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For anyone following my blog posts recently, this shouldn’t be a surprise: I’m no longer self-hosting Nextcloud.
My usage needs.
I don’t use it to “back up” my files, so my storage needs are sufficiently met with any free provider with 3 to 5 GB of storage. There’s no need for a custom domain, at the moment anyway.
And of course, Nextcloud syncs nicely with the GNOME apps (Calendar, Contacts) through its ‘Online Accounts’ settings panel, without fiddling through a lot of toggles.
Calendar and contacts have a decent web UI with Nextcloud that I don’t know if is offered anywhere else.
End of day, I want it to just work for my devices.
Story time!
I did use a managed Nextcloud hosting provider before (and even blogged about it), so this whole Simple Sign Up thing isn’t all that new to me.
The reason I moved off Woelkli, the provider I had chosen before, were their slow upgrades and limited apps on offer. A bug with sharing password-protected files was fixed in a newer version…that Woelkli hadn’t updated to, and from what I could figure, had no plans to.
At the time, I decided it was better to self-host and have full control over storage and apps instead. Then I realized I don’t like the Deck or Tasks apps at all.
Cloudamo has a Singapore node with a free storage of 3 GB. It’s closer to me geographically. Hardware isn’t great, but you know, it’s literally free. All three of my primary needs are met: upload small (as in size) files, share some password-protected files with people, and not use Big Tech for my contacts and calendar.
Moving from my self-hosted instance was smooth, if not as easy.
Alternatives I looked at.
To be honest, I was sold on EteSync for my contacts and calendar, until I slept on it, and it really dawned on me that there isn’t a good (and I’m aware that’s a subjective term) solution for file storage in the FOSS community.
Going this route would have meant I’d pay some money for one solution, and still be on the look-out for a cloud files solution, which might also cost some more money. The price I was going to pay for EteSync, although fair, was still a bit much for me – a fact that once again dawned on me after sleeping on it.
I did come across a cool project: bloom.sh. If they strike your fancy, I’d suggest supporting them any way you can.