this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2025
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Nextcloud asked in a poll at https://mastodon.social/@nextcloud@mastodon.xyz/115095096413238457 what database its users are running. Interestingly one fifth replied they don't know. Should people know better where their data is stored, or is it a good thing everything is running so smoothly people don't need to know what their software stack is built upon?

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[–] deafboy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

The more shocking is that one guy who KNOWS it's sqlite, but ain't afraid to admit it!

[–] sixty@sh.itjust.works 45 points 4 days ago

Whatever the docker compose file that I found had

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 63 points 4 days ago

"18% of car owners don't know their brake fluid DOT rating."

[–] biofaust@lemmy.world 61 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That is actually good news. Means that people more likely to be "normies" are adopting an alternative solution.

[–] theshatterstone54@feddit.uk 7 points 4 days ago

I can confirm I'm a newer user (not a normie) to Nextcloud and I don't know or really care what it uses because it works so I haven't had to learn what it is or how to debug it.

[–] SparroHawc@lemmy.zip 184 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (10 children)

If you're running it in a prebuilt container, as long as it works it shouldn't matter and you don't need to care.

Of course, when your database gets corrupted after Nextcloud updates because you had an app running that isn't supported in the new version, it will suddenly matter a lot.

[–] Pechente@feddit.org 57 points 5 days ago

I‘m using a hosted Nextcloud instance from Hetzner and I have no idea what this is running on either. There’s a significant number of people who didn’t set up their Nextcloud instance, so people not knowing what it’s running on isn’t too surprising.

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[–] Ajen@sh.itjust.works 116 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I write software for a living, and have worked with all 3 database options in the past. I don't know what DB backend my nextcloud server is using, nor do I care.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 53 points 4 days ago (14 children)

Yeah, that is the kind of concern for the service developer or a very opinionated sys admin. For self-hosting, few people will reach the workload where such a decision has any material or measurable impact.

[–] stardreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Exactly. Unless you are actively doing maintenance, there is no need to remember what DB you are using. It took me 3 minutes just to remember my nextcloud setup since it's fully automated.

It's the whole point of using tiered services. You look at stuff at the layer you are on. Do you also worry about your wifi link-level retransmissions when you are running curl?

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[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social 34 points 4 days ago

I have five users, max, and barely any files. I don't know which one Nextcloud AIO uses and I don't care. There's no wrong answer for such a small deployment. It uses whatever database Nextcloud felt was sensible as the default. They know more about picking the right tool for their requirements than I do.

If I'm building something for myself, then I care.

[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 42 points 4 days ago (4 children)

I also have no idea if my place has PVC or galvanized steel plumbing; or its designed electrical load. Why should users care about the DBMS.

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[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 37 points 4 days ago

The rule of internet polls is that the funniest answer is always over-represented.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 47 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (15 children)

Every person using a computer should know what their filesystem is and what database they are using. Otherwise they are fools.

Can you believe kids don’t know what NTFS or APFS are these days?! Stupid iPad babies.

[–] paper_moon@lemmy.world 41 points 5 days ago (7 children)

Haha at some point it did matter to regular folks though. I remember in Junior high when I would try to pirate games or software on Windows, I learned the big difference between fat32 and the new filesystem Microsoft released, NTFS because I couldn't download files larger than 4GB on fat32.

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 24 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

It’s important if you’re using flash drives across platforms though that’s pretty rare these days too. My wife has run into this problem by formatting as ExFAT (GUID partition table) when print shops’ terrible machines only support FAT32 and/or MBR partition tables.

Thankfully macOS at home understands ExFAT otherwise those formatted drives from her Windows work computer wouldn’t even work.

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[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 4 days ago

Theres heaps of hosted nextcloud services. Those users wouldn't know.

[–] Zozano@aussie.zone 16 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Where's the option for "what's a database?"

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[–] 3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com 17 points 4 days ago

Nextcloud is pushed as an easy to use docker setup these days, heck most people I know who "use" it don't do much with it at all so what database it is using is gonna be way back in their list of priorities...
Plus the users outweigh the admins surely (as in those that just install then forget)

[–] Ooops@feddit.org 29 points 5 days ago (6 children)

Isn't that the whole point of containerised solutions? Having some pre-setup, auto-updating solution with very little requirement to dive into the details like what your database is and which dependencies you need to manage...

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[–] interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] 4k93n2@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

my computer is really slow. where can i download more rams?

[–] interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

Enable hugepage allocation, it will deduplicate memory chunks and save you lotsaram Especially good with an hypervisor desktop

[–] nshibj@lemmy.world 19 points 4 days ago (1 children)

*18% of the people who answered a poll on Mastodon

It's funny that the headline frames it as "a big number" when in reality majority of users don't know what database they're using and probably don't even know what a database is. Such polls aren't useless but you always get skewed results towards the more technical population. They would have to create a poll inside the nextcloud webapp to get more balanced results.

[–] justme@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 4 days ago

I mean.. I set it up many many years ago... Without looking it up I can also just guess.

[–] MITM0@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

East or West, SQLite is the best.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 17 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Honestly, does it matter to a regular user?
There will be some that do matter, if I were to run NC I would use Lite because why throw the data to another process just to write it to a disk when I only have a single node.

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[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

. >18% of people running next cloud are not backing it up.

[–] Ajen@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Where are you getting that from? The fastest and easiest way to back up any server is a full filesystem backup, especially if you're using something like zfs or btrfs.

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[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

TIL that NextCloud can use an external database.

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[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 15 points 5 days ago

Since Nextcloud stores your actually data on the disk, it doesn’t actually matter all that much tbh

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