Hi @treesMcGees — these are my thoughts based on how federation in Nextcloud works today (plus a few caveats).
What federation does allow
-
Nextcloud federation means that you can share files or folders from one instance with a user on another Nextcloud instance, and that remote folder/group will then “mount” inside your own instance.
-
If you add both servers as “trusted servers” to each other (Admin > Sharing / Trusted servers), federation becomes more seamless — including user autocomplete when sharing.
-
Besides files/folders, federation in Nextcloud (within Nextcloud Talk and other “Hub” components) also enables cross-instance chat and calls.
-
The main benefit: you can have multiple separate installations (for example one for yourself, one for family) — without shared DB, users, or passwords — and still connect them only through sharing, preserving isolation while enabling cooperation where needed.
What federation is not — what you should NOT expect
It’s important not to overestimate federation: in Nextcloud federation is not the same as “cloning” or “mirroring” servers. Specifically:
-
Files will not be automatically replicated or synchronized between installations. The remote content always stays physically on the host server. If that server goes down, the federated folder becomes inaccessible.
-
This means that if your goal is to have content available locally and synchronized on both servers, federation alone is not enough — it is not designed as a replication or fail-over mechanism.
-
Many features (calendars, contacts, third-party apps) are not federated — federation is primarily focused on files and, within Hub, communication.
-
If you plan to use one desktop/mobile client connected to two separate installations, that’s possible (the client supports multiple accounts). But they will not appear as a single unified cloud — they remain fully separate.
When it does make sense to have two installations + federation
For example, if you want:
-
one installation for yourself / experiments / technical stuff,
-
and another separate one for family or people you trust less,
— and you only want to occasionally share certain folders or files between them, then federation is perfectly reasonable. You get isolation + optional collaboration without mixing everything together.
So federation is ideal for collaboration between isolated instances, not for creating “one cloud with two servers”.
My recommendation regarding your original question
If your intention is: to have two Nextcloud installations — one “main/family” and one “for yourself/experiments/premium use” — and sometimes share some folders with the family or yourself across them, yes, federation is a sensible solution. It’s not “madness” — but you must be aware of its limits: federation ≠replication, and there is no unified global login across servers.
If, however, you expect full synchronization (mirroring of data, resilience, fallback, etc.), federation will disappoint you — in that case you need another approach (shared storage, RAID, rsync + scan, clustering, or other sync mechanisms).
Note: This post was written with the help of an AI assistant as a writing aid only. The opinions, solutions, and technical recommendations are fully based on my personal experience.
More about how and why I use AI to write forum posts:
Is there limitations to installing Nextcloud via CT template on Proxmox - #4 by vawaver