Host on your own hardware to avoid server fees. Use a free dynamic dns service, I used duckdns for a few years before getting my own domain. Are there other fees I’m forgetting?
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
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I mean, you're forgetting the additional power costs that you'll have to pay for running your own hardware, plus maybe ISP fees if you want to upgrade for better upload speeds.
Power cost depends. I use a thin client (J4105 CPU), and it idles at 4W. Idling is what it does 95% of the day. That power usage is lower than my modem, and a drop on the bucket compared to my (relatively low power) desktop PC. And I say that as a German who pays a disgusting 0.4€ per kWh.
Oh, I completely agree, it's still going to be fairly cheap, especially if it idles a lot, I just wanted to point out that it's not going to be free free.
true i didnt think about that i mean yes your right its gonna cost on that front but it shouldnt be too bad tho
You think the OP wants a hardware powered by solar power? What is for you "free"? I think you are going too far here.
not that i know of no thanks for the advice
Get a raspberrypi (or similar sbc), second hand computer, or a NAS and host it yourself. You'll have to pay for hardware and power, but assuming you already have an Internet connection, that's it.
a raspberry pi has been something ive been looking into for awhile now im considering getting one in the near future
In my experience nextcloud was unbearably slow on a Raspi 3b. I'd recommend a an intel j4125 based micro computer, I got mine second hand for about £80 and it's many times faster than the Raspi.
It should run fine for personal use on an rpi4 or 5. The sd card is definitely a bottle neck though, so using a fast usb3 ssd for that probably makes a big difference.
Have you tried NextcloudPi? It's a special build for SBCs and seems to work much better than my current server (HP Microserver Gen 8) for NC anyway. I am using a pi4 though, so ymmv on a 3b
Servers cost money, nothing can change that. But you could use a computer at home thats running all the time and then use a dynamic dns service (there are free ones) to access your home server from everywhere. That way you've got the electricity cost of an always running computer, so it's not entirely free either. Maybe use a sbc like raspberrypi, bananapi, odroid or the like, these are very efficient.
If you consider using a paid VPS instead, I can recommend contabo, since they are very affordable and work like a charm, e.g. the 200GB SSD variant for 4,50€/month: https://contabo.com/de/vps/
@words_number it seems the 200GB one costs 17,49€ a month, though.
No, for the 4,50€ one you can choose betseen either 50GB extra fast NVMe storage or 200GB SATA SSD storage, which should be fine for a private nextcloud.
Look up the Oracle cloud free tier. Combine that with an desec.io for DNS service and you are good to go.
Yeah. They made so much money in their java enterprise and they just want to get a hold in the cloud market and not get irrelevant. Their always free their is generous compared to all other clouds.
but who know, how long this will stay...
But let me warn you: Deleting your account or even disconnecting credit card is going to be a journey.
Somehow I won't able to login to overall Oracle account after some time, just on Cloud. This basically locked me in endless loop of support people redirecting me because they wasn't able to do anything. After months what worked was a privacy inquery after legal complain.
interesting. my credit card will likely expire before i manage to remove it
No company is just going to host a server for you for free, a (virtual) server for running nextcloud will cost you at least a few bucks a month. As others have already said, you can run a server at home on your own hardware, but this is also not free (hardware cost, electricity, etc.) and you will additionally have to deal with any hardware issues & replacements yourself.
thats true i could just host my own at home using a computer im not normally going to use for daily use
That can be a good solution at least if electricity costs are not a big deal. If power is expensive in your area, it might be worth to buy something more power-efficient, like a raspberry pi (assuming they're not completely sold out right now).
It may be cheaper to host on a VPS. It is like $7 per month with backup. Other option is use your own hardware that is already running all the time for some other reason. Our media center computer is on all the time so we use it to run Nextcloud and any other service we want.
Other option use Syncthing instead.
Before I stopped fediverse, I was hosting lemmy on the cheapest hetzner ARM instance, with backups it was like 6€, so probably slightly below $7. Nextcloud has an ARM version so that would work.
Of course, only 40gb storage. I run nextcloud on an Intel VPS, it's one of the few SSD + HDD offerings I've ever seen, and I got it on sale, so it's less than 5€ paid yearly for 40GB + 500GB.
Edit: autocorrect
@YugiohMaster88 not really free, but maybe you can get a cheap PC from a thrift store or something like that (not first hand) and install Linux on it, then set it up as a Nextcloud server. If you live in a small flat like me then this is likely not possible though.
thats a good idea thanks
What do you mean by different companies?
You get one server or instance and pay only one company. No need for multiple different.