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

JoelJ@lemmy.world to Linux@lemmy.ml – 132 points –

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

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.

This is true, with a couple gigs of RAM and SATA storage Nextcloud is not at all bad. Assuming an instance with not that much simultaneous users.

It feels like slow sometimes, then after an hour with M365 at work it doesn't feel slow at all.

I ran it on a Dell EMC server blade and it was still awful. I couldn't help but think I was doing something wrong, because its performance was shockingly bad. I also couldn't get any of the office stuff to work acceptably, so I've given up on it for the time being.

Is there a way to transition from MariaDB to Postgres? I used the mariadb / redis version of the docker-compose, but now I hear everyone says Postgres is better for performance?

Create your users in the new install, move each users files to the created folders from your old install, and use the OCC addfiles command to enumerate the new files into the new db.

There is a db migration command that I used to do the same thing, was pretty painless, just needed to run that and then update the config iirc

Thanks. Would occ files:scan work as well?

That's the one. I haven't used it for a while, sounds about right.

Sounds like someone wasn't using redis

You got me there

I was also running it on a pi 4 though because I don't want a high powered machine sucking up energy and kicking out heat 24/7

Give redis a try, it significantly sped up the user experience in my testing.

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 was running the desktop app and the web app. I meant the server is laggy, though as it was melting my raspberry pi down to do something I could achieve with much lighter weight tools

Running on a raspberry pi it was struggling to serve even one user

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?

I have that on my RPi 50B! /s

We joke, but I actually have an 8-core Orange Pi with 16GB RAM and a 512GB NVMe SSD that performs really well running Debian/Gnome!

Yes, I know these are far more powerful than RPi4s. I just wen with RPi because of cost and community...

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.

I mean... My "servers" are a cheap VPS with 2 GB ram and a RPi 4 with 4 GB ram. Doubt any of them would be able to run OOCE decently.

I was curious, so I took a look at what it was using. At idle, it sits at 927.4 MB, and 0.1% of my CPU (the 7700 is only a 4 core CPU). I opened and edited a Word document on OnlyOffice (I have it connected using the Nextcloud connector). It spiked to 1GB of RAM, and momentary spikes to 35% of CPU, and then back down to 0.1-0.2% of CPU. I'd say it's worth trying at least. Worst case scenario, you delete the Docker container if it's unworkable.

However, I think the Community Edition is lighter than advertised.

Oh, well. Thank you for your test. I may give it a try, then.

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

Or rather they want to discourage self-hosting in favour of their SaaS.

But the OO Document server will happily run with about 1gb RAM and small CPU use.

edit: ah this is about the full OO suite. Well most of that is written in bloated asp.net so no wonder.

Try Nextcloud. You might need to setup nextcloud office (collabora)

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.

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.

The mobile app sometimes gets stuck while updating new photos, or just doesn't run the upload in background even though it's activated. The web app looks and feels great though.

You do have to turn off battery saver for the background process. Phones tend to not like background processes. That would cause the behavior you're seeing.

Settings > Apps > App battery usage > Immich > Set to "unrestricted"

Also I have mine set to a ten minute delay, maybe that's why I haven't noticed. Maybe try adding a small delay to the load?

(Primarily I wanted a chance to delete photos before they uploaded.)

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😇

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