this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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So I want to build a home server to use as a media server, and to back up my photos etc.

I am also currently doing an online course, and happen to spend some time at work as well as at home working on it. I don't like using Google where I can help it, but I find google docs really useful. So I'm wondering if there's an open source application that works essentially the same, but I could run off my own server? It would have to be web-based as I use Windows at work and can't install new programs :/

edit: Thanks everyone for your suggestions! I've got quite a few leads to follow now, it should be fun!

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 11 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Nextcloud is laggy and bloated, would not recommend

Good application but performance sucks

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (3 children)

It's fine if you don't set it up on a dogshit slow rPi and use postgres/redis in the docker compose. Every time I see this comment, it's because of configuration errors or horrible hardware.

Man, use Sharepoint on anything under a dual Xeon and see true lag.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

This is true, with a couple gigs of RAM and SATA storage Nextcloud is not at all bad. Assuming an instance with not that much simultaneous users.

It feels like slow sometimes, then after an hour with M365 at work it doesn't feel slow at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is there a way to transition from MariaDB to Postgres? I used the mariadb / redis version of the docker-compose, but now I hear everyone says Postgres is better for performance?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Create your users in the new install, move each users files to the created folders from your old install, and use the OCC addfiles command to enumerate the new files into the new db.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

There is a db migration command that I used to do the same thing, was pretty painless, just needed to run that and then update the config iirc

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks. Would occ files:scan work as well?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

That's the one. I haven't used it for a while, sounds about right.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I ran it on a Dell EMC server blade and it was still awful. I couldn't help but think I was doing something wrong, because its performance was shockingly bad. I also couldn't get any of the office stuff to work acceptably, so I've given up on it for the time being.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What you mean bloated? It is laggy in web browser, but using client apps solve that problem. It would be awesome if its more snappy, but I couldnt find anything better for my needs. What do you use?

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[–] scottmeme 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Sounds like someone wasn't using redis

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I've seen owncloud merge files together. Like, you open one file and see data from another file inside it. That to me was a dealbreaker.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

Docker OnlyOffice HW requirements are a bit... Odd?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

What, you don't have 6 cores and 12GB of RAM on your 2€/month VPS?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I have that on my RPi 50B! /s

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We joke, but I actually have an 8-core Orange Pi with 16GB RAM and a 512GB NVMe SSD that performs really well running Debian/Gnome!

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Your comment made me check that, and yeah, those requirements can be extreme for someone like me who look to use it for two pcs and a phone on a 6th gen intel nuc

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I run the Community Edition of OnlyOffice documents server on my home server in Docker. My server has a Core i77 7700 and 32GB of RAM. And tons of other Docker containers. No issues.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

Try Nextcloud. You might need to setup nextcloud office (collabora)

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago

In addition to other suggestions, there's Collabora Online

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You might also wanna check yunohost.org . It's a well organized self hosting platform where you can install with few clicks and has huge amount of Foss apps, including office and media ones and Nextcloud that others suggested.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

or if you don´t want to host it yourself: https://qlick.cloud and use Nextcloud which comes with Collabora Online installed.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

After a lot of searching (granted, years ago) I landed on

Nextcloud with only office.

Nextcloud is pretty awesome. Open source, well supported, new versions like once or twice a year, aetric shittonne of plugins, its awesome.

Onlyoffice feels a lot like Microsoft office, but is online open source, and allows multi user editing, which was always a bit of a pain point with colabora.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Seafile w/Collabora

I adore Seafile and this looks like a great option. I haven't been able to get it going on my instance yet, but I'm still learning all of this self hosting and FOSS stuff.

[–] Dariusmiles2123 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I’m using Onlyoffice and it works really well. Although I use it with kDrive from Infomaniak, I’m almost sure you can run it on your own server.

In fact I managed to ditch Google for everything but I can’t find a good replacement for Google photos which I’m not using anymore.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (2 children)

In fact I managed to ditch Google for everything but I can’t find a good replacement for Google photos which I’m not using anymore.

Immich is trying to be that, but it's still in heavy development.

Also here a comparison of multiple ones: https://docs.librephotos.com/docs/user-guide/features/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Immich is working pretty well for me. Even the search does a decent job of recognizing the things in the pictures.

I'm not sure what Google photos has that Immich doesn't, and I've been using Google photos for years.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The mobile app sometimes gets stuck while updating new photos, or just doesn't run the upload in background even though it's activated. The web app looks and feels great though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

You do have to turn off battery saver for the background process. Phones tend to not like background processes. That would cause the behavior you're seeing.

Settings > Apps > App battery usage > Immich > Set to "unrestricted"

Also I have mine set to a ten minute delay, maybe that's why I haven't noticed. Maybe try adding a small delay to the load?

(Primarily I wanted a chance to delete photos before they uploaded.)

[–] Dariusmiles2123 3 points 11 months ago

Thanks for the answer.

I remember looking at these but I think the fact that the pictures would be on my kDrive was also a problem.

Maybe with something like WebDAV it could work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (3 children)

@Dariusmiles2123 @JoelJ
for photos, I decided to buy a raspberry pi two years ago and to host photos and videos for my familly, using a free software with application on mobile phones (ios and android).
The compagny has a hosted offer, but i prefered to do in my own.
software is: https://piwigo.org/
and forum is there: https://piwigo.org/forum/
Enjoy
If question don't hesitate.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

OnlyOffice?

[–] ChickenAndRice 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I just use syncthing and set up the appropriate send /receive permissions for each folder

When I want to access those files remotely, I just sftp / ssh into the server. (Someone more knowledgeble than me can help you with that part, I just install Tailscale on my devices for remote ssh)

sure it may not be elegant, but is pretty easy to maintain in the long run (see complaints about updating / setting up nextcloud in this thread)

maybe this will help with setup. Note he is doing bidirectional sync, but one way sync works too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBVTedUWbfg

edit: forgot to mention, this is cross platform across Mac, Windows, Android, and Linux. Not sure about iOS

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/watch?v=dBVTedUWbfg

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

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