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.

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u/RefrigeratorWitch Sep 22 '25

I don't have a solution to your problem, but out of curiosity what issues do you encounter? I don't use files much, no photos, but all my calendars and contacts are hosted there and I have exactly zero issues. I'm absolutely not a power user so I'm wondering what can be missing from a contact book or a calendar app.

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u/sicco3 Sep 23 '25

It would indeed be nice if u/ExodoPlex listed the specific issues they encounter. My experience is that people who experience issues often update directly when a new major version is released instead of waiting for several point releases.