Hey all! I’m still in the somewhat early stages of setting up my home server. I have Nextcloud installed for file storage/management. However, realizing that it would be nice to have access to the entire storage drive for the server, I installed File Browser.
Now I’m having a hard time justifying having both. I have a handful of services that could be run as individual services (calDav, notes, news, etc… although, phonetrack seems to be hard to replace).
I’ve noticed lists that people have posted of the “must-have” services on their home servers have included both. My question is “why?” It seems like, at a basic level, they serve similar roles. If you remove the app-platform role from Nextcloud by separately hosting the individual apps, what benefit do you get from having both Nextcloud and File Browser?
I really like NextCloud, but i’m having a hard time justifying the resource usage if its functionality can be replaced by a handful of containers. Or, is that the reason to have it, so you don’t have to do that?
Any opinions on the subject would be appreciated.
Nextcloud can sync between devices,so you can even use files while offline. There is recycle bin and many more features and apps available. I mostly use filebrowser just to manage files on the server. Both apps are amazing
Nextcloud can sync between devices,so you can even use files while offline
Until it fails. If you want reliable sync just pair FileBrowser with Syncthing and have something that actually works fine.
Tbh Im using syncthing for obsidian notes, but android app is disconnecting from server quite a lot. I have to open syncthing app on my phone to make connection again. Also keeping all files on the phone would fill up storage.
For mobile I access my files with SFTP pointed to the same folders I sync my desktops with Syncthing. I don’t want to sync all my files to the phone as that may lead to a stolen phone with all my data on it.
Syncthing is not a good solution at all. It requires a persistent connection. That means you will have crazy battery drain and you will have issues when your mobile devices roam between networks. Syncthing is not a replacement for Google Drive/Nextcloud, it solves a different problem.
Personally, for mobile, I access my files with SFTP pointed to the same folders I sync my desktops with Syncthing.
Also, what stops you from having syncthing without a persistent connection? You can set it to just sync whenever the phone is plugged in and/or you manually open the thing.
SFTP is not the same as Drive functionality, that’s the thing. Again, Syncthing solves a different problem, it’s not applicable here.
SFTP is not the same as Drive functionality
If you’re a good client it is.
Ok, show me a good SFTP client which auto-uploads the photos I take on Android an iOS devices, let’s me share them with anyone I wish and creates a photo library with tags, date grouping, etc.
If you have multiple users and want things such as quota management, groups, mounting external storage providers, or perhaps some advanced features such as sso (either as a client or server), then keeping nextcloud would make sense.
Not planning on having more than 2 users so the enterprise-y type features don’t really apply. Very good points though!
If you remove the app-platform role from Nextcloud by separately hosting the individual apps, what benefit do you get from having both Nextcloud and File Browser?
Nothing really. For almost any Nextcloud feature out there, you can find a server app that does the same.
But that’s the point in my opinion. I don’t want to waste time managing tons of apps if I can manage one Nextcloud instance. Nextcloud basically decides for me what’s the best way to get those features running, so I don’t need to figure out myself.
Now if you’re into self hosting one container for each feature, go for it, no reason to not do so.
This is pretty much what I expected but I didn’t want to assume. Thanks!
After using owncloud, nextcloud, and file browser, I found file browser to be a lot easier to use and it does everything I need. I don’t need video players or PDF viewer, just simple ui for file broswing.
Exactly! It’s just so convenient from an app platform standpoint, though… But, it just feels strange to keep a tool around, who’s main job is basically file management, just for an app platform when those apps’ functionality can be found elsewhere. I may just keep Nextcloud around as a testbed for new functionality via its apps, then reproduce that functionality with another service in a separate container if it turns out to be useful.
I have nextcloud and don’t even use it for file management (in that sense). It’s a joplin sync server, I use the Cookbook app probably as my most used thing on nextcloud, I use phonetrack, sync tasks.org to it for task management, use the Bookmarks app for keeping track of links.
Plus I never feel bad for running extra services. Idle services use a pretty tiny amount of resources. I had 15 or 20 on a Raspberry Pi 4 before I switched to using an old laptop.
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 RPi Raspberry Pi brand of SBC SBC Single-Board Computer VPN Virtual Private Network
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 15 acronyms.
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phonetrack seems to be hard to replace
Have a look at Traccar for a replacement.
In my experience file browser is much nicer than nextcloud, but I don’t currently run either since I don’t need a web based file manager. I have SFTPGo providing WebDAV for my phone to use, and Syncthing to keep my laptop, desktop, and server in sync.
I looked at Traccar for a little bit but found that (based on the availability of documentation / user posts) OwnTracks seems to be more popular. After setting up OwnTracks and comparing it to PhoneTrack, it was OBVIOUS that PhoneTrack is superior… at least for me. I’ll take another look at Traccar tonight and see if it compares. Thanks!
@shiftymccool@lemm.ee It’s now 24 hours later - what do you think? I’m also running a NextCloud to run PhoneTrack. I had a customised version of php-tracks-recorder before that, but wanted something for multiple devices/users and with a bit more features.
I got a minimum traccar instance running last night (no db, config, etc…) and it seemed to be working great. Later, I noticed battery usage on my android device was a bit higher than normal. Not thinking much about it, I went about my business. This morning I was still seeing higher than average battery usage. I checked the client logs and saw a ton of “failed to send” messages. I checked the server and the registration page came up. Apparently, my minimal setup failed to persist the data and, at some point, I redeployed my stack and lost everything.
My suspicion is that the repeated failures were causing the battery drain so I’m trying again with a full db setup but not having much luck so far. I’ll check back in after I either succeed or give up.
The UI for traccar is way cleaner than phonetrack but if the battery usage doesn’t compare, it’s a no-go. Phonetrack has just been invisible and functional so it’s got some big shoes to fill
Well, I’ve had a fully functioning Traccar instance running all night and most of the day and I’m sad to say that I’m less than impressed.
The tracking isn’t quite as bad as OwnTracks but not nearly as good as PhoneTrack. Instead of showing me that I randomly went to a city several miles away, I just spent some time in a field by my house instead of walking down the road next to it.
I’ve kept PhoneTrack running in tandem and the comparison, in terms of accuracy and battery usage, leaves no question. I tried everything I could think of to post a screenshot of my battery usage but “image is too large” was all I got even for an 18k image. So, after a day-ish of running both, my battery stats in Android show:
- Traccar Client: 36% (top of the list, 15 hours background, 1 min screen time)
- …several other apps, including those with a lot more screen time
- PhoneTrack: 1% (background 8 hours)
I think it’s PhoneTrack’s “significant motion” setting that makes the difference here. If Traccar gets this feature (or already has it and I’m missing it…) that will solve a few problems.
If I’m missing something with Traccar here, somebody please set me to rights. It seems strange that the only setting in the Traccar client to save battery is to set the interval longer, thereby killing accuracy. PhoneTrack seems to have solved this problem, and it’s “just a Nextcloud app”, Traccar is dedicated to this functionality, I feel like it should have more options. 🤷♂️
Looks like I’m sticking with PhoneTrack for now which means my Nextcloud instance has been relegated to app platform instead of all-in-one file manager.
EDIT: Didn’t notice the wake lock setting, trying it for a bit with that off to see if that helps
I have yet to try this, but you should be able to use the OwnTracks app with Traccar.
I‘m using OwnTracks for years now to log into PhoneTrack (and previously php-owntracks-recorder). No issues.
Interesting, I’ll have to give that a try. Thanks for the tip!
A small update: Traccar with the wake lock off and the interval set to 100 seconds uses a fraction of the battery but the accuracy still seems questionable. Since it’s not draining the battery anymore, I’m going to keep running them in tandem for comparison. If I remember, I’ll come back here with my results
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y question is “why?” It seems like, at a basic level, they serve similar roles. If you remove the app-platform role from Nextcloud by separately hosting the individual apps, what benefit do you get from having both Nextcloud and File Browser?
NextCloud sucks, it overpromises, underdelivers, wastes resources and has tons of issues and stupid bugs like these. If you simply setup FileBrowser + Syncthing you’ll get a much better experience for way “cheaper”.
While I think “sucks” might be a bit of an overstatement, I agree with your point. I’m already running Syncthing as my main method of spreading important files around to different drives so the file sync part of Nextcloud isn’t that important to me.
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Tailscale… Finally!
I used Hamachi since around 2005 on all my Windows machines. It was fantastic.
When Android came along they didn’t really support it, there was a third party attempt, but it fizzled, Hamachi got bought, and basically languished.
Just setup Tailscale on every device that can support it, and on my RPi it runs an exit note and a subnet router.
BRILLIANT! TS alone is enough for me to justify putting an RPi on every family member’s network.
And you can even share the connection so people can use a web browser to access a device on your mesh.
Why would I use anything that runs my homelab traffic through centralized servers? It kinda defeats my whole purpose in “privatizing” my data. They say they don’t collect data blah blah blah but nobody can be 100% sure what goes on in their own servers.
I really like the idea of combining VPN with Syncthing-like connectivity but not at the cost of privacy. If they would just allow an opt-out from using their servers and not requiring signing up for an account I would be all over it.
Unless I’m mistaken, I’ll be sticking with my Wireguard with one port forwarded through my router.
After tinkering with several software packages like NextCloud I decided to buy a Synology NAS instead. Their mobile apps are much better than anything open source today and they do a great job of de-Googling your life. The apps are so good that your non-techy members of the family won’t even notice the change.
I’m thinking that, when I decide to upgrade from my homelab-ish setup, I’ll be going with one of these. I haven’t looked into the software so much but just something a bit more purpose-built than a pi4 with a USB drive 😋
I thought about setting up a mini PC, which can work beautifully, but the apps are crap, so I decided against that idea. I mean I personally can deal with hacky solutions, but not my family members. Synology software turned out to be a transparent replacement for the services my family is using.
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