I desperately want to be a fan of ownCloud, because it offers clients natively across Mac/Linux/mobile, but it’s such a mess. Every platform has small bugs and reliability problems that makes the whole thing useless.
If you just need a web interface to your filesystem, there’s this single Go executable (https://github.com/filebrowser/filebrowser) that supports sharing and minimal user management.
I've run a self-hosted Nextcloud instance for many years and Docker is by far the easiest. I started off with a native installation and that can be a pain when upgrading the OS (Ubuntu in my case). I tried the snap version when that became available and was impressed by how easy it was, though administering it required a bit of learning as the file locations where all different.
Running it in Docker made it so much easier to administer (maybe add in the missing db indexes if there's a major version change).
If you want, I can paste my docker-compose.yml for reference as it's relatively complex.
The issue wasn't the Docker config, it was the web-based setup experience afterwards. If I messed up something minor, I'd have to blow away all the Docker containers and start fresh.
Snap isn't the best experience for Nextcloud in my experience, fine for a demo or a single user instance that isn't mission critical. Users who expect more out of it will often bump up against its limitations.
Anyone who wants to seriously use Nextcloud should look into the AIO docker containers or rolling the individual containers themselves. Nextcloud has expanded into a full groupware stack and it's expected you have an actual admin managing the system like with any real deployment of enterprise software
It includes most of the essential features, and I’d say it’s excellent for professional use. I’ve been running an instance for many years on a VPS for work collaboration, and it’s been perfect. It’s now hosted behind Cloudflare Tunnels, with group members whitelisted by email.
If you need more advanced or fancy/niche features, AIO might be a better though heavier fit (I run an instance of AIO at home, mostly for testing). Snap is lightweight and a bit opinionated (in reasonable ways in my view), and the documentation used to mention some of its limitations. In exchange, you get snappier, more robust installation.
He complained about the difficulty of installing an application. He didn’t complain about establishing a personal data center.
That one line will give you the Nextcloud. Exactly one more line in snap will give you a self sign cert. Alternatively, the line below will give you remote access, a domain, and a valid certificate for your application:
It seems reasonable that someone would want to go beyond just installing software; they are presumably doing so in order to use it for its purpose. Being pedantic about the nature of the complaint (i.e. "He complained about the difficulty of installing an application. He didn’t complain about...") seems to miss the point. All of the additional steps you lay out also have their own steps to get done or decisions to be made, and when it is all said and done, it seems reasonable to imagine that things could get quite complicated.
I mean if you want a working Nextcloud instance, available through VPN with backups, then no, it doesn't get more complicated than that, actually. It is incredibly easy.
