First off - The more I read about Nextcloud, the more impressed I get! I am not a native English speaker, but do as well as I can.
I am new to Nextcloud, but not new to Linux and several other OSâes.
But I am wondering a bit about the different products listed on the Nextcloud website.
Are they really different? Or are we just talking about different configurations and use cases?
I want to set up Nextcloud to use it for me and my family at first, then later maybe add a separate install for my small business.
My main idea is to set up a server with a VM host and run a few different things. I am not trying to stuff everything into Nextcloud, not stuff Nextcloud into something else. I want to keep each thing in its own VM.
Nextcloud (Google replacement)
NAS (storage and backup)
Possibly mailserver
VPN
Are there different starting points that will influence what you end up installing?
Youâre including a lot of things that arenât Nextcloud in your question. Nextcloud does not provide a mail server or VPN, and it isnât really a NAS in the traditional sense either.
To your question, no, there are not different installations for different things. You install Nextcloud itself which is just the main file management part, and then if you want to incorporate anything like Talk or Collabora, you add it after.
For the original question, Nextcloud is useful for various configurations and use cases. It is standards compliant, so just add whatever kind of storage you want on the back end and let Nextcloud serve it up.
You can definitely set up one instance for home and another for work.
You can indeed. In fact, I have two running. I have a Dell PowerEdge running VMware ESXi. On that I have two instances of pfSense, one which serves my home network, and one which is a testing environment I use for work. The two networks are completely separate. Behind that, I have a DMZ set up behind the home instance which is where my personal Nextcloud is located, so in the event it did get hacked, the rest of my home network would be inaccessible.
That whole setup is âin the boxâ on ESXi. You can get as fancy with it as you like.
First of all there is just one Nextcloud server. On the website youâll read about Nextcloud Files, Nextcloud Talk, Nextcloud Groupware, but that refers to different apps that you can install to extend the basic file server and sharing functionality.
But when itâs about the surrounding OS, then there are different methods or appliances to get your Nextcloud server up:
There is a simple archive that you can download and place into your webservers directory. But for this the surrounding OS must be setup including the webserver with PHP handler and database server.
There is a web installer which requires the above as well and is mainly addressed to web hostings where you donât have access to the underlying OS, to make the setup easier.
There is an official Nextcloud VM which can be run directly by any/most virtualisers which seems to fit your needs best, as you want it on an own VM anyway.
There are as well containers for Docker and Snap, if you run one of those anyway on a machine or VM.
Last but not least there is NextCloudPi which you can install on a fresh Debian-based OS as well as 3rd party OS like the one I maintain - DietPi - which automate Nextcloud and other installs, hence donât come with the VM/container abstraction layer.
Whichever you choose, the Nextcloud server itself has the same functionality on any of those, except that additional features like database, coTURN (for video calls), Collabora/office servers and such might me differently easy or flexible to install on different base systems/appliances.
I am a little bit surprised here. Some of the respondents seems to try to pick a fight, some seem to totally misundestand what I am talking about. But for now, I will assume my English is not good enough to explain what I mean, so I will try harder
First of all, please go to the home page of Nextcloud and click on the menu saying âProductsâ. You should see this:
And this is what I refer to in the title of my post:
âAre there really different products? Or just use cases?â
I also repeat this in the post, writing:
"But I am wondering a bit about the different products listed on the Nextcloud website.
Are they really different? Or are we just talking about different configurations and use cases?"
Then I go on to explain how I am thinking about setting up my own server - without asking any questions about that part.
And then repeating the question above, just in a little different manner. But it is basically the same question:
âAre there different starting points that will influence what you end up installing?â
So there is only one question here.
I am sorry that I was not able to explain this clearly enough so that I would get a warmer welcome here. I am sure this is not one of those elitist communities that shun newcomers that ask a simple, but perfectly legitimate question, right?
In fact what you see there on the screenshot is only parts of one product, what youmay call use cases. However, afaik there are two versions of nextcloud, the fully open source one, you can download and install, which is the version you will use for both of your instances i guess, and an enterprise veraion which has dev support and some features for distributed multi server instances that include data replication and load ballancing stuffâŚ
So, let me try to sum it up as simple as possible:
There is only one Nextcloud software.
The products they are talking about are use cases, and in some of them use cases with some plugins/apps added.
The enterprise version is the same as the free version, but with support added. And maybe a little easier way to do some of the things.
Did I miss anything?
If this really is it, then I think Nextcloud is really over-doing it on their website. I understand the need to look cool and be able to compete with other things on the market. But simplicity is also a good thing
Nextcloud is a file sharing/storage system. There is also a plugin system to extend functionality. Your âuse caseâ is still going to be file sharing/storage primarily.
The enterprise version is the same as the free version, but with support added. And maybe a little easier way to do some of the things.
Having never used the enterprise version Iâm going off what the website says - so yes, in this case itâs with support. If youâre using nextcloud in an enterprise environment support is vital to have.
If this really is it, then I think Nextcloud is really over-doing it on their website.
Everything on the website is possible with nextcloud. It would be stupid to not advertise those features.
So, let me try to sum it up as simple as possible:
There is only one Nextcloud software.
The products they are talking about are use cases, and in some of them use cases with some plugins/apps added.
The enterprise version is the same as the free version, but with support added. And maybe a little easier way to do some of the things.
Did I miss anything?
If this really is it, then I think Nextcloud is really over-doing it on their website. I understand the need to look cool and be able to compete with other things on the market. But simplicity is also a good thing
For the record, your English is fine (native speaker here). Your questions were absolutely, 100% clear, concise, and understandable. They are questions that I, as a relatively new Nextcloud user, had as well.
I still use Nextcloud daily, and love the product. However, upgrading from Nextcloud 15 â 16 â 17 â 18, then seeing the new Nextcloud branding of âNextcloud Hub,â itâs absolutely natural to question (my summary): âIs this a new Nextcloud product or are the components that make the âHubâ part plug-ins of the original Nextcloud product?â
I looked all over the Nextcloud website for this information, and had to end up here at your summary on the user forum to find it. Thank you for your summary/solution. It helped me, and I suspect others.
