I hear people say that about Nextcloud often, which is part of why I haven’t bothered setting it up yet.

Is there a technical reason why it’s slow and clunky? Any problematic choices with how it was built?

  • @nbailey@lemmy.ca
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    569 months ago

    It needs some tweaks to be snappy. The defaults are really bad.

    • change database from SQLite to a proper database like MySQL or Postgres, and configure the database server to use your memory fully
    • increase the PHP memory limit from the default (128M on many distros) to >1G, the more the better
    • install APCu in-memory cache for PHP
    • add Redis as additional cache
    • turn off the antivirus extension, if installed (ClamAV is useless)
    • use http/2 on Apache/nginx to increase performance with multiple connections

    https://docbot.onetwoseven.one/services/nextcloud/

  • Strit
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    239 months ago

    Likely because it’s mainly written in PHP and the default database is SQLite, which is not great for large deployments.

    But I use Nextcloud daily on a low end machine and I don’t think it’s that bad.

      • @douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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        29 months ago

        PHP for sure can have a negative effect depending on how they are handling their data access through.

        The application code itself running on PHP probably isn’t a problem but the influence that PHP may have over your data access patterns can be a source of significant performance problems.

        • @TCB13@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          but the influence that PHP may have over your data access patterns can be a source of significant performance problems.

          Let me rephrase that for you: the influence that poorly written PHP code, an utter and total disregard for good software development practices and the general ineptitude shown by the NC developers have over your data access patterns is the source of significant performance problems. We also have to consider all the client side issues, poor decisions and a general lack of any testing.

          Fixed :)

    • @TCB13@lemmy.world
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      -49 months ago

      Likely because it’s mainly written in PHP and the default database is SQLite

      Maybe the issue isn’t the technologies but rather the complete and utter ineptitude of NC’s developers and bullshit decisions their business team makes. Every tool is a great tool if you know how to use it properly.

  • @MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    9 months ago

    I assume it’s just not built to be fast, because it’s still slow even with MySQL, Redis, high PHP memory limits, a fast CPU and NVMe storage, and so on.

    Last time I tested it I had a load time of 1-2 seconds just to bring up the files interface, it feels laggy no matter what. And syncing a folder with ~50k files and 40GB or so in size takes a very long time compared to Syncthing or just syncing over SMB.

    • Possibly linux
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      19 months ago

      Maybe use Postges? I’m using it with MariaDB and Redis and its pretty fast.

    • @plasticcheese@lemmy.one
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      69 months ago

      Yep. When I first set up my instance, I couldn’t believe how slow it was. I set up redis using the Nextcloud documentation and its like butter now.

  • @GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml
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    129 months ago

    Nextcloud is slow and clunky if you run it on a banana.

    Run it on a “normal” server and everything is smooth.

    • @muelltonne@feddit.de
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      119 months ago

      Yeah, and don’t pretend that comparable software like Google Drive, Sharepoint or Dropbox is faster.

      • Björn Tantau
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        09 months ago

        I compare it to a samba or (s)ftp share. I wish it was similar in speed and ease of use.

        It’s become better since I migrated over to PostgreSQL. But it’s still not great.

          • Björn Tantau
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            49 months ago

            I’d argue that the primary function of Nextcloud is to serve files. Of course the other services lack other stuff, which is why I’m still using Nextcloud. But I still wish its performance was similar to pure file servers.

            • @cron@feddit.de
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              89 months ago

              I think the file server analogy isn’t really fair. Nextcloud is better compared to Microsoft 365 or Google GSuite.

              All of these offer file storage, but also much more.

              • Björn Tantau
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                29 months ago

                Sure. But serving files is the core functionality of Nextcloud. You can remove every other functionality. But the files app cannot be removed.

        • @dust_accelerator@discuss.tchncs.de
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          39 months ago

          PostgreSQL is definitely a boost to performance, especially if you offload the DB to a dedicated server (depending on load, can even be a cluster)

          Nevertheless, it probably has much to do with how it’s deployed and how many proxies are in front of it, and/or VPN. If you have large numbers of containers and small CPU/low memory hardware, and either running everything on one machine or have some other limitations, it’ll be slow.

          Admittedly, I’m not very familiar with the codebase, but I feel Apache isn’t improving the speed either. Not exactly sure how PHP is nowadays with concurrency and async, but generally a microservice type architecture is nice because you can add more workers/instances wherever a bottleneck emerges.

      • @TCB13@lemmy.world
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        -19 months ago

        Dropbox is faster.

        Dropbox is A LOT faster than NC ever was. But if you want to talk about speeds and reliability then use Synching. Add FileBrowser if you want to have a WebUI on a central “server” to access all your files and you’ll be 100x better than the garbage that NC offers.

      • Possibly linux
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        29 months ago

        In fairness anything is slow on lower end hardware. The tradeoff is that it is very power efficient

    • @TCB13@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Run it on a “normal” server and everything is smooth.

      Sure until you try with a high end 12 core CPU on NVMe storage all kinds of caching, redis etc. and you find you it doesn’t perform particularly better.

      • Possibly linux
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        29 months ago

        It runs fine in a VM with a few cores, 4gb of ram and Sata SSDs

        The entire Nextcloud folder is on a network share as well.

    • @rambos@lemm.ee
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      19 months ago

      Im running it on celeron g3930 and its great. I did remove most extensions (this was the trick I believe) and using MySQL. I have only 2 users tho

  • @sardaukar@lemmy.world
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    89 months ago

    I keep trying it every couple of years to see if it works better, but nah. Even with MySQL/PG + Redis, it’s still slow and clunky. Maybe in 2026

  • Sibbo
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    79 months ago

    If you want fast file sync between computers, use syncthing

    • @TCB13@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      * fast and reliable. Add FileBrowser if you want to have a WebUI on a central “server” to access all your files and you’ll be 100x better than the garbage that NC offers.

  • Matt The Horwood
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    59 months ago

    I have been running nextcloud for some time, it was running very quickly. But the v28 update seems to have broke some of the extra apps, like groupfolders.

    That said, it’s very much a system that needs good hardware to run it well

    • poVoq
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      09 months ago

      Because that is not its intended function. If you want that just use Easy Sync with Nextcloud or another WebDAV server.

      • Saik0
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        29 months ago

        Your both crazy. My shit syncs just fine.

          • Saik0
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            17 months ago

            Settings -> auto upload. Set your options and folder mapping to the cloud. If you want it to work all the time turn off battery optimization of the next cloud app. It’s been working for myself and my wife since at least 2018.

            • @angrynomad@infosec.pub
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              17 months ago

              Does it auto download then too? I swear I looked all through that app. Couldn’t get KeePass or obsidian to sync automatically

              • Saik0
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                17 months ago

                I used to do keepass through it. So yes. But I haven’t done that in a hot minute. I do still have a master sync folder for some stuff… but I have tried to open any of those items on my phone in a long time.

                Last I checked it worked. I haven’t needed that in a long time though so that might have changed. But it’s not that hard to just grab the file in the nextcloud app too.

  • @Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyzB
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    7 months ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    Git Popular version control system, primarily for code
    HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
    NVMe Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
    SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
    SSO Single Sign-On
    VPN Virtual Private Network
    nginx Popular HTTP server

    6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.

    [Thread #580 for this sub, first seen 7th Mar 2024, 12:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

  • BrightCandle
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    49 months ago

    It has been slowly improving. It used to be a lot worse but I have a lot less issues with it now than I did before all the changes. Its not the fastest best way to do anything, there are better calendar, file sync, email etc etc applications out there in every category that run better but its also quite an easy way to make a lot of things happen.

  • @ikidd@lemmy.world
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    49 months ago

    Nextcloud is fine. Use the All-in-One master container, it’s faster than any other way I’ve installed it. I’ve tried every method from bare metal to docker to NextcloudPi and it’s the fastest and easiest to maintain.