Why Nextcloud feels slow to use • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Nextcloud feels slow to use

#31

Post by Yie1cho » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 2:43 PM UTC

nextcloud just feels abandoned, even if it isn't of course.

maybe paying customers are getting a different/updated/tuned version of it. maybe not. but the only thing that keeps me using it is there isn't any real selfhosted alternatives.

why is it slow? if you just blink or take a breath, it touches the database. years ago i've tried to optimise it a bit and noticed that there are horrible amount of DB transactions there without any apparent reason.

also, the android client is so broken...

Re: Why Nextcloud feels slow to use

#32

Post by RiverCrochet » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 2:45 PM UTC

I've played around with many self-hosted file manager apps. My first one was Ajaxplorer which then became Pydio. I really liked Pydio but didn't stick with it because it was too slow. I briefly played with Nextcloud but didn't stick with it either.

Eventually I ran into FileRun and loved it, even though it wasn't completely open source. FileRun is fast, worked on both desktop and mobile via browser nicely, and I never had an issue with it. It was free for personal use a few years ago, and unfortunately is not anymore. But it's worth the license if you have the money for it.

I tried setting up SeaFile but I had issues getting it working via a reverse proxy and gave up on it.

I like copyparty (https://github.com/9001/copyparty) - really dead simple to use and quick like FIleRun - but the web interface is not geared towards casual users. I also miss Filerun's "Request a file" feature which worked very nicely if you just wanted someone to upload a file to you and then be done.

Re: Why Nextcloud feels slow to use

#33

Post by Yie1cho » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 2:46 PM UTC

dade_ wrote: post #30

palata wrote: post #27

I would love to like Nextcloud, it's pretty great that it does exist. Just that makes it better than... well everything else I haven't found. What frustrates me is that it looks like it works, but once in a while it breaks in a way that is pretty much irreparable (or at least not in a practical way). I want to run an iOS/Android app that backs up images on my server. I tried the iOS app and when it works, it's cool.…

The next cloud android app is particularly bad if you use it to back up your cameras DCIM directory then you delete the photos on your phone. It overwrite the files on Nextcloud as new photos are taken. I get why this happened but it is terrible.

it's bad for everything.

i have lots of txt files on my phone which are just not synced up to my server (the files on the server are 0 byte long).

i'm using txt files to take notes because the Notes app never worked for me (I get sync errors on any android phone while it works on iphone).

Re: Why Nextcloud feels slow to use

#34

Post by alecsm » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 2:48 PM UTC

tokarf wrote: post #23

bArray wrote: post #15

NextCloud does feel slow. What I want is not only a cloud service that does lots of common tasks, but it also should do it lightly and simply. I'm extremely tempted to write a lightweight alternative. I'm thinking sourcehut [1] vs GitHub. [1] https://sourcehut.org/

Just compare comparable products. Nextcloud is an old product that inherit from Owncloud developed in php since 2010. It has extensibility at its core through the thousands of extensions available. So yaaay compare it with source hut ...

Maybe that's the problem "old product that inherit from Owncloud".

Re: Why Nextcloud feels slow to use

#35

Post by buibuibui » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 2:48 PM UTC

I find the Nextcloud client really buggy on the Mac, especially the VFS integration. The file syncing is also really slow. I switched back to P2P file syncing via Syncthing and Resilio Sync out of frustration.

Re: Why Nextcloud feels slow to use

#36

Post by a3w » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 2:50 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #21

I'm curious how much Javascript eg gmail and google docs/drive give you, in comparison.

gmail should be server sided, with as much JS as you want to use. Unless they moved away from the philosophy they started with GWT (Google Web Toolkit) for Gmail, and perhaps even Inbox (RIP)

Re: Why Nextcloud feels slow to use

#37

Post by tripplyons » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 2:54 PM UTC

I once discovered and reported a vulnerability in Nextcloud's web client that was due to them including an outdated version of a JavaScript-based PDF viewer. I always wondered why they couldn't just use the browser's PDF viewer. I made $100, which was a large amount to me as a 16 year old at the time.

Here is a blog post I wrote at the time about the vulnerability (CVE-2020-8155): https://tripplyons.com/blog/nextcloud-bug-bounty

Re: Why Nextcloud feels slow to use

#38

Post by lompad » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 2:55 PM UTC

palata wrote: post #27

I would love to like Nextcloud, it's pretty great that it does exist. Just that makes it better than... well everything else I haven't found. What frustrates me is that it looks like it works, but once in a while it breaks in a way that is pretty much irreparable (or at least not in a practical way). I want to run an iOS/Android app that backs up images on my server. I tried the iOS app and when it works, it's cool.…

Recently people built a super-lightweigt alternative, named copyparty[0]. To me that looks like it does everything people tend to need without all the bloat.

[0]: https://github.com/9001/copyparty

Re: Why Nextcloud feels slow to use

#39

Post by Larrikin » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 2:56 PM UTC

palata wrote: post #27

I would love to like Nextcloud, it's pretty great that it does exist. Just that makes it better than... well everything else I haven't found. What frustrates me is that it looks like it works, but once in a while it breaks in a way that is pretty much irreparable (or at least not in a practical way). I want to run an iOS/Android app that backs up images on my server. I tried the iOS app and when it works, it's cool.…

For your specific use case of photos, Immich is the front runner and a much better experience. Sadly for the general Dropbox replacement I haven't found anything either.

Re: Why Nextcloud feels slow to use

#40

Post by lompad » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 2:57 PM UTC

joshgachnang wrote: post #5

floundy wrote: post #2

I'm still setting up my own home server, adding one functionality at a time. I wanted to like Nextcloud but it's just too bloated. Radicale is a good calendar replacement. I'd rather have single-function apps at this point.

Any good file syncing/drive replacements? My Synology exists pretty much because Synology Drives works so well syncing Mac and iOS.

Copyparty. Found that recently and absolutely love it.