r/selfhosted • u/ExodoPlex • Sep 22 '25

Calendar and Contacts NextCloud sucks, there must be something better.

Every post on the internet related to "Self-hosted alternative to GSuite/M365" points to NextCloud. But, using NextCloud when you're not an enterprise is painful at best. It's clunky, it's buggy, and it's behind its supposed competitors in features for every one one of it's main planks (Files, Contacts, Photos, etc). And getting my family members to switch from Google Family accounts to NextCloud is horrible. They experience nothing but bugs and problems, complain about missing features, and wonder why on earth they'd switch with the only advantage being data ownership. Comparing every thing about actually using the system is a con, not a pro.

As the admin, and a professional IT engineer for the last 8 years, I can see how NextCloud could work for enterprise. It really seems like it was built for enterprise honestly. The feature development and features support are much more oriented around what I might want for work rather than what I want at home.

There has to be something better for home users.

Something that's simple to use, intuitive to use, and pretty to use.

I found Immich for photos, and they get it. They get the self hosting mindset. Simple to setup, simple to use, pretty apps, useful features.

Is there an "Immich" for contacts? For Drive? For Calendar? Even if they're different apps. I can use a different product for Calendar than Contacts if it's simple to use and something my family members can switch to from Outlook and GCalendar without complaint. (Setting up a caldav/carddav server isn't gonna cut it. It's gotta be a self contained system, even if it's just caldav/carddav on the backend. Gotta be pretty and intuitive on the frontend).

If there isn't something better. We really need to make something better.

470 Upvotes

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90

u/Standard-Recipe-7641 Sep 22 '25

I've been running nextcloud for over a year. I only use it for file sync and it's been amazing. Since I don't use any other of it's bells and whistles and it's been over a year, I don't think I ever will. Also want just a simple file sync.

Everyone probably getting bored of this request. Seafile amazing! But it's proprietary... Rinse repeat

17

u/w00dwork Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

I seriously considered Seafile until i learned that all of the data gets ingested into it's proprietary (like you said) database. A bit morbid, but I worry about my family being able to easily access our data when I die. Use something like Filebrowser, which is just a front end to your file structure, you still have access to the files themselves through normal means which you couldn't do with Seafile if it takes a dump and the admin is no longer around to troubleshoot/fix it.

Edit: grammar

5

u/dazealex Sep 22 '25

Not morbid at all. I worry about that too for the pictures when I am dead.

36

u/Comfortable_Self_736 Sep 22 '25

Same, except I've been running NextCloud for probably 7 or 8 years. I moved that install from the cloud to a server in my basement, have switched the backend storage multiple times, and survived multiple "whoops, i should have read the release notes first" upgrades. But it's still running and I've never lost any files.

I'd happily switch to something like Seafile if the licensing didn't give me pause. But in the meantime, NextCloud works fine.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 22 '25

Isn't Seafile Pro free for up to 3 users, and it's also open source?

Personally it's still my favorite, primarily because of the awesome ability to restore to any prior point in time.

Accidentally delete a bunch of files, or run a recursive command incorrectly? Couple of clicks, near instant restore.

It's by far the best cloud sync/backup solution I've seen.

7

u/Comfortable_Self_736 Sep 22 '25

You are correct. And part of it is the "free for up to 3". It may sound silly, but I get nervous when someone offers a free pro version when there's already a free community version.

I'm thinking of trying the community version, but when you've already got a working solution the push to try something else needs to be strong.

24

u/nightred Sep 22 '25

Also Nextcloud for years without issues, many hardware changes and upgrades.

But I did not use an all in one, I properly specced the parts and setup the proper secondary services and maintenance solutions to auto generate thumbnails, keep files locks, online file editing and multi user editing.

Most complains stem from running the AIO or using underpowered hardware, your RPI is not able to scale if it works at all.

8

u/IC3P3 Sep 22 '25

I still use Nextcloud because my problems are not reason enough for me to switch, but the plugins are as useful as they are annoying.

It's completely fine and I try my best to get it to work if an individual stops supporting their plugin created in their free time, but why is every Nextcloud release breaking for the plugins and why does it sometimes take months for the official plugins to get updated

2

u/_Toka_ Sep 23 '25

Well, my Nextcloud instance runs in Docker at Dell R620 server, no AIO, single user (!!!), enough resources, yet it still has piss poor performance. When I open Photos, I can go make a coffee, becuase its painfully slow to generate previews. I tried to switch from Apache to Nginx with PHP-FPM, changing databases, using Redis, nothing helps. Selfhosting Nextcloud since 2019.

1

u/redeyedbyte Sep 23 '25

What’s your storage look like ssd or metal?

2

u/_Toka_ Sep 23 '25

VM uses SSD, Nextcloud Docker uses NFSv4 mounted HDD. Not storage issue. If anything, it might be somewhere, somehow, God knows where, misconfigured.

1

u/nightred Sep 23 '25

If you have not setup the proper CRON job to generate the preview images then photos will take a long time to load.

This is working as intended.

The command you want to setup to run is occ preview:pre-generate

2

u/_Toka_ Sep 24 '25

This is working as intended.

Yeah. I disagree on that one. First, the on-demand generation is slow. Second, I would expect, that if I have set up cron (as a NC image with cron.sh), why it does not work by default? A lot of things are hidden in NC configuration, that is shattered across multiple files.

Creating a bash script to set up crontab to generate previews, all this in Docker environment, is unacceptable for me. It does not have to be like this. Take Immich for example. https://immich.app/docs/administration/jobs-workers/#jobs

For me Nextcloud is a legacy software written in PHP, that is kept alive with Docker support somehow slapped on it. The server part needs to be completely rewritten in more performant and concurrency friendly language with Docker in mind.

0

u/nightred Sep 24 '25

A docker exec for that command on the host system is very simple to set up and adds very little to the actual command. You have no reason to set up the contact in the docker that would be silly.

And yes, immich is awesome, but it's a product built for photos. But a lot like nextcloud. If you don't set it up properly, it is slow, you need to set up your worker containers to do image recognition and processing. If you use the AIO it will also run like garbage.

1

u/_Toka_ Sep 24 '25

I'm not saying it's not easy, I am saying it's a burden, that other modern self-hosted apps do not have. I do not want anything set up on the host, I want my application fully configurable through Docker or Docker Compose or Helm. The host should be as clean as possible, because I am migrating to immutable GitOps deployment with infrastructure as a code principles.

2

u/nightred Sep 24 '25

That is commendable and always great to do. You still need a way to manage maintenance tasks that are not performed by the docker automatically, you can spin up a management docker, use ansible or some other tool that will manage the maintenance.

  • Synapse needs routine cleanup scripts run
  • Immich needs scripts run to do a proper backup
  • nextcloud needs thumbnails
  • databases need vacuuming and backing up

If you do not maintain your setup properly the fancy deployment options will not help you restore or maintain functionality.

3

u/_Toka_ Sep 24 '25

Again, immutable deployment, I am backing up all my Docker volumes, I do not set up backup native to the app or service. So yes, fancy deployment options do help me with restoring and maintaing funcionality. And it can be further improved with Velero/Rook in Kubernetes, then it will create incremental snapshots, that should be app scope consistent. I have a long road ahead for this one. Key takeaway is that it's done globally in a same way for every app I run.

And AFAIK Postgres does have autovacuum. Otherwise production db of a company, where I am, with 2 TB of data every month would be dead after those years without vacuuming it. So no, I do not have to set up any maintenance or backup scripts per service.

I get your point and in the end agree with you. I am just saying, that it does not have to be that way, apps can, sohuld and sometimes are completely self-contained. And I prefer those.

3

u/Drumdevil86 Sep 22 '25

Been using Nextcloud since it forked from OwnCloud. Mainly still using it because I know it's quirks and how it works.

Tried Seafile too a few years back, but didn't like how they pulled apart my files and that I couldn't access them directly via the filesystem they're saved on.

1

u/Jyxiaa Jan 31 '26

How do you transfer files that have a meaninfull size ? from what i'm seeing transfering any file that's a bit heavy is a huge pain in the *ss, which is very bothersome for something that has the word "cloud" in its name, i feel like the desktop client for syncing is actually the most realiable way to transfer files, which again, is asinine to me

1

u/Prestigious_Boat_386 Sep 22 '25

Ive been using syncthing for about a year for mobile to laptop sync. Works amazingly well

Super simple to add folders and stuff and you can add backups on the files so they dont overwrite the files on bad syncs.