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Nextcloud. It does the job well enough.
It took about 2 days of using nextcloud files across devices to experience unreliable syncing from Nextcloud on Android.
I installed folder sync pro on android and that has helped a lot, but it still irks me to use 2 tools when 1 should do the job.
Did you try Syncthing at all? I ran into the same issues with Nextcloud on Android and I’m trying to decide on Syncthing or FolderSync and I wanted to see what people thought. I’m currently using Cryptomator but it doesn’t do everything I’d like yet.
People love syncthing but I spent about 20-30 min on setup and found it confusing once I got beyond 2 devices. There are a couple comments in this thread between me and someone else about different setup options with syncthing.
I have been relatively happy with folder sync pro and nextcloud though. It’s worth noting that changes only instantly push when they’re made on Android first. If you edit/add/remove a file that’s in a synced folder from a computer, then folder sync pro on Android will simply use the sync interval that you set (I have mine at 15 min and have seen no battery hit, can set it down to 5 min). You can also just manually hit the sync button in FSP. But that was just one element that I was troubleshooting and thought sync was broken, but nope, that’s just how it works depending on what device did the edit/add/remove.
Thank you! I did just find in the FolderSync docs that 2-way sync isn’t supported for encrypted files, which is a bit of a bummer. I think Nextcloud on Android had a similar limitation where it would only actually sync at most every 15 minutes. I did find the Cryptomator app on Android does have an “immediate upload” folder, but it’s only for images captured with the camera and screenshots… which I guess for now fulfills most of my needs, so I may stick with that after all.
I’ve had a Nextcloud instance running on bare metal for 6 years. It’s been smooth and responsive the entire time. I did use the snap version, which auto updates itself, and nothing has broken in that time. I do run just the base install with no customizations and it just works.
I can imagine adding more to it will increase the possibility of errors.
I set up Nextcloud with RPi4 based RAID NAS. Via sftp as apparently it is not really that much slower and NFS felt weird to me
I bet my answer is going to be the least interesting one but let’s represent casuals too ;)
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters NAS Network-Attached Storage NFS Network File System, a Unix-based file-sharing protocol known for performance and efficiency RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage SFTP Secure File Transfer Protocol for encrypted file transfer, over SSH SSD Solid State Drive mass storage SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access SSL Secure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption
6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.
[Thread #303 for this comm, first seen 20th May 2026, 10:10] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
opencloud, i just moved from nextcloud and wow, the performance is insane.
Wanted to use open cloud but they archived their helm chart. Very niche I know, but still a shame
Synchthing if I want local copies, otherwise I just mount sshfs shares from my nas (using sftpman as a helper)
I currently use NextCloud, but I have been looking to move away from it. My main use case is for syncing photos and videos to the cloud from my phone (Android) and this used to work flawlessly. But, some time in early 2025, it just stopped working. I can still manually upload files and sync still works for other folders (e.g. Documents) just fine. But, photos and videos just won’t sync automatically. Not sure if there are other options which would work better, but NextCloud on Android just seems to be broke.
The just stopped working was the client stopped syncing? NextCloud decided to stop allow private made certificates with its client in 2025 and its what made me switch. I went to Syncthing which works well and is a lot faster and less resource intensive than NextCloud. I also had to move my calendars and chat as well.
The just stopped working was the client stopped syncing?
The client doesn’t seem to detect new photos as they are created/taken. If I manually upload an image from my photos folder, it syncs just fine. Files in other folders seem to sync just fine. But, photos and videos just never even try to sync.
NextCloud decided to stop allow private made certificates with its client in 2025 and its what made me switch.
This hasn’t been an issue for me. I pay for a domain and have a certificate issued by Let’s Encrypt. The only certificate errors I get are when I refresh the certificate every 6 months, and that’s just the client asking me if I want to trust the new certificate.
Syncthing
I had looked into this a while back, but it seemed to be more of a point to point solution and not a client-server system. I was aiming to have an authoritative server with everything and clients (both phone and desktop) able to pull the needed/request files. I also like the ability to share via a web link when needed. Am I wrong in that understanding?
Yeah I just spent a few days trying to get Nextcloud on Android working and it was a disaster. I ultimately decided to use Cryptomator to handle the sync since I’m already using it on my PCs, but I’m looking at maybe Syncthing or FolderSync (not sure which is better) because Cryptomator lacks some functionality like keeping local copies and making files available to other apps like galleries, music apps, etc.
Seafile, gets the job done, is lighter on resources than Nextcloud and all its cool features, and encrypts everything so my friends can store stuff on the server with peace of mind. I also use Immich for photo backup. And am in the process of setting up Duplicati with a friend’s server. (Unraid)
idk why, I really wanted this to work but could not, for the love of me, get Seafile working properly with my setup 😬
Wild, for me it was basically as simple as picking the unraid setup and pressing go - way less difficult than my first experience with Nextcloud (which was back before the All In One).
I feel like I’m doing something wrong by just using smb, what fratures do everybody use and need from cloud storage other than a folder you and your apps can access? File sync aside (I don’t think I need it and if I did I know how to use syncthing)
Tried Seafile, Nextcloud, and Filebrowser Quantum. Nextcloud won out, although FBQ with a few files for select individuals does remain.
Nextcloud has to be most popular one, but here’s a couple of other cloud storage solutions.
Syncthing for files, Nextcloud (synced to fastmail and file tree using vdirsyncer) for calendar and contacts.
We selfhost Nextcloud on our local Unraid server with a backup Nextcloud instance on the old Unraid server plugged in at my parents’ house. Second redundancy is an rsync job to a pCloud account.
@pixeldaemon Syncthing. We have one “authoritative” fileserver running syncthing, and then a bunch of “clients” (laptops, phones) that sync up to the fileserver. This doesn’t work for, say, terabytes of movies/music, but for important stuff like photos/tax records/whatever, it means we can make changes on any “client” and it gets synced to the “server” and all the other “clients”
For more traditional cloud, I recently installed copyparty (https://github.com/9001/copyparty) w/ https://github.com/romaan7/white-gold-theme-for-copyparty
@pixeldaemon I used to use Seafile, but it is clunky and annoying, and it will also never ever be in debian due to upstream copyright sketchiness.
How do you set up syncthing with a host/client configuration?
I planned on setting it up with 5 devices but as soon as I got to 3 devices I started having issues and didn’t like the structure conceptually of “everything syncs to each other” vs having a “source of truth” with 2-way sync.
TBF my issues with syncthing were probably user error but still frustrated me enough that I bailed.
@yestalgia So I set up syncthing between a server and one client. Share folders between them. Figure out how you want the folder data replicated; for my phone pics, for example, the sync is one way from (phone) -> (syncthing server). For kids’ health stuff, it’s a two-way sync; because the sync might be (my laptop) <- (syncthing server) <- (my wife’s laptop), or vice-versa. Then add another client to the syncthing server, following the same process. Never sync client-to-client; always via server
@yestalgia I will say that the configuration is not the most intuitive. Part of it is just that the web UI is, imo, not that good. There’s a lot of confusing stuff exposed to users that isn’t really important for like 99% of use cases.
(who cares whether compression is metadata only or all data or none? wtf is “introducer” vs “auto-accept”? why do I need to see a random hash for device or folder id in addition to a device or folder name?)
My next ‘system’ I’m eyeing is Peergos!
