Hey, what’s up?
Today, I wanted to talk about the current NextCloud setup that I built for myself. I want to talk about it because in the last days and weeks, many things have happened and I changed many things.
If you’ve been following me, you probably saw that I tried Librecloud.host for Nextcloud. I also changed my web hosting provider because iBrave.io announced that they are closing the service. I am now using Spaceship.com.
With all these things happening, I found a way to host NextCloud with Spaceship which basically allows me to let go of Librecloust.host. With my current setup, I get to have all my hosting needs under one subscription with Spaceship.
Before, I explain more deeply into details, I just wanted to say that I had a great experience with Librecloud.host. The service seems to be functioning well and the customer support was always quick to reply and give me assistance. I still believe Librecloud.host to be worth the money.
SOFTACULOUS
One very interesting thing about Spaceship.com is that it integrates with a script installer called Softaculous. On Spaceship, it’s not very advertised and obvious, but is still there. Softaculous allows you to install many web applications, most of them being open source, into your web hosting panel.
As of right now, it has over 380 applications that you can use and install with a one-click installation. It also has features to help to maintain like auto-updates, cloning, etc.
You can go into the list to see if something could be interesting to you. What I’m more interested in here is NextCloud because it supports it.
So if you’re using a web hosting provider like Spaceship.com and wish to host your own NextCloud instance, you could check to see if your provider integrates with something like Softaculous.
My current hopes with Softculous is that, someday, it will allow me to self-host federated instances like Mastodon, Pixelfed, Lemmy, Matrix, PeerTube, etc. For now, they don’t support them.
ADVANTAGE
The advantages of using this method is that it puts many services under one service or subscription.
In my case, I own some domain names, I host a few WordPress websites, I have my own professional emails, etc. Now, I can also add my NextCloud into this bundle allowing me to manage it by myself in one place with everything else.
If you’re going to go that path, I would recommend that you choose a decent web hosting plan that has a good amount of storage, bandwidth, file limit and performance since you’re going to use it for your cloud storage.
I currently have the PRO version under the free trial, which seems to be sufficient for me, but I might change it for the SUPREME, just for the sake of it.
DISADVANTAGE
One of the disadvantage that I found is that since you’re going to manage it by yourself, yes that means full control over your NextCloud instance, but that also means that you might not have the proper support for it.
One of the good thing about Librecloud.host is that they can help you manage your NextCloud instance because they specialize in the software. Yes, you can still have customer support from Spaceship, but they act more like a web hosting provider. They won’t be able to help you as much.
For example, if I go into my NextCLoud and look at my current warnings, I have a bunch of warnings that I don’t really know how to fix. When I was using Librecloud.host, I had nothing, no warning. I assume they were either optimizing them or simply hiding them.
But even if I’m a bit worried about these warnings, my NextCloud instance is working great, and I am currently hosting some of the files.
Another thing to keep in mind is that I’m becoming very dependent on my web hosting provider. If you look at some reviews online, you can see that some people get their accounts banned. Most web hosting providers don’t really like that we use their service for cloud storage and backups. Those things usually use a lot of server resources. If you’re going to use this method, I would make sure to check the terms of services of your provider and see if you’re actually allowed to do it. If you do, make sure to not abuse it and keep your account safe.
If we check Spaceship’s hosting acceptable use policy, they first say that we shouldn’t use the services for illegal and bad activities such as frauds, violence, pornography, etc. They also give us a maximum of 10GB for music, video and other multimedia files. I’m assuming that there things might change as web hosting become cheaper over time, but for now, I will limit the usage of your NextCloud instance and not go too crazy about it.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I decided to cancel my Librecloud.host subscription because I found a way to create my own NextCloud instance using my current web hosting provider and the Softaculous app installer.
It allows me to manage all my domains, websites and web applications under one service or subscription. That being said, I would limit the usage of the NextCloud instance to be sure to remain compliant to the term and conditions of the web hosting provider.
So far, it seems to be working fine, but I’m a bit worried about all the warnings. I don’t have the NextCloud support from the provider. We’ll see in the future how that goes.
At some point, I would love to see federated instances like Mastodon, Pixelfed, Lemmy, Matrix, PeerTube and more to the list of supported apps by Softaculous. I love the one-click install that they provide, and I would love to self-host these applications in the future.
For now, I will be using Spaceship for all my hosting needs, if it becomes too complicated with NextCloud, I might come back to Librecloud.host. That being said, my long term goal is to not rely on a web hosting company. Ideally, the best would be to self-host everything by myself. I just don’t have the technical skills yet.
So that’s pretty much it, I hope this was helpful to you. If this blog was valuable to you, you could consider following me on social media and if you have any thoughts or comments, you can leave them below.
I hope this helps, peace!
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