Choose for a open source cloud vs set up your own cloud on a NAS thats not FOSS

Privacy Questions
1

i want to get off Dropbox and Google Drive.
And 'm considering to set up a Synology NAS or use nextcloud.

But i dont know whats the best choice here.
Synology NAS is not foss. but you are 100% in control of your own data.
or
setting up Nextcloud because its open sourche, but you need to trust your data to nextcloud.

What is the best choice here?

2

They aren’t mutually exclusive. You can run NextCloud on a Synology NAS, or you can run it on any VPS service.

You are in control of your own data either way. The difference is:

  • whether or not you want to expose your NAS to the internet (You can use something like Tailscale as well)
  • How much storage you need. A NAS will give you greater amounts of storage for much cheaper, at a higher up-front cost and maintenance.

I like Synology machines, but getting one depends on whether your goal is learning or just having a solution. Generally self-hosting (whether you build your own NAS or use a VPS) is more error-prone on custom systems that it is in Synology’s hand-holdy DSM.

I have benefited greatly on a professional level from building and experimenting with my own NAS, for what it’s worth. TrueNAS is FOSS.

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3

It highly depends on your needs. Speaking from someone that has migrated away from nextcloud I really cannot recommend it at all. It’s not stable. If you are someone that wants to thinker around and do bug fixing it may be nice. If you want a stable cared for and secure solution I can only recommend to just stick to a cloud provider. Personally I use Proton Drive and Ente Photos which is a much more sane experience.

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4

can you edit documents that in proton drive are stored without downloading it?
or sync with joblin?

5

No you cannot but there is on demand sync. So it can temporary download files you need.