[info] Nextcloud

Software & Web Applications
1

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to understand if Nextcloud could have sense in our small business setup to improve the data access and collaboration, or instead if will just cause confusion if used together with SMB.

On paper, :innocent: nextcloud seems a good suite, but online I can’t find any real usage in business env., just hunderd different guides about installation or small talks about federation & cluster with millions users.

We have around 30 users, mostly Windows clients with AD (Samba), and files are currently stored on a TrueNAS server using SMB shares mapped through GPO:
we have:

  • O:\ for company-wide shared files
  • T:\ for team folders
  • M:\ for company photos/videos

Permissions are handled with AD groups and SMB ACLs.

I’m not really trying to replace the NAS completely. I’m more interested in using Nextcloud where it actually makes sense, for example:

  • personal storage for users, which we don’t really have now
  • browser/mobile access
  • photos and videos from jobs/orders
  • collaborative editing with EuroOffice / OnlyOffice (to reduce the usual Word/Excel file-locking problems)

Do you have any real example about? could it be worth?
(of course I could ask on the nextcloud forum but… …how can I say, it could be like ask if Apple devices are good on an Apple forum.. So better ask here to get a neutral answer)

Thanks!

2

Nextcloud can do all that with no issues. However, you need a capable server with powerful CPU and tons of RAM if you want everything to run smooth. Nextcloud is no slouch when it comes to hardware requirements. Forget what people say that it can run on potato server. It can, but the experience is going to be painful for end users. It also needs a lot of work to implement and secure properly if you are exposing it publicly. If done correctly, there is really nothing like it out there. Works great. If done wrong, its never ending nightmare and you will hate your life.

3

I would be careful if you start editing the same files with different word processing or spread sheet software. This often ends up in formatting being changed without the user being aware of it.

4

I really want to like Nextcloud, but I just can’t. I have installed it maybe eight times so far. I have tried it in a VM (as per Jay LaCroix’s videos at LearnLinuxTV), I have tried the AIO container multiple times, and I have tried a custom docker compose stack multiple times. The AIO is definitely the way to go. But you need to plan on spending time every day chasing log errors and things that break. It is PHP based and it is fragile. I no longer have it in my environment or on my server.

You can do most of what Nextcloud does using Synology, and it is a FAR better experience both for the user and the admin. It rarely ever needs any care and feeding in my experience. Synology drive just cannot be beaten in my experience/opinion. I also love Synology photos. I have tried Immich a number of times, as well as Nextcloud and neither work very well for me. Immich still has trouble with the multi user environment that Synology doesn’t have. Synology has calendar, mail server, chat, contacts, Synology office, etc. All the same basic offerings as Nextcloud. But I can’t honestly say I have a lot of experience with those apps. So YMMV.

Short answer, I wouldn’t rely on Nextcloud for anything business critical unless you can budget the time it will require to keep it running well.

If you can do without all the collaboration add ons, I find Seafile and or ownCloud Infinite Scale (OCIS), to be easier to run and administer, generally much faster than Nextcloud, and no where near as fragile. But their licensing isn’t as free.

5

You are comparing proprietary software to open source software.

6

I use Nextcloud in business environments all the time. Its usually customers who are tired of spending exuberant amounts of money on things like SharePoint and they need to have direct control of their data due to regulatory requirements and peace of mind. It works great and if setup correctly its solid assuming you dedicate enough CPU and RAM based on the number of users and ensuring you setup Redis caching. That alone can be the one thing that can make or break the user experience.

I recommend a docker deployment. The desktop sync client works great. Their mobile clients work very well on iOS but they have some issues on Android mainly the Talk client. The Nextcloud client on Android is pretty solid.

The talk functionality is great for calls, texting and conferences but be aware its back end is resource hungry but its privacy aspect is worth it.

I recommend Collabora office with Nextcloud. Its solid and I find it has less compatibility issues with document formats.

I also recommend a WAF in front of it something like Cloudflare for defense in depth.

The main thing that people fumble on with Docker is not version pin the image and use latest which if you go a long time without updating and then you try to update multiple versions you end up with an entire weekend wasted fixing the install.

I have some solid battle tested docker compose configs if interested.

Thanks

7

Yes, I am. But this is for a business and the OP didn’t make open source a requirement. Many times it’s worth it for the better functionality.

8

I use nextcloud personally and professionally. You simply can’t beat it and there is a lot you can do with it. And if at some point you can expand your functionality with it for communications using “talk”, email client and so on.

I would highly recommend this especially if the company is growing and wants to save some cash, and be more private.

1 Like
9

Thanks for all the reply

@svirepi
I use the AIO at home 5 users and the memory consumption are very low (around 2gb)
..ok different scenario, here i need to test it, but I have a dual xeon (old silver) with 192gb so the power should be enough

@gaijin
I tried EuroOffice with some docx and the initial test are ..meh (so and so) the doc (40 pages with images, drawings and tables) is opened correctly but some pages are shifted down like it adds some new lines in between.. we will see.
Actually we use doc and xls for everything but we are slowly moving to Odoo, so the “paper” generated will be less.
Anyway this it is another thing to test (both formats MS and open)

@Louie1961
for this installation I mostly followed the Jay’s latest video.
I had only a problem with the installation of the raccomended apps (unable to fetch..) and the version 34, so I installed the 33 and then upgraded to the 34.
For the database instead I set up a small cluster with patroni etcd and postgres following the the TechnoTim video (more or less, because some procedures have changed. I also used my internal CA and added WAL backups to TrueNAS) and everything is put behind Traefik on docker.
I don’t know if it is overkill, maybe :innocent:, we will see..
I had no problems with the AIO too, as said I use it as my home cloud and I had never had problems. (if you want I can post my compose and traefik conf).
The Synology solution could be good but it needs a Synology NAS so I can’t test it, also I had a bad experience with it, I have one 4 bay at home and everything was working fine until, by pure chance, I found damaged files (the worst scenario, data loss and no warnings). I imagine was the ram/controller bacause I am still using the disks on truenas, but this is another story :wink: )

@angriness5448
I use the docker at home, here instead I set up a vm with apache2, php & redis because if I remember correctly the AIO has some limitation (I don’t remember if 50 users or 50GB..)
I must install the Talk engine to complete the installation and it will be used only internally (as well as nextcloud, the only access from internet is with a VPN).
For the office suite, I set up eurooffice (a rebranded onlyoffice) because it should be more compatible with MS files (at least “on paper”).

My idea is to create team folders (like I do with AD) and map them on the windows clients with WebDav (so they can easy access to the files with file explorer and on the browser) but I must test everything (if I can mount the path with GPO, performance against smb, etc).
Unfortuntately as said, you can find a guide even to install it upside down, but there are very few information of real use case and how to do the things in the right way..
I found this channel, and even if the videos are 4 years old, it gaves me some useful tips and cleared up a few doubts about.

I don’t know if it is the algorithm or there are really no video about.

10

Doesn’t this mean that you throw away some of the advantages of Nextcloud vs. your current system? To me, doing file sharing through an app rather than Webdav is one of the big advantages (admitted, more than 50% of my connecting clients are non-windows clients).
Of course I’m aware that Nextcloud used the Webdav protocol in the background, but the typical user does not have to care about that.

11

It depends, my users are not so good with computer stuff so their are very familiar with windows file explorer, so webdav mount could be less “traumatic” (if works, I have to test it).
Also I am afraid that - in production - the windows clients will download all the data instead of selected (user only).
If and this is a big if webdav works like smb all data inside of the mapped drive will “live” only on the server..
but I must test all, now I am spinning clamav on docker to check the uploaded files, then I will prepare the backups for data (snap and replica on truenas) and finally I will do some tests..

EDIT:
to organize the photos do you think that the builtin app is fine or better install memories?

12

Just to be clear, I was not referring to Nextcloud AIO. I was referring to Nextcloud on Docker.

1 Like
13

This…
I also use Nextcloud as my source of truth for contacts.
Also, at a critical moment, I was able to pull up a file in my Nextcloud, edit it with collabora and email it to the person I was talking - in 2 minutes - from my phone. That ability makes it worth it for me.

14

That is what I want to achive, get one source of truth for documents (technical drawings, pdf, etc) in this case nextcloud and odd as source of truth for (quotation, sells, etc) for the sales, sas, buyers etc.

But the problems are big files (like cad or my plc projects) - with a lot of temp files in the same folder when opened.

Did you follow some guide / manual etc or by learning from errors (like I am doing :cry: )

15

Not really, it’s serving just me & my wife, so not a lot of pressure. We do have some of our photo archive (not all, just the ones we absolutely want - and unlike me, she actually goes and looks at them quite frequently) that’s around 30 GB, i didn’t have any problems. Can’t you configure the app that opens those files to keep its temp files in local storage? that would limit the load on nextcloud. Syncing after every save would be more of a bottleneck I think.

Did you setup redis? Without redis, Nextcloud starts behaving like a geriatric snail.

PS: I have my own truenas at home where I keep ALL of my files, I use Nextcloud for critical files in a VPS with snapshots + regular backups as an offsite backup + global serving of source of truth.

16

Be aware that WebDAV is not fast like SMB and your users are going to have problems opening big files. On top of that Windows does not play nice with mounting WebDAV volumes natively. It randomly disconnects and its generally very brittle. Its not meant to be used like that. Its meant to be used with your web browser or the Nextcloud client. Same concept as MS SharePoint with either web access or one drive.

17

This is where the nextcloud client comes into play. Much like one drive, drop box and so on. This will keep files synced and reliable connection. So this isn’t a concern at all.