A little background first: I’m selfhosting our (wife and mine) files for over 12 years now, started with a simple FreeNAS folder, switched to Owncloud and moved on to Nextcloud after the split. We only really need the files part, and while it works fine in general, setting it up took more tinkering than it should’ve.
I’m also not a fan of NC’s direction, moving from file cloud hosting to a “full-stack” enterprise one-for-all solution. While that wouldn’t be an issue in general, it seems that other parts are prioritized without getting the older parts to work correctly first.
Which seems to match with the recent-ish code analysis https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Service-Navi/Presse/Alle-Meldungen-News/Meldungen/Projekt-CAOS-30_Nextcloud_250205.html (in German, although CVE entries have an English description) which found nearly 40 vulnerabilities, amongst them modules like 2FA/MFA.
So I’ve tested through most of the other options, but maybe I missed something obvious.
Requirements:
- selfhostable in a docker environment
- file storage/syncing from a central server, preferably selective sync (so Syncthing is out)
- either structured storage (folders etc) or at least structured export/backup from flat storage for application-indepentent file backup
- desktop client for Windows, mobile client for Android
- Web UI for simple browser access
- virtual file support a definite plus
Things I’ve tried:
Nextcloud
- well-working setup, definitely my “fallback” option
- no fan of the general direction development is going
Syncthing
- While working absolutely fine for sync between different devices (have it in use in a different scenario), the peer-to-peer nature is unsuitable for what I’m looking for
Pydio Cells
- server and web UI work fine, desktop and app sync didn’t really work (might be an error on my part though)
- backup fiddly due to needing cells-fuse tool for structured files, although I haven’t tested structured storage yet
Seafile
- will have to test this again, when I did years earlier the storage situation was a little tricky
Owncloud Infinite Scale
- Similar to Pydio Cells, but haven’t really tested yet due to dev exodus
- several devs from Owncloud moved to Opencloud and forked their “own” OCIS server
- first release scheduled March '25, so no testing yet
- I have hopes this might be a useful alternative, but time will tell
So: did I miss something? Any obvious software solution?
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I don’t know that I can answer your question, sorry, but something you said confuses me.
- file storage/syncing from a central server (so Syncthing is out) … While working absolutely fine for sync between different devices (have it in use in a different scenario), the peer-to-peer nature is unsuitable for what I’m looking for
Why? I think you missed describing a requirement, because there’s no reason SyncThing can’t do “for syncing from a central server.” Do you mean one-way, or one-to-many, or what? What, exactly, doesn’t SyncThing do that you need?
I believe SyncThing is not the right tool in many scenarios, but I don’t understand these bullet points.
For one thing, SyncThing is only peer-to-peer if you set it up that way. You can absolutely define a “master” simply by only connecting the “clients” to the master. It’s an utterly arbitrary distinction, but the clients won’t know about or communicate with each other unless you explicitly pair them with each other. This is how I have our phones set up: each one is paired to the central server, but neither is an introducer nor knows about each other. We have one directory that the server has shared with both phones, and several directories that the server shares only with one or the other phone. I even have the server connected and sharing all of the directories with a second, backup server that neither phone knows about.
Again, I’m not pimping SyncThing; it has weaknesses, the biggest one being any lack of sophisticated merge ability. I wish it had a plugin system where, for each for type, in case of conflicts it would call out to some external merge program; rather than just throwing up it’s hands and going, “well shucks, guess I’ll just spam a bunch of sync conflict files”. And it can be annoyingly slow recognizing changes and syncing; it would be a terrible choice for any sort of pair programming file sharing.
But what problems have you encountered with it, for your case?
Yep that’s how I have Syncthing set up. All global and local discovery disabled, no firewall ports open on the clients, no broadcasting, no relay servers. Just syncing through a central server which maintains versioning and where the backups run. Works like a charm.
Syncthing is wildly inefficient though. I can understand not wanting to use it.
You should checkout Seafile again. It’s so easy and way faster than NC.
Are the files still plain old files in your host’s file system with the latest Seafile?
Maybe Karadav with the Nextcloud clients/apps.
Not sure if that will support selective sync, I don’t see anything saying specifically no on the repo.
It does via the Nextcloud apps. I also use KaraDAV and am quite happy with it.
If you don’t like the somewhat barebones web-ui you can use Filestash instead, the docu explains how to set it up with webdav only and pass through the credentials directly (a bit convoluted at first, but once done it works great).
