Item: Nextcloud
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Nextcloud is used as a fully flagged PIM solution (calendar, addresses, messaging) with the addition of easy file sharing. With the available desktop clients for all major operating systems and mobile clients, everything can stay in sync. As this product is open source and can be hosted on-prem, the only costs involved are resources and administration. The basic applications that come with Nextcloud offer file viewing of PDFs; if you're looking for office functions like word processing, there are various plugins.

Pros and Cons

Contact sharing via WebDAV.
Calendar sharing via CalDAV.
File sharing via web browser and Nextcloud client applications (desktop and mobile).

Sync conflicts need to be resolved manually in some cases.
It's not very straight forward to setup versioning for files.
Creating a preview of files sets the server under heavy load.

Return on Investment

Quick setup with minimal cost.
Low maintenance cost.
User training required for cases where manual sync conflicts need to be resolved.

Alternatives Considered

Google Calendar and Google Drive

PIM and file sharing are the same as you get in Google's Drive/Calendar. With extensions, you can also implement web meetings (e.g., by using Jitsi), but this comes with more administrative effort. In the end, this comes down to how big of a user/customer base you are supporting. For small enterprises, Nextcloud stacks up very well against its big competitors. At a large scale, you will have increased maintenance and resource costs which you need to check against licensing fees for the cloud providers.

Key Insights

Do you think Nextcloud delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Nextcloud's feature set?

Yes

Did Nextcloud live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Nextcloud go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Nextcloud again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

For a SOHO business, this solution is ideal. You don't need to administrative overhead of other products like GSuite, and it saves licensing costs. The maintenance effort is minimal as long as you use their default applications. Migrations to newer versions can be done with a few commands and run automatically. If you're planning on using Nextcloud in large deployments with many users, you'll start to see higher costs on your resources and maintenance. There will be a point at which Gsuite becomes easier to manage.

Nexcloud ideal for SOHO and small enterprises.

Overall Satisfaction with Nextcloud