You can get the whole package from Hetzner pre-configured, or just configure it yourself. I manage our team's nextcloud installation, and installing on bare-metal (sans containers) is a half day job at most.

Moreover Nextcloud supports WebDav which allows tools like Zotero to directly tap into that.

Would you say that the install and maintenance load for both systems (Dropbox vs packages containers) is the same?

Like, I'm confident my tech illiterate parents could get drop box running. Ease of use and UX are features.

I'm not saying the self hosted stack is bad, and in fact it's probably better in many ways. But it doesn't have the same feature set if you consider usability a feature, imo.

Yes. Nextcloud has its own upgrade tool. This is what happens:

1. You get a mail from your installation about the new version. Also desktop and mobile apps notify you.

2. You go to your "Settings -> Overview" click a button, enter your password. Upgrade starts.

3. Wait some.

4. "Disable maintenance mode and continue upgrade" button appears. Click it.

5. You're greeted with a "Start upgrade" button. Click it.

6. Wait some.

7. Page refreshes and you continue where you left.

No terminal, no commands, nothing.

I sometimes do it in the middle of the day. Nobody ever said, "Hey, uh, Nextcloud down?" yet.

Installation of the client is equally easy. You just need a URL addition to the username and password. The sync client is very competent too.

Our installation is facing outside and people are sharing public links and all. Not every member of the team is a sysadmin either.