I'm looking to finally ditch Onedrive with a self hosted alternative, but I'm not sure what to go with. I want something with all of the files on a central server, with an Android client with the option to sync individual files for offline access as needed. Preferably the files should also be stored in plain format on the server to make backups easier and as a fallback if the service completely fails and I don't have time to fix it. Linux and Windows clients are a bonus but I'm happy just using a web gui if that's all that's available. These are the options I've considered so far:
Seafile - This was the one that I thought fit my needs the best until earlier but apparently it has a weird disk layout which means the files are basically inaccessible by anything else?
Nextcloud - I had originally ruled this out because I don't care about any of the additional features which people claim also slow it down and make it a bit of a resource hog, and I also don't want to deal with forced https. However I think the community image may actually be what I want as it seems to be just the file server and works with just http? I am a bit confused about the different options for the database though. https://hub.docker.com/_/nextcloud/
Syncthing - Not quite what I'm looking for as you need to sync the entire thing, and I don't like whatever weirdness is going on with the Android app at the moment
SAMBA share - Also not really what I'm looking for as there's no offline syncing, but very easy to set up and basically nothing to go wrong
Are there any other options I should be looking into?
OwnCloud Infinite Scale might be the option you missed?
Nextcloud was forked from the PHP Owncloud some years back, and they added all the apps and things. But Owncloud is like Nextcloud but focused only on the files.
I am a bit concerned that you're talking about not wanting HTTPS and see it as a bad thing that something requires it. Given you can get free certificates these days, why would you not want a secure connection? Even if you're accessing via a VPN to server tunnel, I see no reason not to have it.
Exposing https requires a lot more configuration and also carries with it security risks.
I don't think it's really true these days that it needs a lot of config. Maybe reverse proxies will do it for you automatically without much setup.
I am curious what the security risks are for HTTPS for a service that will already be accessible remotely?
Reverse proxies require configuration.
Already accessible via VPN. Meaning it's only accessible to those explicitly allowed to access it.
What is the security risk of adding HTTPS to a site going via VPN?
It exposes the server to the entire internet...
No? Https is just the connection protocol? You can do it over LAN only just fine?
How so? I have HTTPS on internal sites, I just use DNS validation to get the certificate.