i have a question im trying to find a way to self host a nextcloud local instance for free without paying any money every month to different companys or sites is there anyway to do this?
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/
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
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.
What do you mean by different companies?
You get one server or instance and pay only one company. No need for multiple different.
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.
