2y ago

FOSS version of google docs to run on a home server?

So I want to build a home server to use as a media server, and to back up my photos etc.

I am also currently doing an online course, and happen to spend some time at work as well as at home working on it. I don't like using Google where I can help it, but I find google docs really useful. So I'm wondering if there's an open source application that works essentially the same, but I could run off my own server? It would have to be web-based as I use Windows at work and can't install new programs :/

edit: Thanks everyone for your suggestions! I've got quite a few leads to follow now, it should be fun!

64 comments

https://owncloud.com/getting-started/
or
https://www.onlyoffice.com/download-docspace.aspx#docspace-community
or
https://nextcloud.com/install/#instructions-server
- Nextcloud is laggy and bloated, would not recommend
  Good application but performance sucks
  
  It's fine if you don't set it up on a dogshit slow rPi and use postgres/redis in the docker compose. Every time I see this comment, it's because of configuration errors or horrible hardware.
  Man, use Sharepoint on anything under a dual Xeon and see true lag.
  
  Sounds like someone wasn't using redis
  
  What you mean bloated? It is laggy in web browser, but using client apps solve that problem. It would be awesome if its more snappy, but I couldnt find anything better for my needs. What do you use?
- I've seen owncloud merge files together. Like, you open one file and see data from another file inside it. That to me was a dealbreaker.
- Docker OnlyOffice HW requirements are a bit... Odd?
  
  What, you don't have 6 cores and 12GB of RAM on your 2€/month VPS?
  
  Your comment made me check that, and yeah, those requirements can be extreme for someone like me who look to use it for two pcs and a phone on a 6th gen intel nuc
  
  I run the Community Edition of OnlyOffice documents server on my home server in Docker. My server has a Core i77 7700 and 32GB of RAM. And tons of other Docker containers. No issues.
  
  Those specs seem likely to be extrapolated from the resource usage of their SaaS solution 😳
  Wouldn't be surprised if it actually ended up needing that though, some game servers for example will happily chomp down 10GB+ of RAM with just two people online doing nothing
Try Nextcloud. You might need to setup nextcloud office (collabora)
In addition to other suggestions, there's Collabora Online
https://awesome-selfhosted.net/tags/office-suites.html
- Some options on here that I wasn't even aware of! Nice!
https://cryptpad.fr/
You might also wanna check yunohost.org . It's a well organized self hosting platform where you can install with few clicks and has huge amount of Foss apps, including office and media ones and Nextcloud that others suggested.
- or if you don´t want to host it yourself: https://qlick.cloud and use Nextcloud which comes with Collabora Online installed.
- Nextcloud needs a heaping helping of a disclaimer before anyone installs it.
  Use the Docker or Podman images, they'll include most things a lot of first time users leave out that render Nextcloud buggy and inconsistent. It includes a cache, and about half of the security issues preconfigured out of the box.
  Installing it native from a guide with zero explanation beyond "welp, there's the start page" as the final step really doesn't do much for people and there's a lot of guides out there like that for Nextcloud.
  
  Even with Docker, my feeling is that BC is something extremely fragile andd one has to be quite careful when updating it, for instance.
- With OnlyOffice !
Seafile w/Collabora
I adore Seafile and this looks like a great option. I haven't been able to get it going on my instance yet, but I'm still learning all of this self hosting and FOSS stuff.
After a lot of searching (granted, years ago) I landed on
Nextcloud with only office.
Nextcloud is pretty awesome. Open source, well supported, new versions like once or twice a year, aetric shittonne of plugins, its awesome.
Onlyoffice feels a lot like Microsoft office, but is online open source, and allows multi user editing, which was always a bit of a pain point with colabora.
I’m using Onlyoffice and it works really well. Although I use it with kDrive from Infomaniak, I’m almost sure you can run it on your own server.
In fact I managed to ditch Google for everything but I can’t find a good replacement for Google photos which I’m not using anymore.
- In fact I managed to ditch Google for everything but I can’t find a good replacement for Google photos which I’m not using anymore.
  Immich is trying to be that, but it's still in heavy development.
  Also here a comparison of multiple ones: https://docs.librephotos.com/docs/user-guide/features/
  
  Immich is working pretty well for me. Even the search does a decent job of recognizing the things in the pictures.
  I'm not sure what Google photos has that Immich doesn't, and I've been using Google photos for years.
  
  Thanks for the answer.
  I remember looking at these but I think the fact that the pictures would be on my kDrive was also a problem.
  Maybe with something like WebDAV it could work.
- @Dariusmiles2123 @JoelJ
  for photos, I decided to buy a raspberry pi two years ago and to host photos and videos for my familly, using a free software with application on mobile phones (ios and android).
  The compagny has a hosted offer, but i prefered to do in my own.
  software is: https://piwigo.org/
  and forum is there: https://piwigo.org/forum/
  Enjoy
  If question don't hesitate.
  
  Thanks for the answer.
  I’d really want to keep my pictures on my kDrive and just have some remote access to the pictures via whatever protocol.
  Maybe what I need doesn’t exist and I’ll have to wait until kDrive gets its own photo management tool😇
Etherpad
OnlyOffice?
I just use syncthing and set up the appropriate send /receive permissions for each folder
When I want to access those files remotely, I just sftp / ssh into the server. (Someone more knowledgeble than me can help you with that part, I just install Tailscale on my devices for remote ssh)
sure it may not be elegant, but is pretty easy to maintain in the long run (see complaints about updating / setting up nextcloud in this thread)
maybe this will help with setup. Note he is doing bidirectional sync, but one way sync works too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBVTedUWbfg
edit: forgot to mention, this is cross platform across Mac, Windows, Android, and Linux. Not sure about iOS
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://piped.video/watch?v=dBVTedUWbfg
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Seafile and OnlyOffice are quite stable.
Groff
- thats really not helpful

64 comments