Considerations for selecting a Nextcloud provider to sych your phone for personal use (free tier)

[Matchbox]

I’m just looking for an alternative to Apple and Google. https://nextcloud.com/providers/ gives me a random choice every time I go there. Different providers offer different features (apps?). I don’t care about storing large files at a Nextcloud provider, yet.

The free tier size is not an issue, I’m not sure if different providers offer more or less free storage in their free tiers. I just want to sync a few documents. And maybe notes and calendars and contacts? Frankly, I’m not sure how much of Apple and Google cloud syncing services can be replaced by a Nextcloud offer.

So even though the size of the free tier is not an issue for me, other perks are more important, this question is interesting. Let’s say a provider now gives X GB at its free tier offer, a few years in they give 2X GB. Will their old users be upgraded with the increased free tier offer?

Another interesting question is location, GDPR laws, and portability. I like GDPR regulation by default, but let’s say I travel to America or Asia for some time. It’s cool if the provider has servers here and there, too, and I can tell them I’m going to be in let’s say Asia for a few months, I want my data to be moved from their European servers to their Asian servers. It would be cool to do this with one click. Then I’m moving back to Europe, with another click I’d move back my data to the provider’s European servers.

Portability. God forbid, a providers goes out of business. Ideally I would be able to download all my data (not that much data as I stated above) with one click, register to another provider, upload my date with yet another click and everything is being put in its place again including files (and apps? notes, calendar, contacts; again, I’m not sure now much Apple and Google cloud functionality can Nextcloud replace). I’m new here.

[tflidd]

@Matchbox

Let’s say a provider now gives X GB at its free tier offer, a few years in they give 2X GB. Will their old users be upgraded with the increased free tier offer?

That is up to the provider.

@Matchbox

Another interesting question is location, GDPR laws, and portability. I like GDPR regulation by default, but let’s say I travel to America or Asia for some time. It’s cool if the provider has servers here and there, too, and I can tell them I’m going to be in let’s say Asia for a few months, I want my data to be moved from their European servers to their Asian servers. It would be cool to do this with one click. Then I’m moving back to Europe, with another click I’d move back my data to the provider’s European servers.

Well you need a larger provider with a few locations. However, I’d wonder if that would be part of their free plans. It sounds more like a possible premium option.

@Matchbox

Portability. God forbid, a providers goes out of business. Ideally I would be able to download all my data (not that much data as I stated above) with one click, register to another provider, upload my date with yet another click and everything is being put in its place again including files (and apps? notes, calendar, contacts; again, I’m not sure now much Apple and Google cloud functionality can Nextcloud replace). I’m new here.

There is no click option where you can easily transfer your account. If you have a decent provider, it is possible to get data (the files) and database stuff, so you can move to a new server/provider. Some I have seen promise you to provide you with this data anytime you want to you can move easily.

[just]

When first using Nextcloud, I hoped for this same level of functionality. It does not exist.

• Data is stored on each individual instance. Best to consider a librehost if you are looking for gdpr compliance and a focus on community.
• GDPR compliance is limited to sending a request notification to an admin, with no other details or confirmation received
• See this server request for gdpr data portability and this request for a google takeout like method for admin support to exports all your Nextcloud app data from a single button. There is also no ability to import such data either.
• See this request to mirror federated data between instances. Currently it only remains on the separate instances, so if anything remote goes offline you are out of luck unless you are syncing it via a client application.
• easily mirroring and migrating user data across servers can be accomplished with Zot integration