What are people using in place of Google docs/sheets/etc? I’m looking for a simple program that syncs with the cloud so I can access my documents on my different computers or my Android phone. I run Windows 10 (don’t crucify me). I use libre office for things that can stay on one computer, but for things like school notes, budgeting spreadsheets, or certain reference sheets I’ve created for work I need to be able to access on my different devices or log in on a web browser and easily have the changes sync. I’m constantly on the go and logging into different devices between work and school and while I want to de-google I’ve just found the convenience of the google suite has kept me saving non-confidential stuff with them. With some minor searching I found Cryptpad, has anyone used that, or can anyone recommend anything else?
I don’t do anything crazy, for docs its mostly just typing and basic formatting, importing pictures into my school notes, very simple tables, etc. With Sheets I just use basic math functions to balance my bank accounts and keep my budget on track, so I don’t need anything advanced, it just needs to work and sync with the cloud. I don’t even care if I have to pay a few bucks for it if it’s worthwhile.
A really cool do-it-all Option to de-google / de-cloud yourself is to buy a synology NAS. They come with all the cloud stuff you want, it works really well out of the box:
That way you’re not moving from one cloud provider to another one you might or might not trust, but you host it all yourself.
Or if you have an old machine and a enough money to by a few hard drives (which you should if you can afford a synology) throw the drives in the old machine and slap something on there. Truenas, Proxmox, unraid, etc. unraids probably the easiest but it costs money. All of them have some kind of docker/kubernetes so you can just run whatever open source version of the thing you want. Nextcloud, libreoffice, etc. you could just install some version of linux too, doesn’t need to be one of those, but those are much simpler to deploy and (most of them) are tailor made for the task
Synology can do all of this too but isn’t as expandable. Want more power to run a jellyfin server and transcode 8 4k streams at once? Plop in a gpu or better yet upgrade to an intel with quicksync for low power usage. Want 8 more hard drives? Change the case and add an hba. Want 24 more? Add another hba and a disk shelf, as long as your motherboard has enough pci lanes. It doesn’t? Upgrade it. The trade off is usability, the synology stuff is easier to use. It’s also more expensive initially, you can make a basic nas with a $50 e waste pc that an office was throwing away (though tbf you’ll probably spend a bit adding disks to it just like you would with a synology)
Depends on how much of a dork you are I guess
Very true, but I like my NAS to be maintenance-free, and Synology delivers on that. Their apps work out of the box and are installed with basically one click. I fiddle with tech enough at my job, I like my private tech to just work.
Even as a power-user you can do a lot, the synology nas also runs docker, so you can run whatever you’d like on it, not just the synology provided services.
Expanding the hardware is kind of a pain, even with RAM they are kind of weird and you need some approved (synology-brand) ram, or need to fiddle with some system files to make it accept any ram.
Also i’d love if they went with zfs instead of their llvm + btrfs.
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Yeah, Synology is fine but they’re usually overpriced and underpowered, and have limited software available. Running a normal homemade server makes much more sense, in my opinion.
Last time I checked the Synology office apps on Android didn’t work too well. Has that changed recently?
Idk when you checked, but they work pretty well now. Not quite on par with Google Docs, but the closest thing I know.
I don’t have an android. On iOS I tried their table thing, it works decently, but not nearly as nicely optimised for the use on an iPad as Apple Numbers is.
They work fine for me.
I can’t recommend Synology enough! They make it as easy and painless as possible to own your data again.