And here I am having used it for a decade and perfectly happy. I try other ones like Owncloud every once in a while and find them lacking. It was slow once upon a time but if you changed to postgres and used redis, it improved immensely. Today it’s quite fast and the sync has been working great for a long time.

Use docker-compose with the AIO and it’ll be a lot easier to manage. There’s example compose files in the github repo.

I’m in the process of (very slowly) migrating my household from Windows to Linux and am currently testing Nextcloud as a replacement for OneDrive. In my case, I set it up using pikapods.com because I want offsite storage. The server part of the setup was incredibly easy because the host did all the work.

Getting my Linux client setup was kind of a pain (especially compared to the Android and Windows clients), but everything seems to work ok so far. Of course, I’m only backing up a small amount of data so far, so I can’t comment on the efficiency or speed for a major backup.

Alternatives? https://filebrowser.org/

There’s a lot of stuff going on here, so let me break down your post for each issue:

1. You need to understand the difference between a docker run command, and detaching to run a container in the background. Just running it with ‘run’ keeps it in the foreground.

2. For the passphrase issue: https://github.com/nextcloud/all-in-one/discussions/1786

3. Lastly, if you’re not familiar with containers, and this is a single purpose machine, you’d be better off just running the bare project on the host. If there’s no need for containerization, just skip it.

Nextcloud file sync is a convenient centralized solution but it’s not designed for performance. Nothing about Nextcloud is designed for performance. It’s an “everything and the kitchen sink” multi-user cloud solution. That is nice for a lot of reasons. Nextcloud Sync is essentially a drop-in replacement for Google Drive or OneDrive or Dropbox that multiple people can use and that’s awesome. It works the same way as those tools, which is a blessing and a curse.

Nextcloud is for the same role you SAY you want, “All I want is a simple file sync setup like onedrive but without the microsoft.” That’s what it is. But I don’t think it’s what you’re actually asking for, and it’s not supposed to be. It has its role, and it’s good at that role. But I don’t think you actually want what you say you want, because in the details you’re describing something totally different.

If you want performance sync for just files, SyncThing is made for this. It has better conflict resolution. It has better decentralized connectivity, it doesn’t need the public IP server. It uses a very different approach to configuration. Its configuration is front-loaded, it takes a fair bit of work to get things talking to each other. It’s not suitable for the same things Nextcloud Sync is. But once you have it set up it’s rock solid reliable and blazing fast.

Personally I use both SyncThing and NextCloud Sync. I use them for different purposes, in different situations. NextCloud Sync takes care of my Windows documents and pictures, I use it to share photos with my family. I use it to sync one of the factors for my password vault. It works fine for this.

I also use SyncThing for large data sets that require higher performance. I have almost 400 GB of shared program data, (and game data/saved games), some of which I sync with SyncThing to multiple workstations in different parts of the country. It can deal with complex simultaneous usage that sometimes causes conflicts. It supports fine tuning sync strategies and files to ignore using configuration dotfiles. It’s a great tool. I couldn’t live without it. But I use both. They both have their place.

Honestly I hate all these file sharing self hosting things. Looking at you nextcloud owncloud syncthing seafile etc. They all suck. All I want is NFS support in android, that’s my only pain point accessing my files from anywhere from my home network. I can already VPN/wireguard into my network from anywhere, but I can’t grab an ebook or mp3s off my NFS server from my phone or tablet, I have to have some other dumb infrastructure for it. Just (#@$^* put NFS in android already!!!

/endrant

My biased opinion is that most people run Nextcloud on an underpowered platform, and/or they install and enable every possible addon. Many also skip some important configurations.

If you run NC on a bit more powerful machine, like a used USFF PC, with a good link to it, the experience is better than e.g. OneDrive.

Another thing is, people say “Nextcloud does too much”, but a default installation really doesn’t do much more than files. If you add every imaginable app, sure it slows down and gets buggy. Disable everything you don’t need, and the experience gets much better. You can disable even the built-in Photos app if you don’t need it.

Not saying NC is a speed daemon, but it really is OK. The desktop and mobile clients don’t get enough love, that’s true.

I’m talking about the “bare metal” installation or the community Apache/FPM container images. AIO seems to be a hot mess, and does just about everything a container shouldn’t be doing, but that’s just my opinion.

Seafile. It’s super fast and lightweight. There are some caveats though:

• Data is stored in git-like chunks on the server side. There is Seafuse and Sea drive functions that you can leverage to “assemble” the data on server side for backups. I personally use rclone mount, then backup.

• Paywall hiding some features. The community edition is free but is missing some features that pro has. Pro edition is free for 3 or less users.

• Documentation isn’t great. The forum is active so that’s helpful, but some of the docs take some time to understand

• Chinese owned. As far as I can tell, there is no call home for a self hosted server, so I don’t think it’s a worry in that case.

All that said, I like it much better than Syncthing for it’s selective sync. All files on each client are synced to the server. But unlike Syncthing, it doesn’t sync all data with each client. This is vital for me with some devices with small storage drives, so I would t want all files to sync. Yet I can still reach to the server from any client and pull data from any other client. Syncthing has an ignore flag, but that seemed way more trouble to setup than just sticking with Seafile.

I’ve never used the AIO image. I’ve heard it’s weird. This is my compose file for the community image:

volumes:
  db:

services:
  db:
    image: mariadb:10.6
    restart: always
    command: --transaction-isolation=READ-COMMITTED --log-bin=binlog --binlog-format=ROW
    volumes:
      - db:/var/lib/mysql
    secrets:
      - mysql_root_password
      - mysql_nextcloud_password
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD_FILE=/run/secrets/mysql_root_password
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD_FILE=/run/secrets/mysql_nextcloud_password
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=nextcloud
      - MYSQL_USER=nextcloud

  nextcloud:
    image: nextcloud
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 8080:80
    depends_on:
      - db
    links:
      - db
    volumes:
      - /var/www/html:/var/www/html
      - /srv/data:/srv/data
    secrets:
      - mysql_nextcloud_password
    environment:
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD_FILE=/run/secrets/mysql_nextcloud_password
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=nextcloud
      - MYSQL_USER=nextcloud
      - MYSQL_HOST=db

secrets:
  mysql_root_password:
    file: ./secrets/mysql_root_password.txt
  mysql_nextcloud_password:
    file: ./secrets/mysql_nextcloud_password.txt

You can access it on port 8080 and perform the initial setup manually. For the database server address, use the db hostname. You’ll have to use a reverse proxy for HTTPS.

You could also try OpenCloud, which is a Go rewrite of ownCloud.

So, use something else, like Seafile.

Yeah setting it up the way you want is a pain, but I like it mainly for backing up photos from my phone automatically, as well as, syncing podcasts and music between devices since I moved away from Spotify and start using things like AntennaPod and Gramophone

I got 20TB in my server, might as well use it.

There are a number of ways to install nextcloud, and docker is only one of those.

Yes, NC isn’t ideal in many ways, but it shouldn’t be as painful as you’re describing to run it.

I just use SMB shares on my NAS. Why over think it?

If you only need onedrive replacement. You might want to try seafile.

I like nextcloud tbh even it tries to do everything and not being really good at it. When i set it up the first time. I scoured the internet like you wouldnt believe. Took me couple of days optimizing it.

Now, it runs okay. Has been a few months since it set it up. No complain except a couple of weeks ago android app wont auto upload for some reason, had to logout and login back.

My main use is cloud storage, photos, note, task, contacts and calendar. Works fine on my android, linux and my wife’s iphone.

I didn’t know anything about docker when I set up my NC years ago, so I ran it as a snap on bare metal. Man, it’s gotten so much better! It used to really suck. Like, simple file transfers just didn’t work half the time, so I’d be retrying the same thing over and over… A few years ago, I literally migrated it from bare metal to a VM, but kept the exact same install. I have so much crap on it now, I think I’ll never bother switching it out to docker, just because of the inconvenience. I know the snap version can just run using a local hostname, you just have to set it in trusted domains setting. Might be the same in the docker image?