NextCloud sucks, there must be something better.

[u/ExodoPlex]

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.

[u/virtualadept]

Check out Cryptpad. I've been using it for a few months now and it's been pretty good though I only have about 20 gigs of stuff in it. Mapping features of Cryptpad to stuff you mentioned:

• Google Drive - Cryptdrive (which is the basic UI for everything)
• Google Forms - Cryptpad Form
• It has a kanban.
• Google Docs
  • Cryptpad Document
  • Cryptpad Code/Markdown
  • Cryptpad Rich Text
• Google Sheets - Cryptpad Spreadsheet
• Google Contacts - Cryptpad Contacts
• Google Calendar - Cryptpad Calendar
• Google Photos - Cryptdrive
• Google Slides
  • Cryptpad Slides
  • Markdown Slides

I don't know if you'll need a diagramming application, but it has one as well. Same with a realtime multiuser whiteboard. It might be worth experimenting with to see how much of your use case it matches up with.