suite, definitely my personal choice.

  • PixelsPixels Member
    edited July 2021

    @ericls said:

    @Jarry said:
    Been using NC for about 3 years, but there are things I don't like:
    1. NC is using something they call "staged release": Whenever new version is released, only some selected users get it right at the beginning. Others have to wait weeks or months.
    2. Windows desktop client only for W10 (no W7, W8, W8.1)
    3. Linux desktop client only as appimage
    4. Too many new features added, none of them production-ready (talk, office, e2ee, etc)
    To be honest, I think about moving back to OC...

    3 is not true tho, gnome even has it built in. And other de and fm all have very in depth integration

    I would say this is because of WebDAV being used in the background, which is a common protocol.

  • @Pixels said: because of WebDAV

    SabreDAV, actually. ;)

    Thanked by 1Pixels
  • Daniel15Daniel15 Veteran
    edited July 2021

    I personally use Seafile, as all I want is file syncing. I don't care about all the other Nextcloud stuff.

    Nextcloud is quite slow as they use PHP for a lot of it, and this also contributes to the flakiness of the syncing. Owncloud is being rewritten in Go which should make it noticeably faster.

    Seafile's core syncing code is written in C and it's very fast and very reliable. I've never experienced file corruption with it. They took a pretty reasonable approach and used C for all the core code that needs to be fast (core syncing/checksumming code), and used Python for other things like the web UI.

    Seafile also have their "SeaDrive" client that uses the native Windows cloud files API. This lets you see the files without actually downloading all of them upfront - They're downloaded on-demand as you use the files. You can have a lot of files in Seafile without them actually taking space on your client PC until you actually open the file. They support this on MacOS too.

  • ErisaErisa Member
    edited July 2021

    @Daniel15 said: Seafile also have their "SeaDrive" client that uses the native Windows cloud files API. This lets you see the files without actually downloading all of them upfront - They're downloaded on-demand as you use the files. You can have a lot of files in Seafile without them actually taking space on your client PC until you actually open the file.

    I absolutely love this feature, but I want to point out briefly that recent versions of the Nextcloud client finally added this too, it calls it "Virtual files" and works very well.

    I've admittedly never used Owncloud, and because of some confusing events i can't quite remember, I currently have both Seafile and Nextcloud instances on different hardware.
    If I had to pick what to use forever, it would probably be Seafile for pure stability reasons. Nextcloud is pretty but its a pain to manage and isn't the most stable thing in existence.
    Kind of off-topic though since I haven't used Owncloud, maybe it's more stable, who knows.

  • gappergapper Member

    For those of you using Seafile, do it allows to create "drop folders"? I mean, I want to create a folder and share it with people who then could upload files to that folder without viewing what others have uploaded.

    Those people shouldn't be forced to create an account to upload their file.

  • Daniel15Daniel15 Veteran
    edited July 2021

    @gapper said: For those of you using Seafile, do it allows to create "drop folders"? I mean, I want to create a folder and share it with people who then could upload files to that folder without viewing what others have uploaded.

    Yes! It works well. The drop folder links can be password protected and have a time limit too :)

    The page for uploading files to a drop folder is pretty basic, but it gets the job done:

    You can also share links to files and folders to allow people to download them, and those links can be password protected and time-limited too.

    @Erisa said: I want to point out briefly that recent versions of the Nextcloud client finally added this too, it calls it "Virtual files" and works very well.

    Wow, that must be very recent. It didn't exist when I was evaluating different cloud storage solutions last year. From the screenshots it looks like they're using the same Windows cloud files API.

    Thanked by 2gapper Erisa
  • In seafile, when encryption is selected it becomes impossible to use webDAV due to shares being inaccessible. That's a shame. (Unless I've missed something.)
    I could end up back to Nextcloud at this rate.

  • @AlwaysSkint said:
    Coincidentally, I've been looking for a NC alternative. I run a couple of instances for longer term backups and only have interest in the file encryption and data retention features. No interest at all in all the other bloat and went with NC instead of OC, for a similar reason as @yoursunny - newer.
    I've just installed seafile on a newly acquired VPS, though it lacks these inbuilt capabilities. NC data retention has never worked properly though.
    I only connect to NC with webDAV (to make use of the encryption), so client-side interfaces aren't used.

    Recommendation: NextCloud, if pushed because it has been reasonably reliable but I don't like the direction that it's going in.

    For backups? Use Borg. Nextcloud is ok for small config backups, but I've never considered NC for large backups. I don't think that's what their use case is...

    Thanked by 1webcraft
  • edited July 2021

    For media backup from mobile devices & tablet, NextCloud app is almost as good as dropbox, box, or one drive

    Thanked by 1yoursunny
  • Daniel15Daniel15 Veteran
    edited July 2021

    @AlwaysSkint said: I've just installed seafile on a newly acquired VPS, though it lacks these inbuilt capabilities.

    Not sure exactly what you mean by "data retention", but by default Seafile stores the entire history of all files. Its deduplication means that this is very efficient as it essentially only stores the differences rather than each version of the file individually. You can change the history to be time-limited (eg only store 30 days) or disable it entirely on a per-library basis.

    Like @timbojones said, I'd definitely use Borgbackup for backups though.

    @AlwaysSkint said: In seafile, when encryption is selected it becomes impossible to use webDAV due to shares being inaccessible

    There's limitations with client support encryption because it uses end-to-end encryption, meaning the encryption is all done client-side and the server-side never sees the unencrypted data. That's not compatible with WebDAV because the WebDAV protocol doesn't provide any way to properly do client-side encryption.

    Is there a reason you want to use WebDAV in particular? The Seadrive client works on Windows, MacOS and Linux, and supports encrypted libraries (on Windows at least; not sure about other OSes)

  • AlwaysSkintAlwaysSkint Member
    edited July 2021

    @TimboJones @Daniel15
    Nextcloud offers a convenient GUI, when it comes to organising longer term backups, akin to BackupExec, R1Soft BM et al. At a glance, one can browse directories for different countries/servers/VPS. It's visually quick to scan down and see backups in date order. Due to automated retention not working correctly, it's relatively easy to order by creation date and delete out older daily backups, retaining weekly/monthly.
    Of course, this isn't practical at large scale but is workable (somewhat irritating) for the few clients that I have.
    Though not ideal, I currently encrypt server-side, so at least the data is protected at rest - think, provider goes bust, drive goes semi-kaput, decommissioned disc is resold. If files are simply rsynced/copied to Nextcloud, they are not encrypted. If they are transferred via WebDAV (SabreDAV) then they are encrypted and added to the Nextcloud database index.

    For non-cPanel instances (predominantly DA,CWP), the mechanism I use is briefly as follows:

    • Generate local backups of client sites (custom script for CWP)
    • On the server/VPS, mount a remote WebDAV
    • Rsync local backups to the mount
    • Unmount the WebDAV
    • Clean out local older backups

    With WHM/cPanel, a belt & braces approach (for added restore convenience):

    • Use WHM inbuilt backup to WebDAV, retaining local copies
    • Additionally, rsync local copies to remote webDAV

    Data deduplication isn't really a consideration for me, as I can store months of backups onto 1TB storage. I'm much more interested in the easiest means of restoring to a freshly made VPS, for example. Complete, as opposed to incremental backups are much easier to work with from a data restore viewpoint, space permitting.

    I have looked at borgbackup from a laptop perspective but didn't go with it for some reason (overheads probably). I'll give it a revisit though for servers. Ta. :)
    I do want a minimum of server-side encryption though.
    [Edit: Borg Backup Manager doesn't seem to be available, yet]

    P.S. I'd rather not have the need to run a backup client on servers, though was required for R1Soft CDP, of course.
    P.P.S. Seafile ain't gripping me, so far.

    Thanked by 2angstrom TimboJones
  • tjntjn Member

    @AlwaysSkint said:
    P.P.S. Seafile ain't gripping me, so far.

    Can I ask why?
    At the risk of digressing from OP's topic, I'm looking at Seafile vs NextCloud right now

  • AlwaysSkintAlwaysSkint Member
    edited July 2021

    @tjn said: Can I ask why?

    If you have no interest in encryption, then give it a go. Given that it rides on nginx, I (perhaps naively) expected it to be much snappier than a pared down Nextcloud but that doesn't appear to be the case, in my initial impressions. There's also an enforcement of using "Libraries" which is an unnecessary complication.
    Could be time for me to revisit Owncloud (assuming it's still actively being developed), to compare its' resource requirement, to that of Nextcloud.

    Edit:
    The free version of Owncloud doesn't include Workflows . My use case for Workflows follows:

    • Client server/VPS username is associated with a backup Group and logs in from WebDAV.
    • As files are uploaded, they automatically tagged as belonging to the backup Group.
    • A rule is set to make retention of backups to a set number of days, for that backup Group.
      (Not that this works, as described, likely due to the various modules always being out-of-step with any particular version of Nextcloud.)
    Thanked by 1tjn
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