I tried Nextcloud a while back and was not impressed - I had issues withe the speed of the Windows sync that were determined to be "normal" with no roadmap to getting fixed. I'm now planning to move off Windows desktop so that won't be an issue - so I thought I'd try again.
I went to nextcloud.com, clicked on Download-> Nextcloud server -> All-in-one -> Docker image - Setup AIO. This took me to the github README at Docker section. I'm already running docker for other things so I read the instructions, setup a new filesystem for my data directory and ran the suggested docker command with an appropriate "--env NEXTCLOUD_DATADIR=". I'm then left with a terminal running docker in the foreground - not a great way to run a background server but ok, I've been around for a while and can figure out how to make it autostart in the background ongoing. So I move on to the next step - open my browser at the appropriate URL and I'm presented with a simple page asking me to "Log in using your Nextcloud AIO passphrase:". I don't have a Nextcloud AIO passphrase and nothing I've read so far has mentioned it. When I search for it I get some results on how to reset it, but not much help. I could probably figure that out too, but after reading some more I found that Nextcloud requires a public hostname and can't work with a local name or IP address. I'm already running my home LAN with OpenVPN and access it from anywhere as "local" - I don't really want to create a new path into my home network just for Nextcloud.
I'm sorry - I know this sounds like a disgruntled rant and I guess it is. I just want to check that I'm not missing obvious things before I give up again. All I want is a simple file sync setup like onedrive but without the microsoft.
Agreed, Nextcloud has gone from a lean little personal cloud to a hulking enterprise hub.
If you're after something that'll just sync your files between devices, try Syncthing. If you need files available online, maybe something like filestash or, like somebody else suggested, SFTPgo.
There are also tiny, lean calendar and contact server apps out there if you decide you need those. After self hosting NC for years I'm really happy spreading out the tasks over dedicated services rather than having all my eggs in one basket.
I replaced Nextcloud with syncthing (files) & radicale (calendar, contacts & todos)
No-one used the calendar on NC, they just used their phones, Outlook, etc
No-one used the photo gallery on NC - that's now Immich ... again, with syncthing.
During the early days, just doing an update would break things.
For a small home setup, NC is too big, too clunky and just not the right tool.
I love syncthing!! I have one VM with only debian an syncthing and that machine is backed-up frequently. All others PC's and vm's syncthing to that one machine.
All of them sync ~/downloads
All machines I use for coding also sync ~/code
My desktop machines sync ~/documents.
And so on. Works great (for me)
the base install is still pretty lean, its only hulking if you enable all their new junk, but if you don't enable all that, the default, at least when installed it was quite lean.