My Cloudron experience

[GregY]

TLDR : Cloudron is great. And worth the cost.

I've been using Cloudron for almost a month. Here are my experiences:

Needs/Wants

• Migrate some services and subscriptions to a VPS to avoid ongoing monthly or yearly fees.
• Take control over my own data as much as I can.
• Learn a little about self-hosting.

Background

I'm a programmer by trade but don't have much experience with web servers or hosting. I know enough UNIX to be dangerous. I tried yunohost first and, while it's decent (and free), it was not robust enough for my needs. I am using Cloudron on a Hetzner VPS. Perhaps in the future I will run it on a server in my own home.

Services to Replace

Bookmarking/Read Later
What I used: Raindrop.io.
What I use now: Shaarli + Wallabag.
Honestly, Raindrop.io is very good and the price is fair. The Chrome extension and Android app work well. Shaarli took some time to adapt to, but so far so good. Wallabag makes it easy to read an article or two on my phone when I have downtime. It's closer to Pocket or Instapaper than Raindrop is, which is what I wanted.

RSS News Feed
What I used: bazqux + Focus Reader (Android app).
What I use now: miniflux + Focus Reader.
Again, bazqux is a good service and the price isn't ridiculous. After initially trying FreshRSS and ttrss on Cloudron, I settled on miniflux. The web app is not as visually appealing as bazqux, but it is fast! I am sticking with Focus Reader (even at $7/year) because all other Android RSS clients stink.

Password Vault
What I used: Bitwarden
What I use now: Vaultwarden. Migration was simple.

Task/Todo list
What I used: TickTick
What I use now: Tasks.org.
I spent way too many hours looking for a TickTick replacement. Their web app and Android app are both great. While I don't keep particularly private data there, the provider is in China and their privacy policy isn't transparent. I've tried Tasks.org (on Android) previously and the interface is top-notch: it fits my workflow perfectly. However, I found all of the sync options to be rather kludgy. (I never tried paying for the Tasks.org in-house sync because there is no web app.) I'm still looking for a way to add and edit tasks via a web app or Windows client - I've tried many many options. For now, I'll stick to Android only.

Personal Notes
What I used: Standard Notes (Productivity account)
What I use now: Obsidian + WebDAV + Obsidian plugins.
The Standard Notes editor and apps are great. However, $90/year is too expensive. Plus it looks like it's not likely to end up as a Cloudron app. I tried a few options (Trilium Notes, Joplin server, NextCloud, etc.) and I've finally settled on Obsidian - I think. I'd consider moving back to SN if the self-hosting option is available on Cloudron.

Documents
What I used: Google Drive
What I use now: NextCloud
Most of my personal documents are stored in a Cryptomator vault and I use Google Drive for Desktop to sync that, and other files, across devices. I'm still playing with Nextcloud. While it seems to work well as a Google Drive sync replacement, some of the NextCloud apps seem half-baked.

Document Scanning
What I used: Genius Scan (Android) + Google Drive
What I use now: Genius Scan + Paperless-ngx. Very nice.

What I like about Cloudron

Stuff works
Again, I'm not too experienced with self-hosting. I tend to like plug-and-play options, but I need enough flexibility so that I can fine tune if I need to. I like that each install (from the initial install of Cloudron to each app I try) works "all the way." Nothing works halfway and then bombs out, leaving me to hunt down a solution. "No more half measures, Walter."

Response time
I've asked a few questions via the forums. I've opened one ticket with a few simple questions. All questions were answered promptly. Staff is very responsive. The Cloudron forums are a nice community and a great resource for questions and suggestions.

Regular updates
I like that updates are given priority.

Wishlist

I wish it was easier to try apps that aren't yet available on Cloudron. However, I completely understand why this isn't suggested or supported.

Thank you Cloudron staff!

[necrevistonnezr]

Great write-up, thanks!

[nebulon]

Thanks for the kind words. With @vladimir-d making great progress on various new app packages, trying out more apps, will hopefully also be simpler in the future.

[privsec]

@nebulon You should create a blog and post your referral link for your VPS of choice and cloudron.

[scooke]

Glad you are happy.

So, you aren't using Cloudron though for your tasks?

And for the WebDAv for your Obsidian notes... how are you accessing a Cloudron WebDAV option? Is it through the NextCloud app?

[GregY]

@scooke said in My Cloudron experience:

So, you aren't using Cloudron though for your tasks?

Nope. Every solution I tried did not work for me. Apparently the CalDAV 'definition' for recurring tasks is not well defined, which leads to tasks not repeating properly when you mark them as 'complete' on a different app from where they were created.

Solutions I tried:

• Vikunja - their Android app is alpha and is not very appealing so far.
• Tasks (Android app) + Vikunja - Cannot currently get reminders in the Tasks app if you create the task in Vikunja.
• Tasks + CalDAV + {insert Windows app here} - I tried this a few different ways: Thunderbird, EMClient, Outlook + CalDAV plugin, etc. Either the solution is overkill or it didn't work when I tried it.
• NextCloud Tasks - no recurring tasks
• Obsidian with Tasks plugin - still need to play with this more. I don't know if tasks created in Obsidian will trigger a reminder notification in the Obsidian Android app.

And for the WebDAv for your Obsidian notes... how are you accessing a Cloudron WebDAV option? Is it through the NextCloud app?

Yes, I was previously using Cloudron's surfer app. However, since I ended up using NextCloud as a Google drive replacement and NextCloud provides a WebDAV connection, I went with that. Both seem to work equally well.