[runjake]

  > OwnCloud is basically Dropbox, without the data limits and pricing restrictions.

There's some pretty huge caveats in the above statement from the article.

I switched to ownCloud for a while and then switched back to Dropbox. I switched back to Dropbox for a couple reasons.

First, ownCloud is written in PHP and the code (and the plugins you could add on) looked pretty janky. The UI was better than the usual open source fair, but still janky. Second, the trouble of having to worry about maintaining backups[1] for the ownCloud data store and server redundancy made the $10 a month I pay Dropbox look a lot more attractive again.

And finally, a lot of iOS apps integrate with Dropbox specifically. I didn't include this as an official third item, because fuck vendor lock-in, but it is nice to have when you're in a walled-garden environment like iOS.

In the end, I decided that I was better off overall sticking with Dropbox and doing a better job of encrypting particularly-sensitive data that resides there. Dropbox has had some security incidents and stability issues, but they've always responded to them in a manner I would consider sufficient.

I'm paying Dropbox for it's service (SaaS, after all), not it's storage. I'm paying them to worry about keeping things up and running. Not because I can't do it myself, but because I want to devote my limited time to other things.

1. Let me explain. I still do backups on the client side with a mix of Time Machine, CarbonCopyCloner, and tar. So my data's safe.

But I still need to worry about backing up the ownCloud instance, as well. Because if that gets munged up, I can't use ownCloud anymore without reinstalling and reconfiguring it. With Dropbox, they worry about the back end, so that I can focus on other things that I want to focus on.

[sz4kerto]

OwnCloud + DO or Linode, and your backup problems are solved (more or less).

[adeaver]

But then you are paying for the hosting and dealing with the maintenance. At that point is's easier to switch back to Dropbox. (IMHO)

[Touche]

It's better to host it in your own home. Everyone has an old computer with more storage space than you can ever afford from Dropbox. All you have to pay for is dynamic dns (which is useful in many other ways). "Maintenance" is a bad criticism. Use some stable distro and run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade once every couple of months.

[dspillett]

> It's better to host it in your own home.

With the sterling reliability of the average residential ISP... For what it is worth, home runing is a viable option for many uses: I do run a server or two at home myself but important things are out in external DCs too.

> Everyone has an old computer with more storage space than you can ever afford from Dropbox

For transfers maybe, but are your really trusting an ancient box of parts long out of warranty with your long term storage?

> "Maintenance" is a bad criticism.

It isn't criticism (as it "this is bad and it is their fault because of how they've designed the product"), it is a perfectly valid concern when considering whether to run a service for yourself or pay someone else to do it for you.

> Use some stable distro and run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade once every couple of months

Remind me never to employ you as a sysadmin! There is (potentially) a lot more to it than that. what about setting up backups, monitoring those backups and testing those backups? What about connectivity: if you home connection goes down of you have a hardware failure while you are mobile who is going to fix it? If there is a fault with your physical line how long is it going to take to get people out to fix that?

You might not find those issues to be relevant to your (storage of and) access to your data, but to some people they are vitally important and need considering.

I'm actually planning to test an OwnCloud install for myself and family & friends, it looks like the feature set covers out needs quite nicely if it works well enough, but I can assure you I'm giving the above things all due consideration and I don't consider it "bad criticism" to do so (for my own data at least: friends and family will be told the service is free to use at their own risk!). I may even suggest we run an instance at work if my experiments with it go well, as we could use such a service but the nature of some of our data means that we can't trust it to 3rd party services.

[Touche]

For backup I just use Amazon Glacier (backups with http://docs.bakthat.io/en/latest/).

No one ever said a DIY solution was going to be as reliable as a proprietary service, just that the relatively low risk is worth it for your freedom. I personally would never use Dropbox since they don't open source their technology.

[Fomite]

> For transfers maybe, but are your really trusting an ancient box of parts long out of warranty with your long term storage?

This is the one that always gets me. Failure becomes more likely over time. You just dumped your faith in a more failure prone box.

[cdcarter]

> Everyone has an old computer with more storage space than you can ever afford from Dropbox.

Weird definition of everyone, even in the HN reading crowd. Lot's of twenty-somethings have moved several times in a short amount of time, and tend to ditch the cruft. I know I did.

[Touche]

Then don't do it next time, your old laptop can live as a server for a good 5 years and will still be better than the VPSes you can afford by then.

[slaman]

or sell it while it has most of it's value as a laptop and pick up a VPS with a much better internet connection. Or a pi or whatever..

[shocks]

If your very first reason for not using ownCloud is "because it's written in PHP" then I'm probably not going to read the rest of your comment.

[runjake]

That's a shame, because you missed the qualifying remainder of that sentence, which that PHP isn't awful, but rather that the code looked janky. This makes me nervous when part of my mission is privacy. It should make your nervous, too.

Some of the 3rd party plugins, such as the Music extension (which was included with ownCloud 5) looks like a security nightmare.

PHP by itself has had some security problems, but combine that with poor programming practices and I avoid it. Again, especially when privacy and security is key. But, I get the impression that you're just here for a PHP battle, so I'll bow out.

[shocks]

> you missed the qualifying remainder of that sentence, which that PHP isn't awful, but rather that the code looked janky.

In which case there was no need to remark "because it's written in PHP" other than to appeal to the HN PHP sucks hivemind for upvotes.

> This makes me nervous when part of my mission is privacy.

Then you should not be using Dropbox. At all. At least owncloud is open source. Audit it yourself and patch any security hole you find if you really care about privacy.

> Some of the 3rd party plugins look like a security nightmare.

Disable them if you feel this way.

> PHP by itself has had some security problems, but combine that with poor programming practices and I avoid it

PHP has problems sure, but so does every language. I assume you're referring to owncloud (re. poor programming) as opposed to PHP as whole. Perhaps it is true, but at least with owncloud you have the option of fixing problems you notice, a luxury the closed source binary alternative does not offer you.

[jmcqk6]

That's too bad. You missed out on some good points. Avoiding something because of the programming language can be a very reasonable decision. Personally, I could probably hack on some PHP if I really needed to, but I want to avoid putting myself in a position to need to do that. There are other options available that are better for me.

[shocks]

Parent might have made some good point, but this whole "PHP sucks" attitude is pretty juvenile. How can we have constructive discussion about some software if the knee jerk reaction this community has is "lol PHP, so shit"?

I'll take open source code over proprietary crap any day of the week.

[Touche]

It's a weird criticism given that Dropbox is proprietary, you can't modify it even if it is pristine code.