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

Nextcloud is laggy and bloated, would not recommend

Good application but performance sucks

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year 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 1 year 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 1 year 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 1 year 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 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks. Would occ files:scan work as well?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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

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

Sounds like someone wasn't using redis

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year 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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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

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

I have that on my RPi 50B! /s

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

[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A server with 6 cores and 16GB of RAM costs like $14 per month.

Link please?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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 1 year 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] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Those specs seem likely to be extrapolated from the resource usage of their SaaS solution 😳

Wouldn't be surprised if it actually ended up needing that though, some game servers for example will happily chomp down 10GB+ of RAM with just two people online doing nothing

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Or rather they want to discourage self-hosting in favour of their SaaS.

But the OO Document server will happily run with about 1gb RAM and small CPU use.

edit: ah this is about the full OO suite. Well most of that is written in bloated asp.net so no wonder.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

In addition to other suggestions, there's Collabora Online

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Some options on here that I wasn't even aware of! Nice!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year 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 1 year 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 1 year 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 1 year 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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (5 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 1 year 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 1 year 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 1 year 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 1 year 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.)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year 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.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

OnlyOffice?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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 1 year 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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