How do you run Nextcloud on your own VPS in 2026?

Which Nextcloud version and which system should you start from?

Start from Nextcloud 35 on Debian 13 or Ubuntu 24.04. Nextcloud 35.0.0 came out on 16 September 2026 and 35.0.2 on 15 October 2026. Its administration manual lists these requirements:

• Systems (64-bit): Ubuntu 26.04 and 24.04 LTS, Debian 13, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 and 9, SUSE and openSUSE releases, CentOS Stream and Alpine Linux.
• PHP: 8.3, 8.4 or 8.5, with 8.5 recommended.
• Database: MariaDB 10.11, 11.4, 11.8 or 12.3; MySQL 8.4 or 9.7; PostgreSQL 14 to 18. SQLite only for tests.
• Web server: Apache 2.4 with mod_php or php-fpm, which the manual recommends, or nginx with php-fpm.
• Memory: at least 128 MB per PHP process, 512 MB per process recommended.

Debian 13 ships PHP 8.4, MariaDB 11.8 and PostgreSQL 17; Ubuntu 24.04 ships PHP 8.3. Debian 12 ships PHP 8.2, below Nextcloud 35's floor: on Debian 12, use All-in-One, whose containers bring their own PHP. AlmaLinux 10 and Rocky Linux 10 rebuild Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, which the list includes.

Should you use All-in-One or install by hand?

All-in-One for most people; a manual install when RAM is short or you want to control every piece.

Nextcloud All-in-One (AIO) is the project's own Docker setup. One master container installs and updates Nextcloud, its database, Redis, Talk and, if you tick them, Collabora and other add-ons. It includes a backup tool based on BorgBackup. Its README recommends KVM or non-virtualized servers and supports one domain per instance, at the root of that domain, on port 443.

Install Docker Engine from Docker's own apt repository as its documentation describes; AIO warns against the snap package of Docker. Then start the master container and open https://<VPS IP>:8080 by IP address, not by domain, as the AIO README asks. The interface takes your domain, checks that it points at the server and starts the rest.

One firewall fact matters here: Docker's documentation warns that ports published by containers are not filtered by ufw or firewalld rules. AIO needs 443/tcp, optionally 443/udp for HTTP/3, and 3478/tcp and udp for Talk; ports 80 and 8443 are needed only to reach the AIO interface by domain with a valid certificate.

docker run \
  --init \
  --sig-proxy=false \
  --name nextcloud-aio-mastercontainer \
  --restart always \
  --publish 80:80 \
  --publish 8080:8080 \
  --publish 8443:8443 \
  --volume nextcloud_aio_mastercontainer:/mnt/docker-aio-config \
  --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
  ghcr.io/nextcloud-releases/all-in-one:latest

What does a manual install look like on Debian 13?

Apache, PHP 8.4, MariaDB and Redis from Debian, Nextcloud from its own download server, and one occ command. It uses less memory than AIO and has fewer moving parts, but PHP modules and upgrades are yours to follow. Check the archive against its published checksum before unpacking. Then give Apache a site for your domain with AllowOverride All and the modules rewrite, headers, env, dir and mime, and get a certificate as in host a website on a VPS. Finally, let cron run Nextcloud's background jobs every 5 minutes.

apt install apache2 libapache2-mod-php php-gd php-mysql php-curl php-mbstring \
  php-intl php-gmp php-bcmath php-xml php-zip php-imagick php-apcu php-redis \
  redis-server mariadb-server unzip

cd /tmp
wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/latest.zip
wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/latest.zip.sha256
sha256sum -c latest.zip.sha256 < latest.zip
unzip -q latest.zip -d /var/www/ && chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/nextcloud

mariadb -e "CREATE DATABASE nextcloud; CREATE USER 'nextcloud'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'a-long-db-password'; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON nextcloud.* TO 'nextcloud'@'localhost';"

sudo -u www-data php /var/www/nextcloud/occ maintenance:install \
  --database mysql --database-name nextcloud \
  --database-user nextcloud --database-pass 'a-long-db-password' \
  --admin-user admin --admin-pass 'another-long-password'
sudo -u www-data php /var/www/nextcloud/occ config:system:set trusted_domains 1 --value=cloud.example.com

# background jobs every 5 minutes
echo '*/5 * * * * php -f /var/www/nextcloud/cron.php' | crontab -u www-data -

Which plan fits how many people?

Disk fills before CPU runs out on most personal clouds, so count your files first. The manual recommends 512 MB of RAM per PHP process, and the database, Redis and any office suite add their own share. The table is a starting point derived from those figures and from each plan's NVMe space, not a measurement. The vCPU of every plan are shared: they are scheduled on physical cores that neighbouring VPS also use. The RAM and NVMe space of your plan are reserved for your VPS only.

How does Nextcloud send email from the VPS?

Through a mail provider's submission port, set in the admin settings. Outbound port 25 is closed on every VPS and is not opened on request; send mail through a mail provider on port 465 or 587.

Nextcloud mails password resets, share links and notifications. As an admin, open Settings, then Administration, then Basic settings, and fill in the SMTP server of your provider. Nextcloud's manual lists 587/tcp for submission with STARTTLS and 465/tcp for submission over TLS. Send a test message from the same page before you invite anyone.

How do you back up Nextcloud when the VPS has no backups?

Copy the database and the data folder to another machine, and test one restore. No plan includes backups, so keep your own copy of anything that matters.

• All-in-One: turn on daily backups in the AIO interface and point them at a remote Borg repository, not only at a folder on the same disk. A restore needs the archive and its password; store the password away from the server.
• Manual install: Nextcloud's manual lists the config folder, the data folder, the theme folder and the database. Switch maintenance mode on so files and database match, dump the database with --single-transaction, copy the folders off the server, then switch maintenance mode off.

A restore on a second VPS once a quarter tells you whether the copy works. Migrate a Linux VPS uses the same commands to move a server.

sudo -u www-data php /var/www/nextcloud/occ maintenance:mode --on
mariadb-dump --single-transaction nextcloud > /root/nextcloud-db.sql
rsync -aAX /root/nextcloud-db.sql /var/www/nextcloud/config /var/www/nextcloud/data /var/www/nextcloud/themes \
  [email protected]:/srv/backup/nextcloud/
sudo -u www-data php /var/www/nextcloud/occ maintenance:mode --off