this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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I hear people say that about Nextcloud often, which is part of why I haven't bothered setting it up yet.

Is there a technical reason why it's slow and clunky? Any problematic choices with how it was built?

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 9 months ago (11 children)

It needs some tweaks to be snappy. The defaults are really bad.

  • change database from SQLite to a proper database like MySQL or Postgres, and configure the database server to use your memory fully
  • increase the PHP memory limit from the default (128M on many distros) to >1G, the more the better
  • install APCu in-memory cache for PHP
  • add Redis as additional cache
  • turn off the antivirus extension, if installed (ClamAV is useless)
  • use http/2 on Apache/nginx to increase performance with multiple connections

https://docbot.onetwoseven.one/services/nextcloud/

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Thank you for these suggestions. But I have a few questions.

How can I do the 2nd and 3rd point if I am using docker/podman containers?

Why is ClamAV useless?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

Not sure how to do that in docker, I’ve run mine as a plain old PHP-FPM site for years and years. It might be something that can be tweaked using config files or environment variables, or might require building a custom image.

ClamAV is slow and doesn’t catch the nastiest of malware. Its entire approach is stuck in 2008. It’s better than nothing for screening emails, but for a private file store it won’t help much considering that you’ll already have the files on your system somewhere. And most importantly, it slows down file uploads 10x and increases CPU load substantially. The only good reason to use ClamAV for nextcloud is if you will be sued if you don’t!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

ClamAV is good for detecting simple threats. However, I hear it eats ram.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This has me curious, not to derail the topic, but I always hear that ClamAV is the best way to go for Linux. Is there a free solution that you would recommend in place of it?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I think the best solution is to use good internet hygiene

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Out of curiosity, why isn't this stuff done by default?

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Likely because it's mainly written in PHP and the default database is SQLite, which is not great for large deployments.

But I use Nextcloud daily on a low end machine and I don't think it's that bad.

[–] Vub 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

SQLite sure but I doubt PHP has any negative impact.

[–] douglasg14b 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

PHP for sure can have a negative effect depending on how they are handling their data access through.

The application code itself running on PHP probably isn't a problem but the influence that PHP may have over your data access patterns can be a source of significant performance problems.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I assume it's just not built to be fast, because it's still slow even with MySQL, Redis, high PHP memory limits, a fast CPU and NVMe storage, and so on.

Last time I tested it I had a load time of 1-2 seconds just to bring up the files interface, it feels laggy no matter what. And syncing a folder with ~50k files and 40GB or so in size takes a very long time compared to Syncthing or just syncing over SMB.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Use redis and it will feel smoother.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Yep. When I first set up my instance, I couldn't believe how slow it was. I set up redis using the Nextcloud documentation and its like butter now.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Nextcloud is slow and clunky if you run it on a banana.

Run it on a "normal" server and everything is smooth.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (11 children)

Yeah, and don't pretend that comparable software like Google Drive, Sharepoint or Dropbox is faster.

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[–] jr52 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I tried running nextcloud on an allwinner RiscV chip and it was dead slow lol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

In fairness anything is slow on lower end hardware. The tradeoff is that it is very power efficient

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[–] sardaukar 8 points 9 months ago

I keep trying it every couple of years to see if it works better, but nah. Even with MySQL/PG + Redis, it's still slow and clunky. Maybe in 2026

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If you want fast file sync between computers, use syncthing

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Its not slow and clunky for me

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

PostgreSQL makes it faster still.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I have been running nextcloud for some time, it was running very quickly. But the v28 update seems to have broke some of the extra apps, like groupfolders.

That said, it's very much a system that needs good hardware to run it well

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Yeah, it's been broken since v27. I'm still on v26 because of this.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (12 children)

What I dont get is why so many years later, their android app still won't auto sync

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[–] BrightCandle 4 points 9 months ago

It has been slowly improving. It used to be a lot worse but I have a lot less issues with it now than I did before all the changes. Its not the fastest best way to do anything, there are better calendar, file sync, email etc etc applications out there in every category that run better but its also quite an easy way to make a lot of things happen.

[–] ikidd 4 points 9 months ago

Nextcloud is fine. Use the All-in-One master container, it's faster than any other way I've installed it. I've tried every method from bare metal to docker to NextcloudPi and it's the fastest and easiest to maintain.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
Git Popular version control system, primarily for code
HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
NVMe Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
SSO Single Sign-On
VPN Virtual Private Network
nginx Popular HTTP server

6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.

[Thread #580 for this sub, first seen 7th Mar 2024, 12:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

https://downloadmoreram.com/

And maybe CPU, and also need some good old fine tuning

[–] MTK 3 points 9 months ago

I run the official docker with mariadb and it was never an issue for me

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