Self-Hosted Nextcloud vs Cloud Storage Over Three Years: The Real Bill

Comparing the real 3-year bill, including the specs people often forget

Google One's personal cloud storage plans are straightforward to budget for: 100 GB costs about $1.99/month, 200 GB is about $2.99, and 2 TB is $9.99. Any comparison with a self-hosted Nextcloud install has to match those subscription costs with the real bill on hardware, electricity, backup, guaranteed security, and upkeep and maintenance.

Nextcloud vs Google Drive pricing

Google Drive's personal plans and Google Workspace's business tiers are public:

• Google One for personal use
• 100 GB for $1.99/month
• 200 GB for $2.99/month
• 2 TB for $9.99/month
• Google Workspace (per user/month)
• Business Starter: 30 GB pooled storage, $7
• Business Standard: 2 TB pooled storage, $14
• Business Plus: 5 TB pooled storage, $22

Google Drive customers get 15 GB for free, pooled across Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. The paid plans are for additional storage.

Nextcloud's pricing is not as simple. The Nextcloud software itself is free and open-source, which draws many people to consider it as a free alternative to the paid storage plans others face. However, Nextcloud itself has enterprise subscriptions - not the same as paying for pre-built software with guaranteed support. The MassiveGrid blog describes the enterprise pricing as starting at about $43.20/user/year for 50+ users.

What the individual using Nextcloud is responsible for is all the hidden costs.

The hidden extra costs people forget

When considering Nextcloud's public software against a Google subscription, people often forget:

• A computer running Nextcloud
• Electricity to power it
• An off-site backup that leaves the other computer as a second failure point
• A domain registration
• An SSL certificate
• Time spent
• Installing Nextcloud
• Maintaining a server
• Troubleshooting and getting help (which has the company's backing on Google Drive)

This piece is for those interested in the years-long total.

Google Drive's pricing is for its storage-only cloud service. Google's Cloud Storage for general-purpose workloads is an entirely separate product at different prices.

Nextcloud's pricing page does not estimate a self-hosted 3-year total.

Comparing Nextcloud vs Google Drive costs

Given how these products are priced, it would be possible to model a 3-year Nextcloud comparison based on the inputs documented:

1. Google's subscription rates above in a given region.

1. A regional electricity cost.
2. A regional hourly rate for the buyer's time + the hours consumed by management and support.
3. A local Nextcloud server.

Nextcloud's open-source templates do not provide these as a monthly service. Google's cloud storage does: electricity, a server, and time spent charging.

Conclusion

There is no primary-source estimate, for Nextcloud specifically, covering all the extra costs of self-hosting versus paying for Google Drive subscriptions. Google provides its cloud storage as a ready service. Relying on a computer running Nextcloud as a cloud disk competes when the extra costs are free, and when users do not value help, support and peace of mind.

Sources

• Google Drive review by Cloudwards — cloudwards.net
• MassiveGrid blog — massivegrid.com