As far as analogies go, is pretty far off. It doesn’t hold even for basic behaviors of the two cases, let alone complex ones. A better analogy would be that you buy a (small) car that always happens to come with an included, free trailer for more cargo capacity. You can of course take it off and have a small car. And it’s also as magic trailer that doesn’t take up any space at all when not in use, but can also not be sold.

I’m actually not a fan, an am also using it somewhat reluctantly personally, though self hosted. I’ve had my issues with it, but an still using it because it solves some issues that are much harder to solve without it. I’m not using the contacts/calendar functionality.

But your original statement was that you couldn’t understand who would need calendar and contacts (in their file sharing app). There’s enough I object to in this statement that I wrote my comment. First of, in this context, specifically in their article/blog/whatever, it’s about nextcloud as a whole, not the fact that it can do file sharing. That’s what it evolved from, but not all it is any more, more better or worse. Secondly, it’s about an advertised alternative to O365, which includes the very common and almost universal requirement for teams (be it a company, family, …) to have events (=calendar) like schedule meetings with people (=contacts). Even if you work with just like 5 people you are probably gonna need that. There you probably want to share files, but probably more so it’s about the office functionality and collaborative, simultaneous editing of files. Obviously replacing Word, PowerPoint, Excel. And yes, Outlook (calendar,& contacts, also email).

This isn’t meant for individuals who need a few GB to store some files. It’s for teams of some description that need office like, cloud based tools.

Your analogy doesn’t make any sense, so I assume you really don’t know. So let me explain:

If you buy a 4wd, it’s always a 4wd, usually that means s relatively large vehicle. You might be able to turn it to 2wd, but it doesn’t make the car smaller. If you just needed a tiny car in all (or most cases), you can’t push a button to make it smaller. You always drive around the extra equipment to possibly make it 4wd.

Nextcloud is plugin based. Assuming this isn’t locked away on an instance like this, you can literally push a button and make that whole functionality go away everywhere. You can fully remove that ‘clutter’, if that’s of no use to you. They are offering it always, as it adds no additional effort on the hosters side: they don’t need to add gear boxes or whatever to make it have calendar & contacts. If you don’t want/need it, turn it off and it’s gone.

Who ever wanted a file sync platform that also does calendaring and contacts?

Most O365 & exchange users? If you just want file sync, this isn’t for you. If you want a collaborative (online) office suite that can also sync files, it is. It’s meant to be able to replace the whole O365 stack, which includes Outlook.

You can also just not use that part, or any part you don’t need. This is basic NC functionality that has been there for a very long time, so why shouldn’t it be part of the package?

I just saw this post but didn’t look any further into it than reading the title.

Switching is possible now, if you want. CoMaps builds have been released for a while, and are in f-droid I think since today? I have no idea about Google play store.

If you’re happy with osmand there’s no point to switching IMHO. It’s a much more simplified interface, so customization especially compared to the enormous options in osmand are relatively limited.

That being said it does work just as well, judging from the little use I’ve had.

I disagree with those saying that you can’t do a build for that budget, but I would suggest looking into used parts, at least for some things, to improve the result significantly.

Since your system goal doesn’t seem to be storage related, as nextcloud includes storage obviously, but typically isn’t used to house multi-terabyte data sets. So assuming you can make that work for the “future homelab projects” to with dual 500gig NVME as storage. Search for a used mITX board+CPU that can accommodate that (has the slots), and go from there. Things like CPU cooler, if not part of a possible mainboard+CPU bundle, should be selected after the case at that is the limiting factor for it. Didn’t skimp on RAM size if you can (new or used is fine, depends what you can get in your area).

With this list you’re basically done to get it up and running.

That feature kinda works, but it’s incredibly fragile. It has caused so many annoyances for me over the last year or so that I’m finally done with the thing. Just go with immich instead, less headache.

Not anymore, I hope from his description…

It’s great and all (it really is), but the target audience was just presented factorio 2.0 (and space age), so we’re busy for a few months.

Arguably gambling.

Well there more than one solution, if you want it. First of all, podman actually works fine with docker compose files. There may be some adjustments needed in other places, because despite the claim of being “a drop in docker replacement”, it just isn’t (quite). So assuming you install docker compose (not docker), you can just “docker-compose up” (note the dash) and it should work. Should.

Your can also just spin up a VM and install docker with compose in there, just for testing and/or running immich.

QOwnNotes for me. Also such a catchy name. Seriously though, ignore the stupid name, just give it a try.

“Immich” might be a real option, I don’t quite understand why you think it’s overkill?

I mean syncthing has been mentioned plenty, but of course Nextcloud also solves the problem. It’s can’t truly sync a folder, but it works fine for backing up photos and videos.

This actually sounds quite interesting. Is this controlled with DNS entries at the domain level somehow, or is the subdomain fixed/mandatory?

Yes exactly. I didn’t wanna name-drop them cause they are closed for new dynDNS signups. You can create an account to manage your own domain, but you currently can’t signup for their dynDNS service, unfortunately.

That being said, I would still highly recommend them for managing your own domain, if you’re looking for a place to host literally just the DNS part.

There are dyndns providers that support the DNS challenge that have free tiers. Those are sufficient, and you can even get wildcard certs for your subdomain that way. Perfectly sufficient for a homelab.

Yeah I was just so confused when I found out that this isn’t possible. Like, it’s a file hosting and sync-ing application. That’s like absolute basics. It isn’t even “just” an open source project any more, there’s a company behind this product now. I am the last person to be angry about an open source project, run by a volunteer or three, not being feature complete.

For what it’s worth I think it works in the iOS version of the app (possibly always has?). But that’s doesn’t exactly help me either.

The native Android client just can’t do two way sync. Just put a text file or something into any folder (from the web or desktop). Now sync that folder to Android. Now edit it on the web/desktop, and look for the changes on Android (without actively telling it to “sync”). Then change the file on Android, these 2nd changes are never sent back to the server unless you explicitly tell it to “sync” again, manually. That’s what I mean with 2 way sync.

There are quite a few files where you just need that to work to use them properly, like the database of a password manager as a prime example. Mine can talk to Nextcloud natively, so I don’t need the client for that, but I was incredibly close to just switching to syncthing, if I didn’t have active users that use the web office integration of Nextcloud.

Nextcloud can’t do two-way sync on Android. At all. That’s like core functionality for the product IMHO and there’s a feature request open I think. When I found that out, I basically spit out my coffee. It’s fine if you just want to upload photos you take, that kinda works (but my god is it fragile).

Nextcloud is pretty good at quite a few things, including extensibility, but having some omissions in functionality that boggle the mind.