[HN Gopher] Roundcube open-source webmail software merges with N...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Roundcube open-source webmail software merges with Nextcloud
        
       Author : mikece
       Score  : 262 points
       Date   : 2023-11-29 11:03 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.phoronix.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.phoronix.com)
        
       | nik736 wrote:
       | Will Roundcube still be a seperated project or will it be
       | included in Nextcloud? If they integrate it to heavily in the
       | Nextcloud stuff I won't be using it anymore. :-)
        
         | ekianjo wrote:
         | There is no reason why both can't continue at the same time.
        
           | j16sdiz wrote:
           | Of course they can! Just wait until they shift focus or
           | somebody shouts efficiency.
        
             | jospoortvliet wrote:
             | Note that we're not backed by a a venture capital firm that
             | needs a 10X exit, we're self-funded and have been
             | sustainably growing ~50%/year since we got started. We're
             | over 100 people so paying for 2 developers on Roundcube
             | (tripling the resources being put into Roundcube today)
             | would be trivial for us.
             | 
             | We'll look what users want, what's best for the ecosystem
             | etc, but we're not looking to kill it and if we ever would,
             | it won't be for the money.
        
         | doublerabbit wrote:
         | > Nextcloud Mail will evolve as it is, focused on being used
         | naturally within Nextcloud. Roundcube will continue to serve
         | its active and new users as a stand-alone secure mail client.
         | 
         | I don't think so, as then Web Hosting Panels would loose out.
         | But, you never know.
        
       | unixhero wrote:
       | I have used it for 5 years for my business. Never any single
       | hickup.
        
       | preya2k wrote:
       | I'm glad the post states that Roundcube will stay an independent
       | product.
       | 
       | Roundcube is on a whole other level in terms of stability and
       | robustness compared to Nextcloud.
       | 
       | I'm also glad that the current Nextcloud client will be replaced,
       | because it's not very good right now.
        
         | stratom wrote:
         | Nextcloud Mail won't be replaced by Roundcube!
         | 
         | "Neither will Roundcube replace Nextcloud Mail or the other way
         | around. ... Nextcloud Mail will evolve as it is, focused on
         | being used naturally within Nextcloud."
        
           | preya2k wrote:
           | Thanks for the reminder. I still expect Roundcube to become a
           | well-maintained alternative for E-Mail clients within
           | Nextcloud, right?
        
           | noname120 wrote:
           | Will it be like Microsoft saying that VS Code wouldn't
           | replace Atom after the merger? Not that I like Atom, quite
           | the opposite.
        
             | Night_Thastus wrote:
             | Atom was my first proper Editor. I miss it, even though
             | there were a _lot_ of bugs. It was so much fun finding all
             | the cool community-made packages and trying them out.
        
         | youdontknowjuli wrote:
         | I really tried to make Nextcloud work for me but it was too
         | much. I'll pay the enshittified Dropbox premium soon.
         | 
         | Some bugs I encountered in a few hours of testing and trying to
         | make it work.
         | 
         | The Mac auto-update installs an incompatible version to my OS;
         | the website offers only the new incompatible and an old version
         | that also doesn't work (OS can not scan the app). The solution
         | is to find a suitable version from a hidden FTP, user-
         | unfriendly.
         | 
         | Some files had modification timestamps on 1.1.1970 that causes
         | obscure sync issues on Mac. Either run some arbitrary database
         | scripts to fix this or a simpler solution is to 'touch' all
         | affected files.
         | 
         | The Windows Client consistently shows random minus bytes,
         | hangs, and freezes.
         | 
         | The Windows Client is stuck in a loop of calculations and
         | transmissions. Also a reinstallation is impossible as AppData
         | folder isn't deleted during uninstallation.
         | 
         | A successful complete reinstall downloads all the existing
         | files individually, creating conflicts with identical(!?) local
         | and server files. Why is the file hash not checked before the
         | download? It's frustrating and seems poorly designed.
         | 
         | All bugs have open GitHub issues I didn't bother to include.
         | Some have open PRs for years. The last bug is open for 5 years
         | now.
        
           | eurekin wrote:
           | I installed Nextcloud twice and faced early bugs quickly as
           | well. I'm certainly not moving my 15tb of client photos to it
           | anytime soon
        
             | op00to wrote:
             | I always wondered why photographers held on to
             | negatives/raw files for so long. How often does the need to
             | return years later come up, and can that justify the cost
             | of storing all that in a way that's somewhat reliable? I'm
             | not saying there aren't valid reasons to do so, and
             | throwing the pictures on a few externals drives isn't
             | terrible, but to do it "right" seems like it would be super
             | expensive!
        
               | bayindirh wrote:
               | Because better hardware gets cheaper, and one's technique
               | and software improves over time.
               | 
               | I was able to recover a 13 year old photo I took with a
               | D70s which was extremely noisy. By using what I learnt
               | and state of the art software (which is Darktable), I was
               | able to extract a very nice photo out of it.
               | 
               | Also, as your style improves and experience piles up, you
               | look to your "bad" photos and say "Aha, there's a nice
               | angle here. Let's process this".
               | 
               | You can see some of my "Remastered" photos at [0].
               | 
               | [0]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/zerocoder/albums/72157
               | 70242956...
        
               | eurekin wrote:
               | I wonder how would you react to the DeepPRIME* from DxO
               | 
               | https://www.dxo.com/fr/technology/deepprime/
               | 
               | I have a license for some older version, if you want to
               | throw a .nef at me
        
               | bayindirh wrote:
               | That looks pretty nice. I'll try to find some noisy files
               | to send to you. What's nice about Darktable is it has a
               | feature called "profiled denoise".
               | 
               | Contributors send in calibrated RAW files per camera,
               | taken at every ISO setting possible, so Darktable
               | denoises your file according to your camera's profile at
               | particular ISO. The result is pretty impressive.
               | 
               | I have uploaded that particular image to [0]. Taken in
               | 2006 and processed in 2020, after 14 years!
               | 
               | [0]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/zerocoder/53363865806/
               | in/datep...
               | 
               | Edit: EXIF says 2005, but it should be 2006.
        
               | eurekin wrote:
               | Oh, I'd throw them away in a blink, If I were not lazy:
               | 
               | Almost after every shoot, people come back "remember that
               | one photo, where I smiled at sth? I'm very sentimental
               | about that, cause it's [some important thing to them]",
               | which necessitates the need to hold on to every photo
               | taken on the session. So no real deletes here, even if it
               | came out technically wrong (blurry, blown out, etc.).
               | 
               | Those requests lessen, but don't die down completely.
               | Especially with cyclic events, organizers have this habit
               | of a asking for things done exactly year ago.
               | 
               | Some just say: "hey, I remember you taking a photo of me
               | then and then" for their dancing portfolio in my case.
               | 
               | Especially for videos, which can be a constant flow of
               | editing requests, for supercuts and etc.
               | 
               | Now, if I were really smart, I'd just have some good way
               | to archive after two years, and delete after - let's say
               | three years. In practice though, there are so many
               | unforseen circumstances that a habit of "never delete
               | anything" forms really easily.
               | 
               | It's just a lot easier and cheaper to buy another drive
               | instead of culling 10k of photos every once in a while,
               | especially if external confirmation is involved.
        
               | robertlagrant wrote:
               | You could also back up to something like AWS Glacier. The
               | cheapest tier (access less than once a year) is
               | $1/TB/month. Maybe if you kept thumbnails locally, you
               | could push all the data up and only pull it as and when
               | you needed it.
        
               | nik736 wrote:
               | Have fun paying a fortune if you need to get those files
               | again.
        
               | robertlagrant wrote:
               | If you need all of them, and can wait 5-12 hours, that
               | appears to be free to request and transfer? Or am I
               | misreading[0]?
               | 
               | [0] https://aws.amazon.com/s3/glacier/pricing/#Retrieval_
               | request... <- under "Bulk"
        
               | nik736 wrote:
               | Free retrieval pricing, but not free transfer. Transfer
               | is starting at $0.09 per GB :-)
        
               | robertlagrant wrote:
               | Aaaah I see : - ) still, if it's only very occasional "do
               | you remember that photo?" queries, that shouldn't add up
               | to any significant cost. But a full retrieval - yeah.
               | Interesting how the price ramps up!
        
               | mkesper wrote:
               | This does not include data transfer pricing: https://aws.
               | amazon.com/de/s3/glacier/pricing/#Data_transfer_...
        
               | aaronax wrote:
               | For "expedited" retrieval it is $0.01 per request plus
               | $0.03 per GB. Doesn't seem like a fortune. And there are
               | retrieval options for 1/10th the cost.
        
               | nik736 wrote:
               | Transfer is starting at $0.09 per GB.
        
               | aaronax wrote:
               | The exact same as transfer out of normal S3? Don't get me
               | wrong, I am as big of an AWS pessimist as one is likely
               | to stumble across.
               | 
               | I guess I could reinterpret your original comment as
               | "Have fun paying a fortune if you need to get those files
               | [out of AWS] again."
               | 
               | instead of my original interpretation "Have fun paying a
               | fortune if you need to get those files [out of Glacier]
               | again."
               | 
               | Agree!
        
               | op00to wrote:
               | Totally understandable! As a service provider, you want
               | to be able to fulfill those requests because it will make
               | you their go-to person for life. Pretty cheap compared to
               | the benefits you can get.
               | 
               | Despite constantly crowing at researchers in my past life
               | that they will lose all their data ... it only happened
               | once or twice, and both times was related to theft and
               | not drive failure.
               | 
               | I wonder if you could sell a type of "archive protection
               | plan" as an add-on to your work. It's like $70 a year to
               | store 500GB on Glacier. I am sort of assuming each shoot
               | is 500GB? You could guarantee access for those customers
               | who want it.
               | 
               | If we're being honest with each other, I would do the
               | exact thing you're doing and focus more on my business.
               | :)
        
             | jmnicolas wrote:
             | Have you tried Immich? I don't have much experience with it
             | (installed yesterday evening) but it looks and run great.
        
               | eurekin wrote:
               | I spinned it up once and looked really good. Never got to
               | thorougly testing for that case. Might take another look
        
               | inox wrote:
               | I second immich - used it for some group sharing (non-
               | registered users) and worked really smooth. had some
               | random upload fails though on the app from iOS.
        
             | bbarnett wrote:
             | Just use apace2, its davfs implementation, and davfs
             | clients.
             | 
             | Linux has davfs2, android has foldersync.
             | 
             | Apache2 is super streamlined for this, and has done dav
             | stuff for at least 16 years.
        
               | eurekin wrote:
               | I was thinking of trying out using something low level...
               | Maybe that? Does it support lazy selective syncing?
               | Updating only ranges of files? Does it handle broken
               | connections gracefully and recovers without data loss?
        
           | jmnicolas wrote:
           | If Dropbox is all you need you might be satisfied with
           | Syncthing. I have used it for a week now, it works well and I
           | have the warm fuzzy feeling that nobody is using my data to
           | make a few bucks (I'm self hosting it on a home server).
        
             | jchw wrote:
             | Not only that, you don't even need to "host" Syncthing.
             | Being P2P in nature, it can just run on whatever computers
             | you want to sync to, directly.
             | 
             | That's pretty cool.
             | 
             | The only thing I'd really want for Syncthing is some kind
             | of simple interface for my desktops (all running SwayWM.)
             | There's a GTK app that I use on my Pinephone, but it's a
             | little janky. I mainly just want to be able to know that
             | I'll get notifications when there's a conflict or error.
             | (Dropbox style file emblems in file explorers, showing the
             | state, would be nice, too...)
        
               | brnt wrote:
               | I use an old phone (with Resilio) as such an always-on
               | node.
        
               | danieldk wrote:
               | You still need a node somewhere that is always available,
               | otherwise your device cannot sync when your other devices
               | are offline.
               | 
               | My wife and I had such a setup for years with Resilio
               | Sync. But life is busy enough to maintain yet another
               | thing, so we are happy to fork over the monthly fee for
               | Dropbox Family.
               | 
               | Ideally I'd switch over to some other sync solution,
               | because Dropbox is somewhat overpriced. But we've had bad
               | experiences with Google Drive and OneDrive for local sync
               | in the past.
        
               | jchw wrote:
               | Well, you need an always-online node only if you actually
               | need it to be syncing all of the time. Not everyone needs
               | this; often times it's enough to just sync
               | opportunistically. This is mainly necessary for things
               | that are mutable and active; for me, I store my Keepass
               | XC on a Syncthing shared folder, so this is relevant to
               | me. And for that, I use my NAS, although obviously, not
               | everyone has a NAS.
               | 
               | But that's the thing. Especially notable compared to
               | NextCloud, Syncthing is not like most "self-hosted"
               | software. Because a node is a node is a node, and because
               | it's relatively lightweight, it literally doesn't matter
               | what you use. You can use a Raspberry Pi, an old phone or
               | laptop, anything you can connect sufficient disk and a
               | network to can be a Syncthing node. And if it catches on
               | fire, it doesn't really matter since every node is equal.
               | You can just add another node at any time.
               | 
               | So a lot of people think Syncthing is another thing
               | you'll have to worry about and maintain, but it's not.
               | It's one of the few pieces of software that I expected to
               | have to deal with a lot of extra work to use, but then it
               | wound up being dramatically easier and more flexible than
               | I expected. I worry about robustness when it comes to
               | something as complex as cross filesystem syncing, but
               | Syncthing has never lost my data. I have backups turned
               | on on most nodes for the important folders, but I've
               | never consulted them before, because I've never needed
               | to.
               | 
               | Surely it _is_ possible to lose data with Syncthing, or
               | otherwise create a headache. However, from my point of
               | view, it certainly seems to be among the most reliable
               | and lowest effort ways to sync stuff across devices. I
               | haven 't had to spend almost any time maintaining
               | Syncthing, and I don't have to worry about limits. I just
               | need one device with a big enough disk, then I can create
               | however many shared folders are needed to get the
               | granularity I want.
               | 
               | Syncthing also has a pretty cool encryption feature. It
               | is considered "beta" still, so I only use it in "trusted"
               | scenarios, but it works great.
               | 
               | When I started using Syncthing, I only intended to share
               | some document files between my desktop and my laptop. Now
               | I use it to sync my Keepass database, files between some
               | servers (think seedbox etc.,) multiple different
               | documents folders including some for collaborative
               | projects, and even a couple of other things. So it really
               | wound up over-delivering for me.
               | 
               | I'd strongly recommend people, even people who already
               | feel like Resilio Sync wasn't a good fit, to just try to
               | set up Syncthing before resigning to Dropbox.
               | Comparatively, I think Syncthing is simpler to use and
               | more robust than basically any other solution that isn't
               | Dropbox.
        
             | oskapt wrote:
             | Syncthing is great, and I use it at home. For a robust
             | multi-user alternative to Dropbox (or *cloud), I can also
             | recommend Seafile. I replaced Dropbox with a self-hosted
             | version of Seafile and have never looked back. Also, for a
             | fantastic mail server solution with a great webmail client,
             | look at Axigen. Their free version is more than enough for
             | a personal server, and you can use Amazon SES for outbound
             | mail to avoid reputation issues. I host mine at Linode and
             | love it. If you have a business need or are larger than the
             | limits of the free version, their license costs are quite
             | reasonable.
        
             | digging wrote:
             | I might have been too stupid to figure it out, but I found
             | Syncthing unusable because I couldn't set up a basic
             | "backup" style sync. That is, anything I added to my phone
             | folder would get synced one-way to my computer... and
             | anything I deleted from that folder would also get synced
             | one-way to my computer. This forced me to maintain my
             | entire photo library on my phone, which of course is
             | exactly what I was trying to avoid.
        
               | jackothy wrote:
               | Would it work to set the folder type to "Send Only" on
               | the phone and to "Receive Only" on the server?
               | 
               | See https://docs.syncthing.net/v1.26.0/users/foldertypes
        
               | digging wrote:
               | No, the issue is that send-only sends all modifications,
               | including file deletion. I wanted it to only send new
               | files, but couldn't find a way to do that.
        
               | seszett wrote:
               | https://docs.syncthing.net/advanced/folder-
               | ignoredelete.html
               | 
               | It works well enough in a backup system, where the issue
               | explained on the page isn't relevant.
        
               | digging wrote:
               | Nice, I guess it does work. Annoying that what feels to
               | me a basic option is hidden for power users. I don't
               | understand what your comment is saying though?
        
           | willis936 wrote:
           | I run it on TrueNAS Scale. Yes it is all quite fragile, but I
           | managed to get it in a state where it works if I don't touch
           | it. It's all backed on a ZFS volume. Barring significant
           | hardware failures I will be able to access my data locally. I
           | use Storj for mirror remote. Rebuilding would be a bit of a
           | pain, but I have reached the E2EE personal cloud ideal. If
           | [better than storj] cloud storage services offered BYOPK E2EE
           | then I wouldn't need to jump through such hurdles.
        
           | danieldk wrote:
           | _I'll pay the enshittified Dropbox premium soon._
           | 
           | I have been using Maestral for Dropbox sync on Mac for years
           | now and it works great. The primary downside is that it
           | doesn't have block-level sync because it's not supported by
           | the API. The flip side is that you don't get the memory-
           | hungry Dropbox app that embeds a web engine for some
           | unfathomable reason.
           | 
           | I wish that Dropbox would bring back their old client that
           | just did sync and not all the crap that I don't need.
        
         | smudgy wrote:
         | That's a relief.
         | 
         | We just swapped out our old webmail system (made from twigs,
         | mud and spit) for a nice and elegant Roundcube install with
         | custom plugins and I was already dreading having to change it.
        
         | phpisthebest wrote:
         | 12-18mos before that changes.
         | 
         | no company in the world is going to maintain 2 separate
         | software products that compete with each other. They will be
         | merged, my prediction is 12 to 18 mos
        
           | collegeburner wrote:
           | which sucks bc nextcloud is an ugly, heavyweight beast of a
           | suite to run. whereas roundcube i'm happy running it on my
           | lightweight el cheapo VPS.
        
             | botanical wrote:
             | Nextcloud looks clunky but it certainly isn't heavyweight
        
               | coolliquidcode wrote:
               | Isn't it PHP based. I worry about anything written in
               | that turd of a language.
        
               | lhoff wrote:
               | But so is Roundcube.
               | 
               | OT: please (re)read the HN Guidelines.
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
               | ale42 wrote:
               | I guess you still think about PHP when it was version 3
               | or 4... we're at version 8.3 now and it's definitely not
               | the same thing. Both for language and performance.
        
             | ohthehugemanate wrote:
             | Heavyweight? I run it (with all the collab suite features,
             | photo galleries, and ai integrations) on a single RPi4
             | along with several other applications. But then I only have
             | a handful of users...
        
         | wkat4242 wrote:
         | The old product is ok yes. The company is awful, with their
         | roundcube next scam though.
        
         | velcrovan wrote:
         | The first and only time I had a server hacked was due to a
         | RoundCube vulnerability in 2006.
         | 
         | Just a month ago there was news of a RoundCube XSS zero-day
         | that was widely exploited (https://cyberpedia.medium.com/state-
         | sponsored-cyberattacks-l...).
         | 
         | Don't use RoundCube!
        
           | tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote:
           | Can you recommend a webmail client which hasn't had 2
           | vulnerabilities in the last 15 years?
        
             | velcrovan wrote:
             | I can recommend not to host your own webmail in general in
             | 2023 unless you are a Fortune 50 company.
        
           | stracer wrote:
           | By this logic, you should recommend that people don't use
           | computers.
           | 
           | All software has vulnerabilities. The trick is to install it
           | in a way which mitigates most of the typical ones: use VMs,
           | SELINUX/APPARMOR, containers, chroots, user separations, etc.
        
             | velcrovan wrote:
             | Email is no longer in the class of "software you install"
             | it is in the class of "services you outsource to reputable
             | companies who won't fuck it up"
        
             | SahAssar wrote:
             | None of what you mentioned protects against XSS which the
             | parent mentioned. Things like having a proper CSP might but
             | only if the application is built so it does not depend on
             | insecure eval/inline and/or you can properly disallow
             | fetch/connections to outside sources.
             | 
             | Everything you mentioned is about protecting things the app
             | should not have access to. Many vulnerabilities are about
             | intent (did the admin user really mean to truncate the db
             | they have permission to truncate) or target (did the user
             | really mean to export all my emails in an archive to
             | h4x0r@yahoo.com).
             | 
             | If you at all store any sensitive data within the
             | application either serverside or clientside you need to
             | consider the security of the application itself, not just
             | the sandboxing/isolation.
        
       | chappi42 wrote:
       | Nice to hear. After several (abandoned) attempts and installing
       | NC from scratch it seems to me that Nextcloud matures well. I
       | like the focus on hub/groupware. Still some details from time to
       | time which annoy me (and probably could be improved). But in
       | general, Nextcloud is great! And using AIO (all-in-one docker
       | image) it's really simple to install and maintain the server. --
       | So happy to have a good alternative to the Microsoft365
       | offerings!!! I do think Roundcube found a good place.
        
         | preya2k wrote:
         | Not sure which "focus on hub/groupware" you're talking about.
         | Some groupware features are still horribly buggy and
         | understaffed (e.g. the whole mess of co-existing methods of
         | sharing files/folders with groups - Share vs. Group Folder vs.
         | Collectives/Circles - or the crazy amount of WebDav and CalDav
         | bugs that have been existing for many years), while "AI" (or
         | some other buzzwordy technology) gets all the focus.
         | 
         | As much as I hat to say it, but feature wise it's not very
         | close to being a Microsoft 365 alternative.
        
           | deng wrote:
           | Unfortunately, I can only second this. The absolute basic
           | functionality, meaning file storage and access through a
           | browser, works fine. However, as soon as it comes to
           | integration with the various existing clients, things fall
           | apart, and it's not even terribly complicated stuff. For
           | instance, I used Nextcloud to automatically upload photos
           | from my Android mobile, and this has been completely broken
           | for over 2 months now, and nothing is happening (see
           | https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/11974). It's
           | pretty clear they simply do not have enough staff to maintain
           | all of the clients, and I'm just rsyncing my stuff now...
           | 
           | Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for Nextcloud and hope they
           | can survive, but one needs to manage expectations when using
           | it...
        
             | vedranm wrote:
             | I had the requirement for the same basic functionality and
             | switched to Syncthing several years ago. Haven't looked
             | back: works all the time, every time, and it is much easier
             | to maintain.
        
               | raybb wrote:
               | I use syncthing and nextcloud. Syncthing just as an easy
               | way to drop things between phone and computer. The ~$5/mo
               | Hetzner nextcloud instance for my Zotero backup,
               | occasionally sharing/soliciting files from friends, and a
               | few not so important backups (that I've been meaning to
               | mirror to b2).
               | 
               | It's basically fine but I can imagine the more advanced
               | features not working so well. It has been on my list for
               | years to add recurring task support to nextcloud tasks
               | but it's a pretty big effort since I'm quite unfamiliar
               | with the stack and there is a decent refactoring needed
               | before the feature can be added.
               | 
               | https://github.com/nextcloud/tasks/issues/34
        
             | preya2k wrote:
             | Agree. The "reality distortion field" around Nextcloud fans
             | is second to none. I hear it being touted as a replacement
             | for Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Docs, OneDrive, Office
             | 365, etc. Unfortunately it's none of those.
        
             | jmnicolas wrote:
             | May I suggest Immich for your photos? I don't have enough
             | experience with it to guarantee it's bug free, but my first
             | impressions are very positive (and I'm not afraid to say
             | that most open source software I try is severely lacking).
        
             | RealStickman_ wrote:
             | I can absolutely recommend FolderSync. It's not open
             | source, but absolutely solid for automatic and scheduled
             | uploads of various files.
        
             | chappi42 wrote:
             | If I only would need file sync I'd use Syncthing. But with
             | calendars, adresses, chat, mail, decks, etc. I don't know
             | another solution. Some compromises are necessary: I didn't
             | find e.g. a good note taking app with sharing among
             | members. Chat posts cannot be edited.
             | 
             | So far our AIO based installation worked well enough (with
             | PC, Mac and Android clients). But we do not have a lot of
             | files (yet).
             | 
             | After bad experience with incompetent MS support stuff
             | regarding our (not cheap!) Office retail licenses I also
             | had to manage expectations there: a lot of time wasted,
             | they only wanted to move us to the 365 subscription model,
             | could not help. Somehow I'm not convinced that with MS365
             | we would have a simple well-arranged flexible system (but
             | just be bound forever).
        
       | evandrofisico wrote:
       | Implemented and integrated both at work six years ago, it is a
       | nice combination.
        
       | erinnh wrote:
       | Good to hear.
       | 
       | More support for Roundcube, while Nextcloud gets a better Email
       | client than the current one.
        
       | joeig wrote:
       | I've been a very happy Roundcube user for a decade without a
       | single problem. Also worth mentioning, their CLI update script
       | just works without a hitch.
       | 
       | I'd like to see Nextcloud adopt Roundcube's commitment to
       | reliable software. I've tried migrating my calendars, reminders
       | and contacts several times, but it's never worked reliably. There
       | were often subtle problems such as missing calendar entries that
       | simply disappeared without a trace.
        
       | milliams wrote:
       | It's just a shame that the $100k that was raised for "RoundCube
       | Next" (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/roundcube-next--2) back
       | in 2015 produced exactly nothing (https://github.com/roundcube-
       | next) with no explanation.
        
         | robertlagrant wrote:
         | What a shame! There's some info on the Wikipedia page[0].
         | 
         | [0]
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundcube#Project_.22Roundcube...
        
           | sweetjuly wrote:
           | The GitHub issue talking about this [1] is such a mess too.
           | Maintainers closing the question with a vague non-answer,
           | deleting comments left and right, etc. Sounds like someone
           | stole the money and everyone is either complicit or too
           | embarrassed to admit that it happened.
           | 
           | [1] https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/6030
        
       | mxuribe wrote:
       | This is wonderful news! Nextcloud gets an additional product
       | offering for an important aspect (email!), and RoundCube gets
       | resources in the way of dev. staff (and possibly other benefits
       | from NextCloud funding)...and ALL of it is open source, self-
       | hostable, and good tech.! Kudos to RoundCube and NextCloud folks!
        
       | creshal wrote:
       | Given Nextcloud's track record that doesn't bode well for
       | Roundcube's future. We tried to make Nextcloud work for us for
       | years, but it's just too terribly clunky, unstable, bug-ridden,
       | and customer hostile. I hope none of that rubs off on roundcube.
        
         | manmal wrote:
         | Do you have recommendations for a self hosted webDAV server
         | that could act as a Dropbox / GDrive replacement? I'm using
         | Nextcloud only for that use case because I haven't found
         | anything that seemed as stable.
        
           | xobs wrote:
           | I've had very good luck with Seafile
        
           | gibsonf1 wrote:
           | https://graphmetrix.com/trinpod
        
           | pseudostem wrote:
           | I echo GPs thoughts. I use a VPS with syncthing. While that
           | is also clunky, it works for my usecase while keeping
           | multiple redundant copies across devices.
        
             | jonnycomputer wrote:
             | Depends on what you mean by redundant though, right?
             | Syncthing is generally not gonna protect you from an
             | accidental `rm -r *`, unless perhaps you set yourself up
             | with a permanent head server where everything is versioned
             | but on which files are never edited. (I'll be happy to be
             | wrong)
        
           | creshal wrote:
           | There's solid SFTP clients for every OS (even Android!) and
           | all it requires on the server is the already installed
           | OpenSSH, so I never really saw the need to look into webDAV.
        
             | folmar wrote:
             | For user-facing oses yes, but webdav is available on lot
             | "embedded" devices like Smart Whiteboard, and for many oses
             | is built in (even Windows 98), so it's easier to deploy
        
             | geraldhh wrote:
             | all sorts of network security appliances in foreign
             | networks make reliance on ssh a futile endeavor. webdav
             | works over standard ports with standard tooling (web
             | browser)
        
           | crossroadsguy wrote:
           | I am not much into self hosting other than a barebone setup
           | that takes care of my linux ISOs on a VPS, but you might want
           | to check Syncthing. Put it on a server and then connect it
           | from other places. This software is a marvel at simplicity
           | (except a bit of settings/config - I mean for heaven's sake
           | that can definitely be improved :P; but once done it's rock
           | solid - it just works and not like Apple where we pretend it
           | just works, it really just works) and robustness. Also I
           | never face speed problem or any hiccups pretty much. It puts
           | Dropbox and GDrive etc to shame combined.
           | 
           | If I could find time to be better at self hosting and will be
           | able to take care of a server's upkeep, security/OS/package
           | patches/updates et cetera then if I have to setup two first
           | tools on this it would be Syncthing and RClone.
           | 
           | On the other hand for my current needs I use filen.io (it's
           | on BF sale right now). It's not the best but works fine for
           | my use - like a remote hard disk acting like backup (its
           | "local backup" sync mode).
        
           | meonkeys wrote:
           | What does Nextcloud do poorly that might be better/easier
           | with an alternative?
        
           | mekster wrote:
           | Not sure if it's based on WebDAV but Seafile is probably one
           | of the only few that works for self hosted file synchronizer.
        
       | Zetobal wrote:
       | I hate nextcloud with a passion and I just hope they can govern a
       | project like roundcube... used it for 20 years even through the
       | whole roundcube next debacle. That said roundcube itself is not
       | an oss project with a clean track record.
       | 
       | Nextcloud is the OSS equivalent of IBM and ticking boxes so it's
       | easy for management to pull the trigger but every feature is just
       | a half-assed buggy implementation. Gobbling up OSS funds and
       | fucking up government projects that try to rely on it. It's a
       | disgrace.
        
         | MarcusE1W wrote:
         | Hmm, I am using it for years and can't quite relate to your
         | passionate hate.
         | 
         | With regards to box ticking, that is probably something you
         | need to do if you want to compete with Gsuite and O365. Both
         | have sales teams which are influencing some decision makers in
         | organisations wherever they can. If you give these people the
         | opportunity to say 'Ha, we can't use Nextcloud because it does
         | not support XYZ' then they will. You never get fired because
         | you bought IBM. It is very difficult to get through this
         | barrier. Sometimes you need to put a bit of lipstick on your
         | pig, because others did it as well.
         | 
         | Plus, XYZ might be implemented half-aresed in Gsuite or O365 as
         | well.
        
           | Zetobal wrote:
           | You wrote it yourself "might be implemented half-arsed in
           | Gsuite or O365". You can be sure it's half-arsed with
           | nextcloud. For smaller deployments it might be fine but it
           | starts to get bogged down with more than 1000 users.
        
             | neurostimulant wrote:
             | NextCloud is just your typical PHP & MySQL webapp. The
             | scaling limit is how many connections your database server
             | can handles and how much iops your disk provides.
        
               | Zetobal wrote:
               | They are advertising a enterprise ready solution and it's
               | clearly not. No matter how much hardware you throw at it.
        
               | jospoortvliet wrote:
               | I beg to differ and so would our over 1000 customers,
               | none of them with less than 100 seats (we don't sell
               | below that). Most have 1000 users or more.
               | 
               | The largest has several tens of millions of users and
               | they are using Global Scale. One customer runs nearly 4
               | million users on a single cluster.
               | 
               | Nextcloud is a complicated beast, and scaling to tens of
               | thousands of users isn't trivial, but then that is what
               | Nextcloud Enterprise is for. So if you need a large scale
               | installation, no problem - contact our team and we get
               | you up and running.
        
               | arcza wrote:
               | "tens of millions"? you must specify what. hosting mail
               | with 20GiB average mailboxes? Or a publicly accessible
               | file share with a million monthly hits? Big difference. I
               | would not productionise Nextcloud for a large
               | organisation.
               | 
               | Finally there are very few orgs worldwide even with a few
               | hundred k employees and any firm would get huge Microsoft
               | discounts at that scale for products like SharePoint (on
               | prem), Exchange (on prem) and Office Server (on prem
               | also)... and oodles of support over a very mature product
               | which Nextcloud is simply not.
        
         | mekster wrote:
         | True but it does have the features that look attractive.
         | 
         | Too bad "beta quality everywhere" attitude never gets fixed.
         | Basic stuff like weird upload indicator on the web, desktop app
         | freezing when synching some 10GB or so and I don't even want to
         | touch most of the third party plugins which are at alpha
         | quality.
         | 
         | It's like a selfish girl that you need to treat carefully or it
         | starts crying real fast.
        
       | jonnycomputer wrote:
       | Comments here seem to suggest that Nextcloud isn't worth it.
       | Later today I'm supposed to talk with some folks at IT looking
       | for an in-house file-sharing/collaboration tool that
       | Dropbox/GoogleDrive is (or was, because after GoogleDrive price
       | hikes our institution ditched them). I was going to suggest
       | Nextcloud as a possible option to investigate...
        
         | muixoozie wrote:
         | I'm not sure all your requirements, but check out syncthing.
        
         | ar0 wrote:
         | I don't know... the overall tone seems to be a bit too negative
         | for me here.
         | 
         | I have used Nextcloud at home for years now without issues and
         | we also used it at a large university where it worked just fine
         | (from a user perspective; I don't know if it gave the
         | administrators nightmares). I do agree that they should invest
         | more time in polish and stability and less in swanky new
         | features that many won't need, but that would not lead me to
         | discourage anyone from using (or at least trying) Nextcloud.
        
         | this_user wrote:
         | NC is trying to do a lot, but it's not doing anything
         | particularly well. It feels like their development resources
         | are spread too thin to really polish any of the features. If
         | you just need file sharing, there are some projects that focus
         | on that that tend to work pretty well. I have also tried
         | running NC with OnlyOffice, but that seems to break every two
         | weeks. And even if it works, Google's tools are just so much
         | better. I would even choose O365 over this.
        
         | ipcress_file wrote:
         | If you're going to do this, look for a proven stable Nextcloud
         | solution. I followed one of the many guides on the web a couple
         | of years ago to install Nextcloud on Debian, which worked, but
         | the first major update broke it. I couldn't fix it because I
         | didn't know why it broke. You wouldn't want to be in that
         | situation with employees waiting for service to be restored.
         | 
         | Since then, I've been running an always-on Syncthing instance
         | as a "cloud hub" and that's been great, though I doubt it would
         | scale well.
        
         | no_wizard wrote:
         | you might want to check out ownCloud[0] if you're purely
         | interested in file sharing. Its all open source and you can run
         | your own server.
         | 
         | I can't attest to how well it runs currently, as I haven't used
         | it for a few years, but I used it a couple years ago and it was
         | pretty solid
         | 
         | [0]: https://owncloud.com/
        
         | clawoo wrote:
         | Yeah, you need to run away from Nextcloud as far and as fast as
         | possible.
         | 
         | I made the mistake of recommending it and setting it up for my
         | 10 person team earlier this year and it has only been constant
         | headaches.
         | 
         | Reporting bugs to GitHub is especially frustrating because the
         | devs will just discard them, regardless of how well documented
         | and reproducible they are. There was a mess with its Postgres
         | connection pool where it would quickly run out of available
         | slots if you used Collabora, the Google Docs clone, the devs
         | rejected the bug reports without a second thought although
         | there were many users who reported the problem.
         | 
         | This last hour I've been fighting it trying to reset a user's
         | password, it says that it "cannot decrypt the recovery key".
         | 
         | I check whether the recovery key is enabled for that user, it
         | says "Recovery key is not enabled".
         | 
         | I check whether encryption is enabled, it reports it as
         | "false".
         | 
         | It's by far the flakiest piece of software I've used in 2023.
        
         | deng wrote:
         | If you are willing to spend some money, rather look at OwnCloud
         | hosting or maybe self-hosting with professional support. While
         | NextCloud just added feature after feature and IMHO bit off
         | more than they could chew, OwnCloud started to rewrite things
         | in Go and improved speed and stability. Also, I hear their
         | support is better.
        
         | miedpo wrote:
         | I'm using Nexcloud currently, but an alternative for you to
         | check out for you might be Pydio.
         | 
         | It has a lot of the same features, and generally seemed a
         | little more stable. However, it was a little more painful to
         | configure, and has a few unique terminologies you'll have to
         | get used to. Also it's UI does load faster than Nextcloud, but
         | once loaded, it is a little less snappy.
         | 
         | For the user downloaded client, I found that it works, but is a
         | little less convenient than Nextcloud (no Automatic pinning of
         | the folder, no partial downloads to save space)
        
         | RealStickman_ wrote:
         | I guess it's fine if you want a widely integrated solution that
         | can do a lot of different things. I'm using it only for myself,
         | so definitely not representative of using it in a company but
         | maybe my experience helps.
         | 
         | The just working part, at least for me, are the calendar and
         | contact plugins. Never had any issues with those. File sync
         | with the desktop client works mostly fine on Linux where I use
         | it most of the time. However, I've run into issues with it on
         | Windows. Using the automatic bandwidth limit for example might
         | cause Explorer to freeze. [1] Also forget about the automatic
         | upload feature in the Android client, I switched to FolderSync
         | for a reliable experience.
         | 
         | I've managed to get OnlyOffice working, Collabora Office
         | previously broke for some reason. However latest upgrade also
         | broke OnlyOffice. The solution for this is to put the secret
         | and authorization headers into config.php in addition to the
         | OnlyOffice plugin settings. [2] No idea why, but that is a
         | thing.
         | 
         | My Nextcloud runs as a normal PHP application and I haven't had
         | any issues with upgrading yet. Going from, I think, version 23
         | on Debian 11 to 27.1 now on a different machine running Debian
         | 12 since I started using it.
         | 
         | Maybe I should find something more focused on file syncing, but
         | the all-in-one approach of Nextcloud and its various plugins
         | makes trying some new services very easy.
         | 
         | [1] https://github.com/nextcloud/desktop/issues/5031
         | 
         | [2] https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/onlyoffice-
         | nextcloud/issues/60...
        
         | marcosdumay wrote:
         | Nah, nextcloud is a reasonable enterprise file-
         | sharing/collaboration tool.
         | 
         | What you are seeing here is a lot of people trying to use it as
         | a file synchronization tool, and discovering that it's bloated
         | beyond reason (because well, it's a file-sharing/collaboration
         | tool) and the file sync functionality isn't even as good as
         | you'll get from specialized tools.
         | 
         | The root problem is that nextcloud started as a file sync tool,
         | and moved into other niche, and never bothered to communicate
         | it.
        
         | rockooooo wrote:
         | There is no FOSS file sharing solution that gets close to being
         | as usable, especially for sharing, as dropbox/drive.
        
           | albert180 wrote:
           | Google Drive is so good that it even loses 6 Months of Data
           | without noticing it, unless a customer writes them in the
           | forum
        
         | jospoortvliet wrote:
         | It'll depend on your requirements. Keep in mind that Nextcloud
         | is the largest on-prem collab platform out there, so more users
         | means more complaints... It is used in huge enterprise and
         | government installations so it can definitely work, but it
         | needs a decent setup. For a small company, use the Nextcloud
         | AIO container I would say. For a big one, get Nextcloud
         | Enterprise (starts at 100 seats) to make sure you get any
         | issues addressed quickly.
        
           | mekster wrote:
           | I have only been using NextCloud personally with a single
           | user but every instance I set up, there are basic problems
           | like apps freezing, (and GH issue seems to have stalled some
           | 6 months or so ago) and non polished interface really puts me
           | off but since there aren't a better alternative, I use it.
           | 
           | Seafile is a close call if it gets more attention to remove
           | rough edges and a bit more feature but interface looks more
           | polished.
        
       | jordemort wrote:
       | I really want to like Nextcloud. I had it all set up perfectly
       | earlier this year with their "AIO" setup. Then some upgrade came
       | along and completely destroyed my install, couldn't get the
       | containers to start after that, couldn't figure out how to debug
       | it; seemed like the only way to get it back on its feet was to
       | wipe and start over. I wiped; I haven't started over yet.
        
         | spinningD20 wrote:
         | I had this happen to me as well, though I remember that it was
         | either a docker or snap/flatpak/etc version of it. Got things
         | working but lost a few months of data, likely something I
         | foolishly did while trying to make things work. Stopped using
         | it and went with Seafile for a while - grew frustrated with
         | that and stopped syncing files between computers altogether.
         | 
         | Later on, when I set up an old dell xeon workstation as a home
         | server (using proxmox), I used the turnkey image of nextcloud,
         | and have (knock on wood) not had any issues at all.
         | 
         | Anyway - I wanted to ensure it was fully virtualized this next
         | time if/when this happens again. I have it backing up the base
         | vm once a week (I have the file storage separate/outside of the
         | vm). So... hopefully this doesn't happen again to the degree
         | that it did.
        
         | blkhawk wrote:
         | I have been upgrading my then owncloud setup now nextcloud
         | setup for the last 10 years or so almost without issue - most
         | issues I had where back when it was still owncloud. I think I
         | did a wipe back then once. Nowadays even if something goes
         | wrong I know what i can do. For instance i upgraded PHP too
         | soon once and had to manually patch it.
         | 
         | Anecdotal evidence tho. Results vary. I like nextcloud because
         | worst case all a wipe would cost me is a re-upload of my local
         | folders over a couple of hours.
        
           | jospoortvliet wrote:
           | Same here, but it's a big and complicated beast. I never lost
           | data but then with hundreds of thousands of servers out
           | there, somebody is bound to. Even if it's just due to bloody
           | cosmic rays ;-)
        
         | haroldp wrote:
         | > couldn't get the containers to start after that, couldn't
         | figure out how to debug it
         | 
         | Docker monoculture and it's consequences.
        
       | INTPenis wrote:
       | I sure hope there are no changes to standalone roundcube, because
       | I'm just starting to think nextcloud is too heavy.
       | 
       | I see people on selfhosting forums asking for alternatives.
       | 
       | It would be sad if they swallowed roundcube, which I remember as
       | a decent web email client.
        
         | charles_f wrote:
         | Rainloop is a good alternative IMO
        
           | mbirth wrote:
           | I hear SnappyMail is a fork of Rainloop with lots of
           | improvements.
        
             | charles_f wrote:
             | Oh thanks! OpenPGP support in Rainloop is really bad, I
             | ended up adding Mailvelope as a plugin. I'd gladly give it
             | a shot even if just for that.
        
       | gpvos wrote:
       | What I would like to have is a small Nextcloud installation (max.
       | 200MB, preferably even smaller) that I can host on a ultra-cheap
       | tiny server. I just need file sync, calendar and contacts. The
       | total size of the synced files isn't much either.
       | 
       | Nextcloud used to be small enough for this, but they kept adding
       | things, bundling word processors and other stuff I don't need,
       | meanwhile making the contacts and calendar optional. I have had
       | to move to a larger server only for this reason, to keep
       | Nextcloud at a supported version.
       | 
       | Does Syncthing have contacts and calendar syncing? Any others? I
       | like having a central server.
        
         | dchest wrote:
         | For calendars and contacts you can try Radicale if you don't
         | need web access: https://radicale.org/v3.html
        
           | charles_f wrote:
           | you can drop infCloud on top of any caldav/cardav to get a
           | UI. I've been using it with radical for a while.
        
         | MoSattler wrote:
         | A few years back I used to use SyncThing + DecSync for that
         | purpose, and it worked quite well. Looks like it hasn't been
         | updated in a while though.
         | 
         | https://github.com/39aldo39/DecSync
        
         | willyt wrote:
         | https://nextcloudpi.com might do it for you. I've been running
         | it on raspberry pi 4 with a Samsung 1tb usb3 ssd for a year or
         | two with no problems that weren't solved by turning it off and
         | on again...yet.
        
         | chappi42 wrote:
         | What is an ultra-cheap tiny server? Maybe a CX21 (6.37 EUR/mth)
         | at https://www.hetzner.com/de/cloud would fit. There are Docker
         | images and you only need to install the NextCloud AIO. Super
         | simple. Upgrade is also simple (we only did it once and it went
         | through perfectly).
         | 
         | Syncthing is nice but file-sync-only.
        
           | Volundr wrote:
           | I'd skip the server! Hetzners Storage Share gives you
           | NextCloud with admin privileges:
           | https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-share
           | 
           | This is what I'm using these days.
        
           | gpvos wrote:
           | A local provider that I like. Not actually ultra-cheap. You
           | only have 500MB of storage with the smallest hosting package.
        
         | mytdi wrote:
         | For some of the reasons you give, I prefer Owncloud over
         | Nextcloud. Owncloud is less bloated. I recently set up Joplin
         | notes to sync with Owncloud using WebDAV following instructions
         | on Owncloud's blog [0], it was easy and works well. I haven't
         | set up contacts and calendars yet, but would like to,
         | eventually. It looks like it can be done with CardDAV and
         | CalDAV [1]. [0]: https://owncloud.com/news/how-to-sync-notes-
         | with-owncloud-an... [1]: https://blog.evomailserver.com/how-to-
         | sync-owncloud-10-conta...
        
         | toxican wrote:
         | I'm fairly certain that you can disable the word processor, as
         | well as a lot of the other "core" features. Or at least I'm
         | seeing a whole lot of "disable" buttons when I look at the list
         | of active apps for my Nextcloud install.
        
           | gpvos wrote:
           | Yes, but they are still part of the package. If you have only
           | 500MB you easily run out of disk space for both the installer
           | and the actual installation. And I think they remain on your
           | disk, ready to enable. There is no easy way to remove them
           | completely.
        
             | jospoortvliet wrote:
             | In the AIO you have to explicitly choose to install them,
             | in the bare metal setup they are not installed unless you
             | choose so when you install for the first time. You're right
             | that Nextcloud has gotten bigger, but Collabora is in no
             | way a default part that you can't uninstall...
        
       | bityard wrote:
       | I've been running Nextcloud for family collaboration purposes
       | since before the fork from Owncloud. I've been pretty happy with
       | it overall.
       | 
       | My biggest gripe with it is the increasing schizophrenia of the
       | UX devs. One thing I _loved_ about Nextcloud was that they paid a
       | lot of attention to making it easy to navigate and use. The newer
       | UX "enhancements" seem to be all about maximizing (useless)
       | whitespace and making every widget as spherical as possible. The
       | calendar UI used to be a joy to use, now it's the most
       | frustrating calendar I have ever seen.
       | 
       | On the plus side, if you're using the docker image, upgrades are
       | a breeze. Just bump the tag on the image, redeploy, and you're
       | done. (It did take a _lot_ of effort to migrating my existing
       | data to the docker container, though.)
       | 
       | I also use Roundcube as my main email client. I've looked at
       | bunches of them, but Roundcube is the closest thing to a web-
       | based Thunderbird that I have seen. Unfortunately, this had a UI
       | "update" too and now practically nothing can be customized the
       | way I prefer. If someone forks Roundcube and brings back the old
       | theme, I will switch to it tomorrow.
        
         | TheCapeGreek wrote:
         | >On the plus side, if you're using the docker image, upgrades
         | are a breeze. Just bump the tag on the image, redeploy, and
         | you're done. (It did take a _lot_ of effort to migrating my
         | existing data to the docker container, though.)
         | 
         | As much as people rag on Snap, Nextcloud being available on it
         | is also super convenient if one doesn't feel like using Docker.
        
         | justsomehnguy wrote:
         | > It did take a _lot_ of effort to migrating my existing data
         | to the docker container
         | 
         | Or you could just use some external storage. Like SMB or
         | something. And then you would learn what updates aren't 'a
         | breeze'. And there is no built-in SMB support in the default
         | container.
         | 
         | Since I'm running it since OwnCloud days too, I have an opinion
         | on it and it's Not. Good.
         | 
         | Desktop client for Windows is miserable and sucks:
         | 
         | a) you have something with a name longer than 30 symbols? You
         | know need to guess what the full path of that file in the error
         | log
         | 
         | b) this is like 4th year when you have an option to see the
         | errors in a separate window, except it's... empty. Not an empty
         | error log, it' empty _window_
         | 
         | c) Oh, best part: if the client decided to update it would kill
         | your Explorer first (like -9), install the it's shit and
         | then... force reboot your machine without any questions
         | 
         | d) when you click on the client icon in the notification area
         | it shows multiple icons what you would thing would do
         | something. Except it's just opens the web-interface of the
         | instance
         | 
         | For years mobile client couldn't work properly with a self-
         | signed certs, which is quite ludicrous for a solution boasted
         | as the pinnacle of self-hosting.
         | 
         | UI overall is shit, it's a legacy of early 2010 concepts with
         | Googlisation on every not needed aspect. And just outright
         | stupid ideas, which 2.5 developers at NextCloud couldn't test,
         | like littering EVERY (sorry for caps) folder you navigate
         | through the web interface with README.md. And shitting bricks
         | on non case sensitive mounts, because yes, it's hard.
         | 
         | Server side is always running to pump out new versions, while
         | abandoning and deprecating addons. Oh, addon you are using is
         | now deprecated, besides being made a mere year ago? Tough luck.
         | Stay on the supported NC version. Except it's not supported
         | anymore because it's a year old now version.
         | 
         | Oh, since 2016 it's no longer a file syncing solution, it's
         | _collaboration software_ or even _groupware_. That means there
         | are now office suite, chat, contact lists and whatever else,
         | including an email client. This also explains why did NC
         | 'bought' RC. Except all those parts are not integrated good.
         | 
         | And finally it's a PHP app with a tons of legacy code. As soon
         | as something breaks you are drowning in multiple screen heights
         | of errors of PHP code. And consequently all performance
         | troubles are solved by throwing RAM and CPU at the instance.
         | 
         | /rant
        
           | goodpoint wrote:
           | > And finally it's a PHP app with a tons of legacy code
           | 
           | Finally? That's a security nightmare right there.
        
             | gjsman-1000 wrote:
             | I think legacy code in any language is a security
             | nightmare; not just PHP. Imagine a half-a-decade-old NodeJS
             | project...
        
               | Arelius wrote:
               | 5 years old? Really?
               | 
               | Or do you just mean because of the crazy dependencies in
               | a typical node project?
        
         | zikduruqe wrote:
         | > if you're using the docker image, upgrades are a breeze. Just
         | bump the tag on the image, redeploy, and you're done.
         | 
         | Or you could just run Watchtower beside it and it will
         | automatically update your docker containers.
         | https://github.com/containrrr/watchtower If you are OK with
         | automated updates.
        
           | cm-t wrote:
           | Or you could just use the snap, and you don't need to do
           | anything :)
        
             | dingnuts wrote:
             | Pending update of snap
             | 
             | Close the app to avoid disruptions
        
           | bityard wrote:
           | This is software that I rely on for my day-to-day tasks. I've
           | had upgrades break things SO MANY times, that I never do an
           | upgrade of "production" without specifically setting aside at
           | least 30 to 60 minutes of time to deal with any potential
           | fallout.
           | 
           | If we were talking about a video game, or some kind of
           | testing/QA environment, then sure, automatic unattended
           | upgrades would be fine.
        
         | ekianjo wrote:
         | > upgrades are a breeze
         | 
         | upgrades are a breeze even without docker... the self updating
         | function of nextcloud works very well.
        
           | zeagle wrote:
           | Yeah I run it baremetal. No issues at all.
        
             | josteink wrote:
             | I've had it bork my install so many times that in the end I
             | spent more time recovering nextcloud than actually using
             | it.
             | 
             | My instance is dead now, after I failed to recover it the
             | last time and couldn't be bothered anymore.
             | 
             | YMMV, but I'm out.
        
               | privong wrote:
               | > I've had it bork my install so many times that in the
               | end I spent more time recovering nextcloud than actually
               | using it.
               | 
               | I had issues with upgrading a few times on a modest VPS,
               | when trying to upgrade via the web interface. I've since
               | switched to upgrading via ssh by running the
               | `updater.phar` script[0] and haven't experienced an issue
               | upgrading since.
               | 
               | I of course don't know if this would've avoided the
               | issues you experienced, @josteink, but I wanted to
               | mention it in case others have a similar problem to what
               | I had.
               | 
               | [0] https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual
               | /mainte...
        
               | zeagle wrote:
               | That sucks. I'd be frustrated too. For me it just hosts
               | calendar and contacts for a few users and my files are in
               | seafile so perhaps the small footprint helps. In what way
               | did it break, I want to keep an eye out for this.
        
               | josteink wrote:
               | It was a custom-built LXC container I built on an Alpine
               | Linux base.
               | 
               | I used the Alpine packages to upgrade it, then afterwards
               | I used the Nextcloud admin scripts to migrate the schema,
               | apps & plugins.
               | 
               | Biggest clusterfuck I've ever dealt with. Not doing that
               | again.
               | 
               | TBF the Alpine-setup probably made everything worse, and
               | that's a lesson learned, but I'm just fed up and can't
               | bother setting up a new instance now.
        
           | ikidd wrote:
           | >self updating function of nextcloud works very well
           | 
           | Then that's a new development. I've been using it since about
           | v9 and it was a complete trainwreck that might have had a 25%
           | success rate until I gave it up and moved to the docker
           | around v17.
        
         | jacomoRodriguez wrote:
         | It's even easier with the all-in-one (aio) solution. Upgrades
         | via a simple UI, automatic Borg Backups, etc. I run this on
         | hetzner cloud with one storagebox for the files and one
         | storagebox for the backups. Runs nicely, gets updates, and as
         | the storageboxes do automatic snapshots, I have double backups.
        
           | teekert wrote:
           | Can you use a UI to upgrade the underlying container? It's
           | not with docker-compose?
           | 
           | If so that feels a bit like an anti-pattern, just like the
           | WordPress container which updates the WP files inside the
           | container itself, the container just contains the webserver,
           | php and database.
        
             | t-writescode wrote:
             | The AIO solution creates several docker containers that all
             | get updated through their assisted update process. In
             | general, I've been quite happy with it, myself. I have it
             | running on my Unraid machine. The only problem I have
             | intermittently is when Unraid seems to rename container
             | names in special circumstances. I have to go and recreate
             | the aio container. Otherwise, it's been very smooth sailing
             | for me; and, the AIO solution definitely runs faster than
             | my original single Docker container solution.
        
         | iggldiggl wrote:
         | > Unfortunately, this had a UI "update" too and now practically
         | nothing can be customized the way I prefer. If someone forks
         | Roundcube and brings back the old theme, I will switch to it
         | tomorrow.
         | 
         | ?? The old skins (Classic and Larry) are still available as
         | plugins via PHP composer, aren't they?
        
           | ikidd wrote:
           | Yah, though it's annoying you have to hack them into the UI
           | again with composer instead of having a plugin system in the
           | app that can just add them.
        
         | iamspoilt wrote:
         | I also have Nextcloud running on docker using linuxserver.io
         | image and the upgrade process is a breeze. I usually upgrade by
         | running watchtower once a month to update my docker images.
        
         | xp84 wrote:
         | > I also use round cube
         | 
         | > [ their useless UX designers ruined it ]
         | 
         | Why do you have to wait for someone to fork it? Can't you just
         | not update to the bad version? I thought that was a major
         | appeal of hosting your own email client like this.
         | 
         | And given the email protocols won't ever change, I would assume
         | it'll continue working the same for a decade or more.
         | 
         | (My only guess is a security worry, but this seems like a
         | rather niche thing that something this niche would be unlikely
         | to be attacked unless I were targeted by some state-level
         | actor)
        
           | JoshTriplett wrote:
           | A self-hosted personal server very much needs to be kept up
           | to date. This isn't a "state-level actor" issue; any
           | vulnerabilities in software like this, _especially_ in
           | software that someone might not update in a timely fashion,
           | will get scanned for _automatically_ and exploited when
           | found.
           | 
           | In _theory_ , the portions that are only accessible with
           | authentication are less security sensitive if you have only a
           | small set of trusted users, but that's still reducing the
           | security of your server to the security of your least
           | security-aware user.
        
             | xp84 wrote:
             | Hmm. I was imagining a personal server. If I were hosting a
             | webmail client personally, I wouldn't expose it to inbound
             | connections from the Internet at all, preferring to keep
             | such a thing inside my LAN and via VPN only.
             | 
             | Clearly I overassumed though, because you're right, when it
             | could be that one would have such a thing accessible to a
             | small team of people who don't use a VPN.
        
         | nfriedly wrote:
         | > docker image, upgrades are a breeze.
         | 
         | Maybe this has been improved, but I remember thinking that and
         | then it biting me because updating to the latest image
         | (linuxserver/nextcloud) wasn't actually updating nextcloud
         | itself, just the environment (php, etc.)
         | 
         | When I realized this, I had to go through several major
         | nextcloud upgrades, incrementally going from one major version
         | to the next.
         | 
         | Then it bit me again a few months later where nextcloud updated
         | their _maximum_ supported php version, and the docker image I
         | was on quickly bumped the bundled php version to the new
         | maximum, so the older version of nextcloud suddenly refused to
         | start - even to run the updater. I ended up finding the max
         | version check in nextcloud 's php code and commenting it out,
         | after that I was able to run the nextcloud update manually.
         | 
         | After being bit twice, I finally automated the full process so
         | that the nextcloud software is updated in addition to the
         | environment.
        
           | jax_the_dog wrote:
           | Having just dealt with this... can you share that automation?
        
             | nfriedly wrote:
             | So, the script I have is just this:                   sudo
             | -u abc php /data/www/nextcloud/updater/updater.phar --no-
             | interaction
             | 
             | Although, it looks like I need to add this also:
             | occ db:add-missing-indices
             | 
             | And, I thought I had it in my crontab, but now I don't see
             | the job there. I haven't touched it in months, and I'm on
             | the latest version of nextcloud, so presumably it's still
             | working. But I honestly can't remember how I set it up.
        
           | bityard wrote:
           | I just use the regular "official" docker hub image, not the
           | linuxserver one. Not sure what the differences may be.
           | 
           | The "major versions incremental upgrades" is a fundamental
           | nextcloud thing, to do with their database migrations I
           | expect. I was way behind and had to do three of them in a row
           | when I containerized my Nextcloud instance, but they all
           | worked fine, thankfully.
        
           | dzikimarian wrote:
           | Don't use linuxserver images. My feeling is they were done by
           | someone who doesn't understand docker very well. Frequent use
           | of supervisor, lack of logs on stdout, weird automagic config
           | approach.
           | 
           | It may feel convenient if someone did homelab without docker,
           | but will bite you in the long run.
        
             | jjeaff wrote:
             | hmm, are you sure about that? the whole reason I use the
             | linuxserver offerings is that they all follow the same
             | pattern of not using root privileges in the container and
             | also factoring the uid and group id out as compose
             | variables so you can match them to other containers if
             | needed.
        
               | johnmaguire wrote:
               | I think both are true - LinuxServer images are usually
               | well maintained, and they all use a common format, so
               | once you know how to configure one, it's easy to
               | configure the rest.
               | 
               | But they make a lot of decisions that are not "best
               | practices" in Docker - such as running multiple processes
               | per container, under a supervisor.
               | 
               | IMO, they are great for single-machine home deployments.
        
               | dzikimarian wrote:
               | Yes their images are standardized, which helps if you
               | want "linuxserver experience" and don't care about actual
               | image.
               | 
               | Try to understand what actually happens on container
               | startup and you're stuck in three layers of base images
               | that they use as framework, with hooks on each layer.
               | 
               | Wanna inherit some image and eg. copy something into
               | config dir? Nope. Config dir is overwritten by symlink,
               | by script on some layer. Actual config dir is moved
               | somewhere to fit their internal convention.
               | 
               | Their framework allows them to quickly add new
               | applications and keep them updated. But it's pain to work
               | with.
               | 
               | I guess if you're willing to learn it and you're 100%
               | sure, you're not going to modify image or configure
               | application beyond of what they exposed - you might be
               | okay using it. Otherwise just get official image.
        
         | mulmen wrote:
         | What happened to modern UX design? In the 90s it was driven by
         | hard science and serving users. Now it feels like a competition
         | to prevent anyone from accomplishing even the simplest task.
         | Why do modern UX designers have such contempt for their users?
        
         | encom wrote:
         | >docker image, upgrades are a breeze
         | 
         | I'm running on "bare metal" Digital Ocean VPS (like god
         | intended), and I just use the web-based updater and it works
         | well. APT on Debian handles everything else.
        
         | jklinger410 wrote:
         | Love nextcloud in theory, but it is a tangled and ugly mess of
         | a UI. It is slow and they spend time on features that only the
         | devs seem to care about.
         | 
         | Problem with free and open source software is that you have to
         | follow the passion of the devs, which can sometimes optimize
         | out of usefulness.
         | 
         | Because of this, I think this is very bad news for roundcube.
        
         | brazzy wrote:
         | >On the plus side, if you're using the docker image, upgrades
         | are a breeze.
         | 
         | I've had problems that required fiddly manual interventions
         | twice after updating to a new major version.
         | 
         | And what keeps me from using it for anything other than File
         | synching is the lack of a functioning integrated backup
         | mechanism. There is a plugin, but it's unusable shite (tries to
         | keep the entire data in memory, big has been open for years),
         | and I really don't want to depend on a self-made combination of
         | Filesystem and DB backup.
        
       | throw555chip wrote:
       | Meanwhile on Reddit:
       | https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/186g3ak/ownclou...
       | 
       | What are the odds, a positive article relating to Nextcloud
       | posted on HN the same day a negative article is posted about
       | Owncloud on Reddit.
        
         | downrightmike wrote:
         | Good job Nextcloud marketing team. Probably just pushed up the
         | announcement
        
           | jospoortvliet wrote:
           | Ha, I wish. Been working on this for weeks, it's even a
           | little annoying oC kind'a pooped on the party by having that
           | massive security hole...
        
       | ape4 wrote:
       | Roundcube had a recent CVE. If a user just read a mail they would
       | get hit, ouch. https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-
       | list/vendor_id-8905...
        
         | ale42 wrote:
         | If I remember well Outlook (or was it Outlook express?) used to
         | do something very similar (speaking of 15 years ago or so),
         | except it was infecting your local PC instead of the web
         | server.
        
       | AndroTux wrote:
       | Speaking of Roundcube: If you're hosting it without apache (as
       | in: without htaccess support), make sure the logs directory and
       | files aren't exposed publicly. They can contain access tokens and
       | even encrypted passwords (encrypted with a default password
       | unless manually changed during installation), and follow a known
       | file structure, so it's quite common for people to get owned this
       | way.
        
         | figmert wrote:
         | > ~~If you're hosting it without apache (as in: without
         | htaccess support),~~ make sure the logs directory and files
         | aren't exposed publicly.
         | 
         | Never expose any logs to strangers for anything anywhere
        
           | AndroTux wrote:
           | Sure, that's always sound advice. However, most projects are
           | usually designed in a way that their logs are either not
           | exposed at all (due to not being in the webroot for example),
           | or have measurements in place to avoid exposing them (like
           | WordPress for example). Roundcube just puts them there and
           | you have to actively think about excluding them from your
           | webserver configuration. Plus, they dump _really_ sensitive
           | information in there by default. That's why I wanted to
           | explicitly point it out in this case.
        
             | crtasm wrote:
             | Can you configure Roundcube to store them outside the
             | webroot?
        
       | ekianjo wrote:
       | why use the phoronix link when the original source has much more
       | info? https://nextcloud.com/blog/open-source-email-pioneer-
       | roundcu...
        
       | charles_f wrote:
       | Since we're talking about email, contacts, calendars and files,
       | thought it might be useful to summarize what I tried and landed
       | on. Note that I'm only using it for my own personal setup, not
       | shared with a company: - SyncThing - current solution for some of
       | the filesync I'm doing (mainly personal projects). I have a small
       | server at home that works well as an "always on" client that I
       | can access. - OwnCloud - used to use it for files, cal and
       | contacts. It's much lighter than NextCloud, pretty easy to setup.
       | I've had corruption issues with the files, which arguably might
       | have been my configuration - and made me leave it behind -
       | Radicale + infCloud - Used it for a while for contacts and
       | calendar. It's working well, and the API being carddav+caldav,
       | you can use anything you want to sync. The main issue I had was
       | that you can't sent and invite, which is a hassle. - NextCloud -
       | current solution for calendar and contacts. I'm using it mainly
       | because my shared hosting is providing an instance with my
       | contract, and _they_ handle backups. I don 't like the UI much,
       | it's slow and a bit clunky, I mainly use it when I want to invite
       | someone. I don't use files. I tried using their mail solution but
       | never made it work. I'm using Davx5 to sync on my phone, and the
       | carddav/caldav sync on mac. I may be moving at some point. -
       | Rainloop - very good alternative to roundcube. My only grief with
       | it is that I never figured how to search across folders. -
       | Roundcube - pretty good, and lots of plugins you can use to make
       | it do what you want. - Also used a simple SSH + SCP client to do
       | file sync'ing. I'm just hesitant with that, since someone getting
       | access would mean full access to the server.
        
         | jospoortvliet wrote:
         | You might like to hear that in the upcoming release we re-wrote
         | the front-end of Files, that'll be snappier. Hope it'll work
         | well for you!
        
       | awill wrote:
       | this isn't good for anyone but Roundcube investors. Roundcube is
       | a well-liked product. Nextcloud is a PHP app with all kinds of
       | security holes.
        
         | stracer wrote:
         | By that logic, it should be good for Nextcloud investors.
        
           | jospoortvliet wrote:
           | The good news is that neither has investors...
           | 
           | With regards to security, nothing is perfect but I'm
           | absolutely positive that Nextcloud is ahead of the vast
           | majority of open source projects. And if you know of a
           | security hole, go and collect your USD 10K at HackerOne.
        
             | chappi42 wrote:
             | True. I don't know of any other "holistic" project that we
             | could have choosen instead of Nextcloud. One very very
             | important point is the AIO installation method. So easy and
             | no fear to have forgotten something important. -- You saved
             | us from Google (no way) and Microsoft365 (a possibility),
             | thank you!
        
       | poisonborz wrote:
       | Oh no... Roundube was the top selfhosted email client. Nextcloud
       | is great, but having everything and the kitchen sink maintained
       | within and by it is worrying.
        
       | sylware wrote:
       | Do they have a noscript/basic (x)html portal?
        
       | butz wrote:
       | It would be nice if Nextcloud would come in small modules, and
       | one could effectively run only webmail, and add more features in
       | the future on demand. Having everything in one just increases
       | attack surface and makes more work managing it all.
        
         | jospoortvliet wrote:
         | I have good news for you: https://apps.nextcloud.com
         | 
         | Nextcloud is nothing more than a collection of small apps. You
         | can disable even core things like sharing.
        
       | germandiago wrote:
       | How does NextCloud compare to Sandstorm? It is the same kind of
       | thing? What are the best alternatives to Sandstorm?
        
       | Psychoshy_bc1q wrote:
       | nextcloud is great but painfully slow, they should use something
       | modern instead of ancient shit like php
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-11-29 23:00 UTC)