I’m looking to finally ditch Onedrive with a self hosted alternative, but I’m not sure what to go with. I want something with all of the files on a central server, with an Android client with the option to sync individual files for offline access as needed. Preferably the files should also be stored in plain format on the server to make backups easier and as a fallback if the service completely fails and I don’t have time to fix it. Linux and Windows clients are a bonus but I’m happy just using a web gui if that’s all that’s available. These are the options I’ve considered so far:
Seafile - This was the one that I thought fit my needs the best until earlier but apparently it has a weird disk layout which means the files are basically inaccessible by anything else?
Nextcloud - I had originally ruled this out because I don’t care about any of the additional features which people claim also slow it down and make it a bit of a resource hog, and I also don’t want to deal with forced https. However I think the community image may actually be what I want as it seems to be just the file server and works with just http? I am a bit confused about the different options for the database though. https://hub.docker.com/_/nextcloud/
Syncthing - Not quite what I’m looking for as you need to sync the entire thing, and I don’t like whatever weirdness is going on with the Android app at the moment
SAMBA share - Also not really what I’m looking for as there’s no offline syncing, but very easy to set up and basically nothing to go wrong
Are there any other options I should be looking into?
You are invited to join the CopyParty! This has a web UI accessible from the browser, also from mobile, files are stored directly on the filesystem (not encrypted or on a database) and you can mount it as a network drive on Windows and Linux. But it doesn’t let you sync files for offline use, at least not without the help of some auxiliary tools.
You won’t find anything simpler to install and configure than this.
Copyparty is very cool, but it also confuses me a bit. It keeps giving me 403 forbidden errors when I try to rename or move files on certain folders.
I’m pretty sure it’s a permission problem, because the root folder is read only but the folders inside have permissions per user, but I never figured it out.
I still use it daily, 5/7 perfect software.
FolderSync pairs nicely if you want some sync features on android.
On a desktop or laptop I’d just mount it as a drive.
If you really want automatic sync with offline availability, the Nextcloud desktop client has been solid for years now.