Hi, everyone!
For several years, I’ve relied on NextCloud as a substitute for Google services. The time has come to say goodbye and move on in life. I’ve decided to replace my NextCloud instance with separate services for files, calendar, photos, notes, and to-do lists.
I’ve already found alternatives for all services, except for the calendar.
Does anyone have experience with FOSS projects that would allow me to self-host a calendar? I’m looking for something that supports CalDAV, has its own (pretty) user interface (webui), caters to multiple users, and supports multiple calendars.
And if anyone is interested in the alternatives I’ve found for each NextCloud component, here’s the list:
NextCloud Files -> File Browser NextCloud Notes -> Joplin NextCloud Photos -> Immich NextCloud Tasks -> Vikunja NextCloud Calendar -> ???___
Edit:
In the end, I used Radicale software. I deployed it in a docker container and it worked almost right out of the box.
I’ve been using those two and they’re way faster and more reliable than NextCloud.
I’m using Baikal for Contacts & Calendar, it provides a generic CardDAV and CalDAV solution that can be access from iOS/Android or some web client like the plugins for RoundCube. Thunderbird also now has native support for CardDAV and CalDAV and it works just fine with Baikal.
So—I will preface this by saying I’d also love for an alternative to Nextcloud that’s faster and more reliable.
For the combo of FileBrowser and Joplin—I used Joplin a bunch in the past so I’m relatively familiar with it, but it’s also been a while and things may have changed—how is it syncing? I seem to remember hooking it up through WebDAV to sync—is that (still?) the case? If so, does that mean that FileBrowser is also exposing a WebDAV server in addition to the HTTP server? Is FileBrowser doing any cross-device syncing at all, or is it as it appears on the surface—just exposing a folder via a URL that you can send/retrieve files from?
The one thing I’d caution with Joplin, and what ultimately pushed me away from it was the portability of the data within it—I didn’t love that I wasn’t ultimately just working with a folder of Markdown, which led me to Obsidian—but don’t let my preferences dissuade you—the best system is the one that works for you—just more of a heads up since at least a few years back the export process was a bit of a pain to get things in a “vanilla” state.
I believe you did miss something, Joplin “stores notes in Markdown format. Markdown is a simple way to format text that looks great on any device and, while it’s formatted text, it still looks perfectly readable in a plain text editor.” Source: https://joplinapp.org/help/apps/rich_text_editor/
You have have a bunch of options when it comes to synchronization:
You can just point it at some folder and it will store the files there and then sync it with any 3rd party solution you would like. I personally use WebDav because it’s more convenient (iOS support) and it’s very easy to get a Nginx instance to serve what it needs:
server { listen 443 ssl http2; server_name xyz.example.org; ssl_certificate ....; ssl_certificate_key ...; root /mnt/SSD1/web/root; # Set your password with: WebDAV htpasswd -c /etc/nginx/.credentials-dav.list YOUR_USERNAME location /dav/notes { alias /mnt/SSD1/web/dav/notes; auth_basic realm_name; auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/.credentials-dav.list; dav_methods PUT DELETE MKCOL COPY MOVE; dav_ext_methods PROPFIND OPTIONS; dav_access user:rw; client_max_body_size 0; create_full_put_path on; }I was already using Nginx as a reverse proxy / SSL termination for FileBrowser so it was just a couple of lines to get it running a WebDAV share for Joplin.
FileBrowser doesn’t do cross-device syncing and that’s the point, I don’t ever want it doing it. For sync I use Syncthing, I just run both on my NAS and have them pointed at the same folder. All of my devices run Syncthing and sync their data with the NAS so this way I can have the NAS working as a central repository and everything is available through FileBrowser.
Nope, Joplin saves as .md files but those are clearly NOT markdown. I switched after I got burned.
Except for the metadata at the bottom, looks a LOT like markdown to me…
That’s the point: that is not markdown file. Most of the text is markdown, but try editing it with a different editor …
Try back and forth between md editors…
You end up with a mess. I want md for interoperability, and this is not good.
Okay, that’s fair, what editors are you using?
I don’t complain much about Joplin because it has apps for every platform and doesn’t encode your notes in some SQLite DB + proprietary format or some other hard to access situation. Not that it looks good, but at least you’re locked into some subscription/format/limitation like in Standard Notes. I wish Joplin looked as good as Standard Notes, especially on iOS.
I am using markor on android and silverbullet (web) on anything else.
Joplin was OK, but the android editor felt sluggish and the only available web GUI was… Meh. And I still had to use WebDAV to sync. And I lost all my data once due to how Joplin “think” sync should be done.
Now using syncthing with markor&silverbullet. Nice combo, and I can still access all my notes over WebDAV anyway.