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For anyone looking for an open-source self-hosted alternative: I've been really happy with Syncthing [0]. It's as invisible as Dropbox once set up. It supports

For anyone looking for an open-source self-hosted alternative: I've been really happy with Syncthing [0]. It's as invisible as Dropbox once set up. It supports arbitrary topologies (two peer machines syncing, one central always-on machine and lots of clients, etc.); with a VM in the cloud it can closely emulate Dropbox (sans web-based file browser), but it will also support e.g. just a desktop at home and a laptop that syncs when it's on the LAN. Pretty useful! [0] https://syncthing.net/ https://syncthing.net/

tryptophan 7y ago
In my experience, syncthing works as advertised, however the UI is a bit of a mess(as many open source projects have). Especially the android app. The status of what the program is doing at the moment is not communicated very well. The refresh rate for status updates seems to be very low, and so you have connection status being disconnected, then jumps to connected after a few seconds of frustration("why isn't it connecting!!"). Then it sits there at 0% ("whats wrong!), and jumps to 64% after a few seconds, then 99%. Then sits there("is something wrong?"). Eventually it finishes and everything is fine("yay it worked!"). Love the project. Hope they get UI experience down though, as it is the main thing holding it back in my opinion.
- shaan7 7y ago
  Try Nextcloud, the UI is quite good (both the website and the app).
  - JamesAdir 7y ago
    +1 for Nextcloud. The last versions are stable, well designed and really easy to install and maintain.
    - distances 7y ago
      > +1 for Nextcloud. The last versions are stable, well designed and really easy to install and maintain. I agree on all but the last part. They only provide step-by-step upgrades, so when I finally realize it's time to upgrade I'm so far behind that it's much easier to nuke the instance and start from scratch than do the ten upgrades one by one. I'm sure this isn't a problem for more diligent maintainers though.
      - shaan7 7y ago
        I used to have the same problem. Then I discovered NextcloudPi which automatically updates (and has other nice things like automatic setup for Letsencrypt).
  - adimitrov 7y ago
    While nextcloud has a lot of features, a kanban board, caldav and all the bells and whistles, what it lacks is a usable file sync feature. The bugs have been open since way before the thing was called next cloud, but they have not been addressed. What you're stuck with is a "sync" client that opens a new connection to the server for every 4kb file you transfer. If you have a lot of those, it's lights out. Syncing my document folder would have taken several weeks with nextcloud, it took less than half a day with Seafile and Syncthing.
  - paulcarroty 7y ago
    PHP, ultra slow in comparison with Dropbox or Google Drive.
    - shaan7 7y ago
      Slower than Dropbox but much, MUCH faster than Google Drive.
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  When used as these directories will eventually be in sync it works great. When the user expects something to sync this second with visual confirmation it does not. In fact syncing too frequently automatically would be nice for the ui but bad for battery life on mobile. Maybe it just needs a connect and sync now button for users to hammer.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pingec 7y ago
  I agree, I think it is a fantastic product and I use it a lot, however the Android app is really confusing and doesn't really work that well.
peterburkimsher 7y ago
"For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
- el_benhameen 7y ago
  I don't think this really applies here. The commenter isn't saying "why would anyone use Dropbox when they could just roll their own with these open source tools", they're saying "this product is a good option for those who are specifically looking for an open source alternative".
  - petepete 7y ago
    He's referencing a comment from the original Dropbox announcement thread (linked). It's famous because it misses the point of Dropbox spectacularly.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
      Sure, but Syncthing doesn't miss the point at all,so it's slightly out of place to bring up that line.
    - el_benhameen 7y ago
      Right, but my point is that the person he sent it in reply to didn’t miss the point in the same way.
    - Lowkeyloki 7y ago
      Or does it? You certainly wouldn't run into an arbitrarily imposed device limit.
      - hrktb 7y ago
        It’s interesting to see how FTP became so fringe, when at a its peak pointing a browser at a FTP url would be enough to browse anonymously.
scarface74 7y ago
No iOS version. All of the other alternatives integrate with the Files app and can be used in the file picker.
guruz 7y ago
You can also try ownCloud [0] which can be installed on a LAMP server and has possibility to access from all platforms with both syncing and mounting. You can also hook in existing storage as backend. [0] https://owncloud.org/ https://owncloud.org/
- moviuro 7y ago
  I use both owncloud & syncthing, but they serve different needs. I use OwnCloud to share stuff with friends an family, but I use syncthing for syncing stuff across my "fleet". The main advantage of syncthing is that it runs standalone even on servers where I have no privileges. See https://try.popho.be/securing-home.html https://try.popho.be/securing-home.html & https://try.popho.be/byeunison.html https://try.popho.be/byeunison.html
radarsat1 7y ago
Can you recommend a reasonably priced cloud VM for mainly file storage?
- artificialLimbs 7y ago
  I recently started using a Digital Ocean droplet for my Nextcloud server. It seems very nice so far and I love the PhoneTrack addon. It helped me map out where we're going to put some of our buildings on our property. I am going to look into mouting my home server's 2TB ZFS array via NFS on my droplet this week, and then reinstall Nextcloud and use that mount point for the user data.
- m0nty 7y ago
  Depends what you mean by 'reasonable' but I've always been happy to pay Hetzner c. €22 per month. You do get a lot of storage with some of their servers. https://www.hetzner.com/sb https://www.hetzner.com/sb
  - paulcarroty 7y ago
    They storage is slow as shit and always been.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      If it's just a sync backend then does that matter?
- cfallin 7y ago
  I use GCE (Google) for this purely because they had the lowest per-byte cost for block storage, at least when I looked. The instance itself has the smallest CPU/memory config. IIRC my bill is about $7/mo for the instance with separate 200GB volume.
  - radarsat1 7y ago
    Ah, that's somewhat reasonable, thanks.
zimpenfish 7y ago
Alas, fsync() appears to be (still) broken which means there's no viable iOS client. But that's my only complaint with Syncthing - it's extremely helpful for sharing metadata between machines.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  Oh. There is an iOS syncthing client named "fsync" for some reason.
  - zimpenfish 7y ago
    Alas, that's the broken one. It seems to be able to see the other hosts in my swarm but can't actually sync any data. Except sometimes. But then only random files.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      I know it's the one you were calling broken, I'm just surprised they picked such a confusing name. It was very strange to wonder why the fsync function would be broken or why it would prevent syncing files.

tryptophan 7y ago

In my experience, syncthing works as advertised, however the UI is a bit of a mess(as many open source projects have). Especially the android app. The status of what the program is doing at the moment is not communicated very well. The refresh rate for status updates seems to be very low, and so you have connection status being disconnected, then jumps to connected after a few seconds of frustration("why isn't it connecting!!"). Then it sits there at 0% ("whats wrong!), and jumps to 64% after a few seconds, then 99%. Then sits there("is something wrong?"). Eventually it finishes and everything is fine("yay it worked!"). Love the project. Hope they get UI experience down though, as it is the main thing holding it back in my opinion.

shaan7 7y ago
Try Nextcloud, the UI is quite good (both the website and the app).
- JamesAdir 7y ago
  +1 for Nextcloud. The last versions are stable, well designed and really easy to install and maintain.
  - distances 7y ago
    > +1 for Nextcloud. The last versions are stable, well designed and really easy to install and maintain. I agree on all but the last part. They only provide step-by-step upgrades, so when I finally realize it's time to upgrade I'm so far behind that it's much easier to nuke the instance and start from scratch than do the ten upgrades one by one. I'm sure this isn't a problem for more diligent maintainers though.
    - shaan7 7y ago
      I used to have the same problem. Then I discovered NextcloudPi which automatically updates (and has other nice things like automatic setup for Letsencrypt).
- adimitrov 7y ago
  While nextcloud has a lot of features, a kanban board, caldav and all the bells and whistles, what it lacks is a usable file sync feature. The bugs have been open since way before the thing was called next cloud, but they have not been addressed. What you're stuck with is a "sync" client that opens a new connection to the server for every 4kb file you transfer. If you have a lot of those, it's lights out. Syncing my document folder would have taken several weeks with nextcloud, it took less than half a day with Seafile and Syncthing.
- paulcarroty 7y ago
  PHP, ultra slow in comparison with Dropbox or Google Drive.
  - shaan7 7y ago
    Slower than Dropbox but much, MUCH faster than Google Drive.
michaelmrose 7y ago
When used as these directories will eventually be in sync it works great. When the user expects something to sync this second with visual confirmation it does not. In fact syncing too frequently automatically would be nice for the ui but bad for battery life on mobile. Maybe it just needs a connect and sync now button for users to hammer.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pingec 7y ago
I agree, I think it is a fantastic product and I use it a lot, however the Android app is really confusing and doesn't really work that well.

peterburkimsher 7y ago

"For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

el_benhameen 7y ago
I don't think this really applies here. The commenter isn't saying "why would anyone use Dropbox when they could just roll their own with these open source tools", they're saying "this product is a good option for those who are specifically looking for an open source alternative".
- petepete 7y ago
  He's referencing a comment from the original Dropbox announcement thread (linked). It's famous because it misses the point of Dropbox spectacularly.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    Sure, but Syncthing doesn't miss the point at all,so it's slightly out of place to bring up that line.
  - el_benhameen 7y ago
    Right, but my point is that the person he sent it in reply to didn’t miss the point in the same way.
  - Lowkeyloki 7y ago
    Or does it? You certainly wouldn't run into an arbitrarily imposed device limit.
    - hrktb 7y ago
      It’s interesting to see how FTP became so fringe, when at a its peak pointing a browser at a FTP url would be enough to browse anonymously.

scarface74 7y ago

No iOS version. All of the other alternatives integrate with the Files app and can be used in the file picker.

guruz 7y ago

You can also try ownCloud [0] which can be installed on a LAMP server and has possibility to access from all platforms with both syncing and mounting. You can also hook in existing storage as backend. [0] https://owncloud.org/ https://owncloud.org/

moviuro 7y ago
I use both owncloud & syncthing, but they serve different needs. I use OwnCloud to share stuff with friends an family, but I use syncthing for syncing stuff across my "fleet". The main advantage of syncthing is that it runs standalone even on servers where I have no privileges. See https://try.popho.be/securing-home.html https://try.popho.be/securing-home.html & https://try.popho.be/byeunison.html https://try.popho.be/byeunison.html

radarsat1 7y ago

Can you recommend a reasonably priced cloud VM for mainly file storage?

artificialLimbs 7y ago
I recently started using a Digital Ocean droplet for my Nextcloud server. It seems very nice so far and I love the PhoneTrack addon. It helped me map out where we're going to put some of our buildings on our property. I am going to look into mouting my home server's 2TB ZFS array via NFS on my droplet this week, and then reinstall Nextcloud and use that mount point for the user data.
m0nty 7y ago
Depends what you mean by 'reasonable' but I've always been happy to pay Hetzner c. €22 per month. You do get a lot of storage with some of their servers. https://www.hetzner.com/sb https://www.hetzner.com/sb
- paulcarroty 7y ago
  They storage is slow as shit and always been.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    If it's just a sync backend then does that matter?
cfallin 7y ago
I use GCE (Google) for this purely because they had the lowest per-byte cost for block storage, at least when I looked. The instance itself has the smallest CPU/memory config. IIRC my bill is about $7/mo for the instance with separate 200GB volume.
- radarsat1 7y ago
  Ah, that's somewhat reasonable, thanks.

zimpenfish 7y ago

Alas, fsync() appears to be (still) broken which means there's no viable iOS client. But that's my only complaint with Syncthing - it's extremely helpful for sharing metadata between machines.

Dylan16807 7y ago
Oh. There is an iOS syncthing client named "fsync" for some reason.
- zimpenfish 7y ago
  Alas, that's the broken one. It seems to be able to see the other hosts in my swarm but can't actually sync any data. Except sometimes. But then only random files.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    I know it's the one you were calling broken, I'm just surprised they picked such a confusing name. It was very strange to wonder why the fsync function would be broken or why it would prevent syncing files.