Why the ministry decided to act

The BMWET faced the challenge of modernizing its collaboration tools at a time when questions around data protection, compliance, and technological dependency were becoming increasingly relevant.
A risk analysis showed that relying entirely on cloud services from non-European providers would introduce significant legal and security uncertainties. Especially regarding the protection of sensitive information under GDPR and the upcoming NIS2 directive.

“We carry responsibility for a large amount of sensitive data – from employees, companies and citizens. As a public institution, we take this responsibility very seriously. That’s why we view it critically to rely on cloud solutions from non-European corporations for processing this information,” says Florian Zinnagl, CISO of BMWET.

The ministry decided to introduce Nextcloud on its own national infrastructure, strengthening security, data protection and independence while maintaining familiar workflows.

A hybrid setup that works in practice

At the time of the project, BMWET was already in the process of adopting Microsoft 365 and Teams. Reversing that path wasn’t realistic. Instead, the ministry implemented a hybrid architecture: Nextcloud handles internal collaboration and secure data management, while Teams remains available for external meetings.

In collaboration with Nextcloud partner Sendent, Outlook integration ensured seamless email and calendar workflows, enabling employees to continue working with familiar tools while ensuring sensitive information stays within Austrian infrastructure.

A fast and well-coordinated rollout

From proof of concept to full deployment, the process took only a few months – an unusually fast timeline for a public sector ICT project. Working closely with Nextcloud and implementation partner Atos Austria, BMWET rolled out the new platform across 1,200 employees.

“An extensive information campaign, clear communication, training sessions and a gradual transition ensured high acceptance and a smooth process,” says Martin Ollrom, CIO of BMWET. “Through integration with existing systems, we were able to significantly modernize our digital service portfolio and, ultimately, collaboration — without disrupting employees’ established workflows.”

Expertise and collaboration make the difference

Large public IT projects are complex. To ensure success, BMWET worked closely with Nextclouds experts throughout every stage – from initial assessment to full rollout. This partnership helped translate legal, technical and organizational requirements into a stable, compliant and user-friendly setup.
Because that’s what we do at Nextcloud: support public institutions in achieving long-term digital sovereignty with confidence and the right expertise.

Meeting organizations where they are

The BMWET case shows that digital sovereignty isn’t an all-or-nothing shift. Every organization starts from a different point with its own tools, regulations and user expectations.

Nextcloud adapts to those conditions, integrating into existing infrastructures and evolving step by step. Whether hosted on-premises, managed by trusted partners or in hybrid form, we work with customers to find the balance between control, usability and compliance that fits their specific needs.

The post Austria’s Ministry of Economy takes decisive steps toward digital sovereignty appeared first on Nextcloud.

Back in 2021, Simon joined the Nextcloud team as a working student. Already a seasoned Nextcloud contributor and home user, he had a vision to make self-hosting Nextcloud more accessible to users by simplifying deployment, debugging, and maintenance.

This resulted in the creation of the Nextcloud AIO project: an official, simplified Nextcloud installation method based on Docker that includes a full Nextcloud setup with core services and recommended apps, and minimal manual configuration. Today, Nextcloud AIO is arguably the easiest way to get started with Nextcloud.

This episode balances between the history and present of Nextcloud AIO, Simon’s personal journey, and, of course, everything a meticulous admin wants to know. Tune in and find out:

• How many Nextcloud AIO instances are out there?
• Who would benefit more from migrating to Nextcloud AIO, and who should stick with the classic installation?
• I am a happy user who wants to engage with the engineers and community. Where do I go?

Whether you are a long-term Nextcloud fan or new to self-hosting, these 40 minutes are time well spent. The episode is available on all popular podcast platforms. Listen, save, and share where you prefer!

Episode links

Find all references from our speakers here:

• Nextcloud AIO on GitHub
• How to use Nextcloud AIO 
• Nextcloud AIO FAQ
• How it works
• Reverse proxy documentation
• Migration documentation
• Community Containers overview
• Nextcloud AIO Helm Chart
• Manual Installation documentation

Discover our latest release: Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn

Start your instant trial right away or download the latest version!

Try nowDownload Nextcloud Hub

The post Nextcloud AIO: The easiest way to self-host Nextcloud with Simon Lindner appeared first on Nextcloud.

At Nextcloud, we want to make sure you’re in control of your data at all times, including when you are working with your AI tools. Let’s explore AI agent features in Nextcloud Assistant and how to easily set up and start using them without risking your privacy and control.

First things first: What is an AI agent?

AI agent tools help you automate routine tasks by using data and reason to perform authorized actions on your behalf, given a certain degree of autonomy.

Sounds pretty general? AI agents can be many things, depending on their complexity, knowledge of your data, or purpose. For example, an AI support agent can help you set up a help desk, automate easy help requests, and forward more demanding requests to your human team. An AI Sales assistant can answer product questions, schedule demos and meetings, and qualify leads.

Or an agent can be your AI copilot that finds data for you, helps you generate ideas and proofread your texts (or code), and performs tasks like sending emails and chat messages, creating files, and scheduling calendar appointments. Well, much like a personal assistant, which explains its name.

Under the hood, AI agents combine a Large Language Model (LLM) for an easy, human-like interface, API access to interact with your apps and data, and a layer of autonomy that lets them make data-driven decisions and carry out tasks as part of your AI workflows.

Proprietary AI agents: privacy trade-off for Big Tech convenience?

AI agents often require access to a wide range of user data: personal, financial, internal company documentation, and sensitive email communication. In proprietary services’ hands, even with robust security promises, this carries a great privacy risk. Using closed-source, third-party cloud-hosted models involves sharing a lot of sensitive data with a provider, which can lead to serious regulatory penalties and data breaches.

More often than not, agents built on proprietary models lack transparency regarding how they are trained, leading to biases and misinformation. In turn, given extensive permissions an AI agent may have, these bias can translate into operational roadblocks and errors.

However, private users and companies tend to trade off their privacy for the simple convenience that the robust external services can provide.

What can Nextcloud offer as an alternative, ensuring you can access the benefits of agentic AI without giving up your data?

How do open source AI agent tools work in Nextcloud Hub?

AI tools in Nextcloud are accessible via Nextcloud Assistant: your personal assistant that connects a variety of modern AI tools with your ecosystem and integrates deeply with some of the apps via specialized features.

You can enable Nextcloud Assistant to work with your own data and files through context-aware tools, to ask questions about what’s happening in your workspace, or help find information in your complex file systems. For example, find a relevant chapter in documentation you struggle to find, or project to-dos your colleague sent in a Nextcloud Talk chat*.

To expand its abilities further, we introduced AI agent features that let Nextcloud Assistant perform actions with those apps and data and take part in automating complex, nuanced workflows.

Via chat interface, running quick agency-enabled commands is a very low-barrier experience, as you can simply use natural language. To create a calendar event, send a chat message in Nextcloud Talk, or check the weather for you.

Or do something more complex, like look up and chat with a customer, find out what they are looking for, and generate a template for a slide deck for a tailored presentation. All that, without risking any leaks of your sensitive conversations and documents — your security team can be sound asleep.

Hidden shortcuts: what AI agent features you can use in Nextcloud Assistant

Thanks to how well-integrated Nextcloud Hub is, with standards and under-the-hood connectivity provided by the open APIs, Nextcloud Assistant works with your data naturally across the Nextcloud Hub ecosystem, and in some cases beyond it.

Examples of supported AI agent features in Nextcloud Assistant:

• Generate documents
• List Nextcloud Talk conversations and send chat messages
• List calendars and create calendar events
• Check tasks in calendar 
• Create tasks and Deck cards 
• Search YouTube videos 
• List projects and create tasks in OpenProject 
• Search in DuckDuckGo 
• Plan routes on the map with different means of transport 

Today, what you can do is no longer limited to just the Nextcloud Hub’s data and tools. You can easily work with integrated apps like OpenProject or external services like DuckDuckGo or online maps.

Our AI agent can also work with Context Chat and pull up data from your documentation, tasks, Nextcloud Collectives, Nextcloud Deck cards, and more. For example, you can ask Nextcloud Assistant, “According to Context Chat, what is the vacation request protocol?. It will then use Context Chat to find the data for you. With the Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn release, Context Chat lets you search files using natural language and fetch links for them.

You can access the full list of currently available tools, including example prompts, on the documentation page.

And if by any chance you are an AI developer and would like to contribute to AI agent tools in Nextcloud Assistant, you are welcome to submit your PRs on GitHub!

Enable Nextcloud Assistant to work with your custom services via MCP

With the release of Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn, Nextcloud Assistant now supports Model Context Protocol (MCP), which allows it to securely interact with external services. This way, it becomes a bridge between Nextcloud and other AI interfaces, such as AI support chat agents or even Smart Home devices.

You can configure MCP in your admin settings. Read about how to do it in the user documentation, which also includes technical requirements, model requirements, and essential steps.

Nextcloud Assistant as an AI agent: can it be trusted?

What matters is that Nextcloud Assistant is privacy-respecting by design. It is open source and you can use it with models you trust. And if you are unsure what to trust, we have an Ethical AI Rating to guide you around supported models.

Ethical AI in Nextcloud

We are all in on privacy and transparency. Nextcloud does not send your data to AI providers; instead, you can choose a model that fits your needs. Run it on your own server, use a trusted AI-as-a-Service provider, or use a service like OpenAI for non-critical tasks. In your settings, you can easily access the information about what AI tools are used in your Nextcloud and how. And importantly, none of them are enabled out of the box, so it is all entirely up to you!

In Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn, we’ve worked on bringing you more control with some UI improvements. Nextcloud Assistant now lists the sources used for generating responses. In your settings, besides browsing the services used to power Nextcloud Assistant, you can turn them off and on as you wish. To increase the accuracy of the results and reduce costs, unconfigured integrations are turned off by default.

Run it on your terms: hosting the AI agent

Nextcloud is not an AI service provider, so the quality of the output and performance of the AI agent tools fully depend on your setup: the models you choose and the infrastructure you run your AI service on, in case you host your AI locally.

If you wish to have a managed AI to offload maintenance and load to a third party, you can explore the available AI as a Service providers. For example, you can set up your Assistant with a paid provider like OpenAI, Replicate, or IBM Watsonx, or go for a local, sovereign option like IONOS, plusserver, Groqcloud, MistralAI, or Together AI. We, of course, always advocate for transparent, local, and open-source options.

With Nextcloud, you don’t need to give away your AI data to Big Tech to automate your personal work: create content, find data in your documents, send emails and chat messages, carry out other operational routines, set up sales and customer support processes.

What else is new in Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn

More agent tools are not the only updates Nextcloud Assistant received with the release of Nextcloud Hub Autumn. What else is new:

• Ability to generate documents, spreadsheets, slides, and PDFs
• File search with Context Chat using natural language
• Live transcriptions in Nextcloud Talk
• Multiple UI improvements
• And more

Read more about all the new features in the Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn release blog.

Read more in the Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn series:

• Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn: Your digital workspace, ready in no time
• Reclaim your schedule and your privacy with Nextcloud Calendar. Discover the 2025 updates!

Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn: Your digital workspace, ready in no time

Experience all the new features, including privacy-first AI automation, with Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn. Start your instant trial of the latest release right away!

Get Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn now!

Start your instant trial right away or download the latest version!

Try nowDownload Nextcloud Hub

The post How to automate tasks with open source AI agent tools in Nextcloud Assistant appeared first on Nextcloud.

Nextcloud Calendar is your perfect “compagnon de route” to achieve this. Set up in minutes, you can import all your events in one go, and start scheduling, planning, and organizing while always staying in control of your data.

Set up simplicity: Switch to Nextcloud Calendar within minutes

Nextcloud Calendar forms part of Nextcloud Groupware, which also includes Nextcloud Mail, Contacts, and Deck, and can be set up in minutes.

Once ready to use your Nextcloud Groupware, you can start creating one or more calendars straight away, such as “Work”, “Home”, or “Team planning”.

Do you prefer to import your existing calendar or some events? Simply download them as an .ics file, upload them to your Nextcloud Calendar, and you are good to go.

Nextcloud Calendar also supports synchronization through the open standards CalDAV, so you can access your calendars also from clients such as Thunderbird, Apple Calendar, or DAVx⁵ on Android.”

Thanks to the intuitive design and smart features, working with Nextcloud Calendar feels familiar and easy. Switching from a Big Tech service to an open source calendar has never felt more effortless!

Nextcloud Calendar: Smarter scheduling, made simple

The new “Meetings proposal” feature makes it easier than ever to find a time slot for your meeting, without endless email chains. Configure your meeting with a title, duration, and participants, and select a time slot in the calendar based on the participants’ availability.

Do you want to propose different options? Select a couple of time slots, and the participants will get an email with a poll to vote on the slots that work for them.

Once everybody has shared their preference, you’ll get notified and can lock in the final meeting with a simple click.

You can also:

• Share calendars with “read-only” or “write” permissions
• Set your working hours and availability for clarity across teams
• Add Nextcloud Talk links directly into meeting invites for quick video calls
• Manage recurring events and reminders through emails or Nextcloud notifications

And of course, your Nextcloud Calendar syncs seamlessly with your mobile device to make sure that you can access your calendars anywhere and at any time.

Going beyond: Advanced features for busy teams in Nextcloud Calendar

Nextcloud Calendar is not only great for privacy-first personal planning. You can also use it to streamline resource management and team communications with full data control.

The event creation comes in a full-screen mode with a range of settings to personalize your invitations, including time zones, attachments, and categories.

Handy features include:

• “Calendar Rooms and Resources” app: Add the app to your Nextcloud instance and check at a glance which meeting rooms are available for your time slots. From “Berlin main office” to “Small meeting room”, you can find the right location for your meeting in seconds.
• Effortless event creation with the Nextcloud Assistant: Automatically create calendar events from your emails directly in the Nextcloud Mail app. Nextcloud’s AI tool, the Nextcloud Assistant, will generate the event title and description, and even the agenda.
• Automatic status updates: Your calendar will automatically show you as “in a meeting” when you have indicated in the settings that you are “Busy” when the event takes place. Add a custom message or change the status to your own liking to make sure your team can easily contact you.
• Embeddable calendars: Is your calendar all set up? Publishing your calendar on a website or embedding your calendar into apps like Nextcloud Talk and Nextcloud Notes are great ways to communicate about upcoming events.

But of course, there’s more, including setting up recurring events, adding reminders as an email or Nextcloud notification, and color-coding your different categories and calendars.

From managing small teams to entire departments, Nextcloud Calendar ensures that everything stays simple, transparent, and in your hands.

Private scheduling for individuals and organizations

Every meeting, appointment, and reminder you schedule is part of your digital life. With Nextcloud, you don’t leave a digital footprint behind.

While Big Tech might use your data for targeted ads, data profiling, or hidden analytics, Nextcloud keeps all your data safe at all times. Your Nextcloud Calendar is completely private and lives on an infrastructure that you own or trust.

That’s why today, tens of millions of home users and thousands of organizations rely on Nextcloud. By combining the freedom of open standards with the comfort of modern design, Nextcloud has grown to be the largest open source, self-hosted collaboration platform in the world.

Do you want to check how Nextcloud Calendar and other Nextcloud solutions can support your needs? Getting started is easy, and can be done self-hosted or with one of our trusted partners.

If you are looking for a content collaboration platform fit for large-scale deployments, Nextcloud Enterprise is the right solution for you. Our dedicated and experienced team guides you through the deployment process, instilling confidence and providing assurance at every step.

Curious to see what else Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn has to offer?

The post Reclaim your schedule and your privacy with Nextcloud Calendar. Discover the 2025 updates! appeared first on Nextcloud.

The problem is not resolved

We still believe that Microsoft heavily favors their own products and services (so-called “self-preferencing”) or outright blocks other vendors. Microsoft still uses their position as gate keeper to extend their reach in more and more markets and push users deeper into their ecosystems. The most recent step is making it even harder to use Windows without an account – which comes bundled with OneDrive and other services, and can automatically upload all your data to their cloud. This kind of behavior limits consumer choice and creates a barrier for other companies offering competing services.

Action is needed

Public awareness for dependency on big tech companies has significantly increased. Now, more than ever, we believe that data should not be concentrated in the hands of a few big tech companies.

Interestingly, the European Commission has acted on a complaint from US-American chat app Slack which is very similar to ours and in July 2023 opened an investigation into possible anticompetitive practices by Microsoft regarding Teams (complaint filed in July 2020), which resulted in Microsoft unbundling Teams from Office, which the Commission accepted in September 2025.

Our commitment

We will double down on innovation, working with our partners and the open source community to provide open source software for digitally sovereign collaboration and communication for our customers and users globally. This has been very successful, as thousands of happy customers with tens of millions of users across the private, education and public sector show, and we are currently seeing three times as much interest in Nextcloud as last year.

How you can help

You can make a difference, too!

First, by advocating for digitally sovereign solutions, in your organization and outside.There is no technical reason not to deploy open source, digitally sovereign solutions today. There are proven, secure and scalable solutions including Nextcloud Hub already widely used in many places – from schools, cities and entire states to federal ministries, all over the world. Share examples like these and make sure people know there is a choice!

Second, contribute. You can join a company or one of the many non-profits that work on and promote sovereignty!

And, of course, free yourself from big tech!

Complaint with the German Federal Cartel Office ongoing

The withdrawal of the complaint on an EU level does not affect the complaint with the German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) against Microsoft, which has seen progress last year. On Sep 30, 2024, the Bundeskartellamt determined that Microsoft is an undertaking of paramount significance for competition across markets. 

The validity of the Bundeskartellamt’s decision is limited to five years in accordance with statutory provisions. Within this period Microsoft is subject to special abuse control by the Bundeskartellamt in Germany. 

More background on the complaint and its history is available on antitrust.nextcloud.com.

The post Nextcloud decided to withdraw complaint against Microsoft appeared first on Nextcloud.

Europe should protect encryption and the fundamental right to privacy, while building trust in the European providers.

Read the full text of the open letter and find the list of signatories below.

Dear Ministers and Ambassadors of EU Member States,

We, the undersigned European enterprises, as well as the European DIGITAL SME Alliance –
which represents more than 45.000 digital SMEs across Europe, write to you with deep concern
regarding the proposed Regulation on Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). Protecting children and
ensuring that everyone is safe on our services and on the internet in general is at the core of our
mission as privacy-focused companies. We see privacy as a fundamental right, one that
underpins trust, security and freedom online for adults and children alike. However, we are
convinced that the current approach followed by the Danish Presidency would not only make
the internet less safe for everyone but also undermine one of the EU’s most important strategic
goals: progressing towards higher levels of digital sovereignty.

Digital sovereignty is Europe’s strategic future
In an increasingly unstable world, Europe needs to be able to develop and control its own secure
digital infrastructure, services, and technologies in line with European values. The only way to
mitigate these risks is to empower innovative European technology providers.
Digital sovereignty matters for two key reasons:

• Economic independence: Europe’s digital future depends on the competitiveness of its own businesses. But forcing European services to undermine their security standards by scanning all messages, even encrypted ones, using client-side scanning would undermine users’ safety online and go against Europe’s high data protection standards. Therefore, European users – individuals and businesses alike – and global customers will lose trust in our services and turn to foreign providers. This will make Europe even more dependent on American and Chinese tech giants that currently do not respect our rules, undermining the bloc’s ability to compete.
• National security: Encryption is essential for national security. Mandating what would essentially amount to backdoors or other scanning technologies inevitably creates vulnerabilities that can and will be exploited by hostile state actors and criminals. For this exact reason, governments exempted themselves from the proposed CSA scanning obligations. Nevertheless, a lot of sensitive information from businesses, politicians and citizens will be at risk, should the CSA Regulation move forward. It will weaken Europe’s ability to protect its critical infrastructure, its companies, and its people.

The CSA Regulation will undermine trust in European businesses
Trust is Europe’s competitive advantage. Thanks to the GDPR and Europe’s strong data protection framework, European companies have built services that users worldwide rely on for data protection, security and integrity. This reputation is hard-earned and gives European-based services a unique selling point Big Tech monopolies will never be able to match. This is one of the few, if not the only competitive advantage Europe has over the US and China in the tech sector, but the CSA Regulation risks reversing this success.
This legal text would undermine European ethical and privacy-first services by forcing them to weaken the very security guarantees that differentiate European businesses internationally. This is particularly problematic in a context where the US administration explicitly forbids its companies to weaken encryption, even if mandated to do so by EU law1.
Ultimately, the CSA Regulation will be a blessing for US and Chinese companies, as it will make Europe kill its only competitive advantage and open even wider the doors to Big Tech.

Contradictions weaken Europe’s digital ambitions
The EU has committed itself to strengthening cybersecurity through measures such as NIS2, the Cyber Resilience Act, and the Cybersecurity Act2. These policies recognize encryption as essential to Europe’s digital independence. The CSA Regulation should not undermine these achievements by effectively mandating systemic vulnerabilities.
It is incoherent for Europe to invest in cybersecurity with one hand, while legislating against it with the other.

European SMEs will be hit the hardest
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) would be hit hardest if obliged to implement client-side scanning. Unlike large technology corporations, SMEs often do not have the financial and technical resources to develop and maintain intrusive surveillance mechanisms, meaning compliance would impose prohibitive costs or force market exit. Moreover, many SMEs build their unique market position on offering the highest levels of data protection and privacy; which particularly in Europe is a decisive factor for many to choose their products over the counterparts of Big Tech. Mandating client-side scanning would undermine this core value proposition of many European companies.
This will suffocate European innovation and cement the dominance of foreign providers. Instead of building a vibrant, independent digital ecosystem, Europe risks legislating its own companies out of the market.

For these reasons, we call on you to:

• Reject measures that would force the implementation of client-side scanning, backdoors, or mass surveillance of private communications, such as we currently see in the Danish proposal for a Council position on the CSA Regulation.
• Protect encryption to strengthen European cybersecurity and digital sovereignty.
• Preserve the trust that European businesses have built internationally.
• Ensure that EU regulation strengthens, rather than undermines, the competitiveness of European SMEs.
• Pursue child protection measures that are effective, proportionate, and compatible with Europe’s strategic goal of digital sovereignty.

Digital sovereignty cannot be achieved if Europe undermines the security and integrity of its own businesses by mandating client-side scanning or other similar tools or methodologies designed to scan encrypted environments, which technologists have once again confirmed cannot be done without weakening or undermining encryption. To lead in the global digital economy, the EU must protect privacy, trust, and encryption.

Signatories (as of October 7, 2025):

Sources:

FTC Chairman Ferguson Warns Companies Against Censoring or Weakening the Data Security of Americans at the Behest of Foreign Powers. (2025, August 21). Federal Trade Commission. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/08/ftc-chairman-ferguson-warns-companies-against-censoring-or-weakening-data-security-americans-behest

European Commission. (2024). A Europe fit for the digital age. Commission.europa.eu. https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age_en

The post Open letter to EU Member States on the proposed CSA Regulation or “Chat Control” law appeared first on Nextcloud.

When it comes to Microsoft interoperability, it might seem that their tools play well with others. But do they really? Or are they just difficult to escape, because of big teams, even bigger money, and a strong market grip because of vendor lock-in?

Vendor lock-in is a carefully engineered strategy strengthened through years of market dominance. But in recent years, we see a clear trend towards privacy and technological independence. As organizations are successfully escaping the golden cage of code, others are considering to follow their lead.

Freedom and control in software depend, among other things, on interoperability: the ability of your tools to work well with others.

• Can you integrate a wide range of features and apps?
• Does the system support open standards and protocols?
• Can you build your ideal stack without vendor lock-in?

If those aspects are key factors for you when choosing your collaboration software, you are in the right place. Because Microsoft is not the only feature-rich cloud platform out there. With open source solutions such as Nextcloud, you could get out of your current vendor lock-in and enjoy what matters most: data control and transparency.

Where it all begins: open source vs proprietary code

Let’s start with something that defines all of the aspects of interoperability we are going to talk about: the source code.

How open standards contribute to interoperability

Open source projects push forward open standards, including ActivityPub, OpenAPI, and WebDAV, which allow systems to communicate easily in a unified way and to be built into custom setups regardless of the vendors and platforms.

With access to the source code and the public APIs, any developer can look into how a system works internally and adapt the software they are creating to how it operates. For example, you can take the source code of Nextcloud Deck, build a new app on top of that to extend its features, or build an extension that connects to your other app, or even fork the entire code to do something else. This lowers the barrier of entry for app developers to join the Nextcloud ecosystem.

Open source code greatly expands freedom of choice for software users and an opportunity for the developers: if a component, such as a project management application integrated in a platform, does not satisfy a big portion of users, there’s a demand — and an unlimited possibility — to create or integrate an alternative.

How open standards push collaboration

Open source also fosters collaboration. Organizations and communities may create shared libraries or middleware that improve compatibility across tools they are using. Projects can easily reuse open source modules or libraries that implement certain protocols or data formats. This reduces inconsistency and enhances plug-and-play integration as needed.

Real-world example? The German state of Schleswig-Holstein states in its official “Open Innovation and Open Source Strategy” that they not only publish source code for their specialized administrative applications, but also provide a platform for collaboration and publication of software. This enables other public sector organizations to create and adapt tested and trusted open source software for their needs.

Open source vs proprietary: Microsoft 365 and Nextcloud

Microsoft 365 is closed-source, proprietary software. Their business model relies on vendor lock-in to extract increasing profits from their customer base. Their API’s are designed to increase the value of their ecosystem while not reducing vendor lock-in, for example, giving the ability to add or read metadata in a limited way that makes it hard or impossible to extract data. If you want to integrate applications that compete with core functionality in 365, you quickly discover that API’s are simply missing, or that access is restricted by rate limits, licences or T&Cs.

Nextcloud, on the contrary, is built entirely on open source standards and with open source code, offering freedom by design. Data is stored in industry standard formats and databases. You can easily migrate your data from one location or provider to another, free from vendor lock-in. You can build, integrate and replace any apps and components. And you can learn from best practices and real-world Nextcloud implementations to create a unique, reliable platform for your use case.

The ecosystems: APIs, app development and app marketplace

Now let’s move from the conceptual differences to a more hands-on issue that many administrators deal with.

The ecosystems and its offerings often define the choice of software for a business or public organization. It is about the availability of apps an organization can use. It is also about the ability to integrate other applications already in use in their environment. As most organizations, you might want to keep your mail server or user directory. And of course the apps and data formats their external partners, contractors and other stakeholders use.

Nextcloud interoperability versus Microsoft interoperability: the app stores

Microsoft 365 has strong third-party app support with a large marketplace ecosystem. It offers thousands of plug-and-play integrations for productivity, HR, CRM, finance, and more. You can easily integrate popular tools like Asana, Trello, Zoom, GitHub, Jira, Adobe Sign, ServiceNow, etc. But while Microsoft’s marketplace is very large, it’s also heavily curated and controlled.

Some of the native plug-and-play apps in Microsoft 365 don’t have an exact match in Nextcloud ecosystem. But it provides freedom of integration and development. In case a complete match of functionality is needed, you can integrate an external service. Plenty of such integrations are available, with sometimes even several tools to choose from. For example, you can integrate Saber as a OneNote alternative, or use Dovecot or Stalwart as your mail server as an alternative to Microsoft Exchange.

Microsoft interoperability? Control through API

Let’s discover what the APIs and the ecosystem allow, and how Microsoft controls its ecosystem’s interoperatbility through API.

Microsoft 365 remains a closed system where extensibility is limited to what the vendor permits: through Microsoft’s Graph API and Power Platform. For example, some of the Graph API’s endpoints are restricted to specific licenses, such as E5, and some APIs apply usage-based charges.

Microsoft limit the features of their API to control your (their) ecosystem, instead of letting you control what you are using. They have no interest in enabling other products to compete with their own, so licensing and APIs are generall in favor of Microsoft-native tooling over alternatives.

For example, Microsoft prohibits using APIs to migrate customers away from Microsoft offerings, or to reverse-engineer data access, with Microsoft reserving the right to modify or discontinue APIs at any time.

Nextcloud operates fully on open standards, letting the data remain interoperable and supporting easy migration between solutions, ultimately allowing you to swap applications, connect and build your own without API-implied restrictions.

Some of the open standards used in Nextcloud apps include:

• OCM / Federated Sharing API. Used for federated sharing and other federation features (calls, chats) between Nextcloud servers.
• OpenAPI & standardized RESTful endpoints. Nextcloud uses OpenAPI definitions and standard RESTful APIs for many of its services, allowing third-party integrations and automation tools (like Zapier or n8n) to plug in easily. Microsoft supports some of those through Microsoft Graph, which is proprietary, complex, and changes frequently.
• WebDAV. Nextcloud fully supports this standard and lets you to mount your Nextcloud storage as a network drive on almost any OS. 
• CalDAV, CardDAV for processing calendars and contacts. Microsoft deprecated these standards in favor of Microsoft Graph and proprietary APIs.
• ActivityPub, a federated social networking protocol. Nextcloud uses it to enable federated sharing and notifications from social platforms (e.g. Mastodon, PeerTube) and other Nextcloud instances.

In other words, Nextcloud’s app store is open source by default, with unlimited possibilities to create your own environment. If an app doesn’t exist, you build it. Or if it doesn’t suit you, you can fork it for extensibility and autonomy.

User management: does everyone belong?

Another important interoperability aspect lies in the user directory.

Microsoft 365’s user management framework is based entirely on Azure Active Directory where user provisioning is done through Azure AD portal or Graph API and is tied to licensing. What’s more, guest access always requires creation of Microsoft or linked account without external identity support.

Nextcloud does not have or does not aim to have own user directory. Instead, it is very flexible in its user identity framework: You can use any identity provider — from classic LDAP to Google, GitHub, or a local database. This makes Nextcloud portable across infrastructures. Nextcloud can support connections to Active Directory (AD), including Microsoft’s AzureAD, LDAP, SSO & SAML connections.

You can work between federated Nextcloud instances using the same account from your instance, which works via Federated Cloud Sharing API. Or let users log in with existing credentials via SAML/OIDC without forcing them into a new identity framework.

In Nextcloud, users and their metadata can be exported, migrated, or synced through open protocols, giving you true data sovereignty and freedom of interoperability.

Nextcloud vs Microsoft interoperability: the verdict

Find a summary of our detailed findings for this comparison between Microsoft 365 and Nextcloud in a more compact format:

The way we address interoperability in Nextcloud is not only to offer a direct benefit or show a different approach to developing tools and doing business. It also means that our interests and those of our customers are fundamentally more aligned. We don’t have that power over them that full vendor’s control over their data gives. Unlike Microsoft, Nextcloud cannot simply unilaterally decide to drop a feature or increase prices, and expect 99% of people to accept the change as it is without even considering migrating. Playing by these rules, Nextcloud has to offer real value and deliver on the needs of the customers.

In this article, we focused on the key related topics for interoperability, such open standards, open code, the API and user management. But we’d love to talk more about the topic, such as maintenance and usage of both platforms, as well as migration.

Ready to discuss and expand upon the questions of interoperability? Share your thoughts in comments on the forum!

The post Nextcloud vs Microsoft interoperability: how open source gets it right appeared first on Nextcloud.

Welcome to Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn

Getting started with Nextcloud 9 years ago, we had a small team and a big dream: give people control over their data. Now, Nextcloud is a community-driven project where our brilliant team of 150 works with thousands of contributors, and we became the most deployed privacy-focused collaboration platform in the world. Today we welcome our latest release, Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn.

Nextcloud Hub is where all your work comes together. It is modular and customizable, yet really well-integrated. Having all apps in one hub brings you a better user experience, makes your platform easier to run and maintain and reduces security risks. Did we forget anything? It’s also self-hosted, built for performance, scales to millions of people, and has a great, modern interface.

This release we made it easier than ever to regain control over your collaboration. We made many changes that help those new to Nextcloud. Part of that is the design work on the interface. We updated icons, added a splash of color and some nice backgrounds, and made adjustments to the look of buttons and other elements. We also worked on performance improvements and, like always, we introduced new technologies and many features.

Whether you are seeking a privacy-friendly solution for home or a secure, enterprise-scale setup for a large organization, your road to sovereignty is easy and fast. Roll out Nextcloud Hub on your own server or data center using the incredibly convenient, cloud-ready All-in-One container we have for home users or the enterprise version. You can also get started using a managed solution with few clicks from one of our trusted hosting partners.

We hope you enjoy our latest Nextcloud Hub. Let us unpack the most exciting new features!

Frank and the Nextcloud team

A friendly greeting: the design update

Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn is designed to immediately make you feel at ease, starting with the interface. Let’s begin with some design improvements in this release, from global UX changes to updates in applications.

The renewed design is meant to make you feel at ease in your digital workspace. The subtle changes made the interface of Nextcloud Hub lighter, more approachable and polished, while the new contrasting elevation and depth of clickable elements feels almost physical.

Jan C. Borchardt

Design Lead

Tactile forms

We gave buttons a more clickable look by adding visual elevation to them. Similarly, the input fields are now inset.

The new outline icons feel lighter and more modern. And they bring a usability improvement — active elements are highlighted by using the filled-out version, like with favorite files and prioritized mails.

The app icons in the header got a gradient fade, making them appear more physical on the blue background. We also redesigned and cleaned up some sections in the Settings.

Apps with character

Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn design is crafted to be visually appealing and user-friendly, more welcoming as you begin your day and open your space. We did so by adding new design motifs that showcase what Nextcloud is all about through a new modern look and clear visuals.

We wanted to make it clear that Nextcloud Hub is easy to get started with and can be trusted. This was achieved through a mix of fluid designs, floating 3D shapes, an active and engaging style, abstract forms and patterns, and consistent branding with our beloved Nextcloud blue, but with a greater depth. The aim was to use positive, problem-solving images that convey sensible optimism.

Myoung Hee Jo

Brand Graphic Designer

To round out the design changes, we created a new default background, in tune with the Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn branding, that you see in the welcome screen and is the new default for your workspace. It is gorgeous, in both light and dark mode.

What’s more, we added new example content to Nextcloud Contacts and Calendar that help you onboard with these apps. Alongside example content in Nextcloud Talk, Deck, Collectives, Tables and Files.

Start prepared: new templates and example content

To help you get started with new apps and find out what they can do, we have example content, like a few files in Nextcloud Files, a few cards in Nextcloud Deck and an example conversation in Talk. For this release, we added new example content to Nextcloud Contacts and Nextcloud Calendar.

We added 11 new file templates across documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and reworked six older templates to cover the most common tasks with convenient, great looking templates. Users can add more themselves in their templates folder.

As admin, you can configure available templates and add new ones organization-wide. That way you can ensure everybody is using the company style in presentations, for example!

Intuitive Nextcloud Office

For Nextcloud Office, our goal was to really improve the user experience. We have received a lot of feedback, so we focused on two main areas here. First, user interaction design. And second, performance!

In a complex interface like an Office application, colors can make it easier to identify tools. So we paired our usual clean design with a new splash of color! You will see the new, colorful icons, helping you find what you are looking for.

Next, we gave each of the office applications a clear, different focus color. This helps you instantly distinguish different document types. You can see these colors in the selected content, in the icons, on the bar on top and other places.

The new style has usability benefits, but also brings a touch of joy to using Nextcloud Office!

Faster access and improved navigation

Next, we focused on improving navigation and making the tools you need accessible instantly.

When you select a text, the new contextual popover will pull up the font tools and a quick option to add a comment. This is perfect for those mouse-users. If you’re more of a keyboard warrior that loves shortcuts, we have something for you, too — we made keyboard shortcuts easier to find!

To make it easier to find where you are in a large document, the navigation sidebar lets you browse the document structure, media, bookmarks and comments. With this release we introduce a search tool in the navigation sidebar.

Last, but not least, we had a look at the toolbars on top of all our applications in a very detailed way, making 3 major changes.

First, looking at statistics of how various functions are used, we re-ordered and optimized them. We introduced some grouping using menu’s, and made some items larger or smaller depending on their usage.

Second, we moved some functions into new toolbar tabs, optimizing the grouping of functionality.

Here is an overview of the new tabs:

• Formulas tab in spreadsheets
• Slide Show tab in presentations
• Design Tab in presentations
• Transition tab in presentations
• Layout tab in documents
• Page Layout tab in spreadsheets

Third, we introduced contextual tabs which are displayed based on selection: Sparkline, Picture and Shape.

With these changes, accessing the functionality of Nextcloud Office should be easier and more efficient, especially for new users.

New in Nextcloud Text

Nextcloud Text is our easy to use markdown-based document editor, designed with a clean interface. Besides its use as stand-alone editor, it is used in various places in Nextcloud like Nextcloud Deck, Notes and Collectives.

Nextcloud Text, our markdown-based editor, has a lot of functionality that is perhaps a little hidden for people new to the app. To help them get started, we created a Suggestion Bar, shown in empty documents. It shows how you can add a link to a document, upload new files, create a table and add all kinds of other content using the Smart Picker.

The addition of easy drag handles make re-arranging large documents with many objects like maps, tables and documents much easier.

A fresh look at Nextcloud Collectives

Nextcloud Collectives features a redesigned homepage. We also improved the templating system. Templates are now unique to a Collective and can be easily managed from a menu option. We also shortened sharing links, introduce colorful page tags to help you find content and made it easier to track different versions of a page.

Bottom bar in Nextcloud Talk

We redesigned the call interface in Nextcloud Talk moving call controls to a bottom bar. Changing your background or raising your hand is now just one click away.

Talk benefited from more design work — on the home page, as well as in the left sidebar.

Built for everyday simplicity

Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn is easy to get started with — for both admins that get it running and end users that get their work done with our tools. Lets explore some of the new day-to-day features that ease you in.

Locate any file in seconds

Discover the new Search in Nextcloud. Simply start typing the file name in your folder, and Search in Files will filter matching items for you. Did you not find the file? Expand your search by clicking “Everywhere” to search in other folders and locations.

In Photos, you can find photos by filtering, and now — create albums instantly based on your search filters.

Multitasking made easy, new UI and more in mobile apps

The Nextcloud Files for iOS application was completely rewritten. The new version not only improves the reliability of background activities, it can upload up to twice as fast as before and is far more responsive when using it.

We also adopted our application to the new Liquid Glass design in iOS 26. For this, our interface was entirely reworked, giving more room for the content of the application so you can focus on what matters to you. 

The application uses sleek, translucent interface elements that diffract light and dynamically respond to your movements. Its gorgeous animations bring in some visual magic, adding to a delightful user experience.

You’ll have to admit — when you control your data, Liquid Glass serves transparency in style!

We also took advantage of new iOS features. Need to reorganize files? You can open two instances of the Nextcloud Files iOS app on your ipad and use drag & drop to move documents between folders or even between two different accounts on different Nextcloud servers.

You can now also use the pinch gesture to zoom in and out smoothly in your media library, similar to your Camera Roll.

The Android app has some updates too. It inherited the new outline icons from Nextcloud Hub, and got an improved drawer menu for navigation.

Nextcloud Talk: Threads, “Busy” status, and iOS updates

Threaded conversations in Nextcloud Talk bring order to busy chats by tying side discussions directly to the original message, so context doesn’t get lost. Thread view lets you focus on a single topic even in the most lively conversations.

New status options

Talking about busy, there’s now the new “ Busy” status to communicate your availability, in addition to other statuses that also got new easily recognizable icons. “ Busy” activates automatically during calls and scheduled meetings.

We have now enabled iOS users with the familiar left-right layout of message bubbles, similar to iMessage and other chat apps.

Curious to learn more about Nextcloud Talk? Check out how Nextcloud Talk “Munich” ensures resilient communication and collaboration and brings more new features, with full data control and zero vendor lock-in.

Live AI subtitles in calls, chat stickers and images

Having difficulty understanding someone or need to work in silence? Use live AI transcription to read what your colleagues say in your Nextcloud Talk meeting.

Give your chat in Nextcloud Talk a cheeky extra by generating stickers with the Smart Picker. It works in other apps too! And in Nextcloud Files, generate images with a simple prompt from the “+” menu.

Faster and cleaner real-time sketching in Nextcloud Whiteboard

Your online whiteboard tool got smart new features to stay organized at all times, and now scales much easier with improved performance, for live editing in especially busy brainstorming sessions.

More new features:

• Grid view to align your shapes, drawings, and notes
• Presentation mode and presenter following
• Library to save your shapes and add shapes created by community
• Text search

With a bit of Nextcloud Assistant magic, you can now generate Mermaid diagrams on your whiteboards in seconds. Describe what you need, and the AI assistant creates the visual structure while Mermaid turns it into the right shapes.

Say goodbye to an overflowing mailbox

With a couple of smart tricks in Nextcloud Mail, you can now keep control of your messages easier than ever. Quick Actions lets you handle common tasks in one go: mark a mail as read, move it into a project folder, or forward the email to a specified address.

You can now create a filter directly from a message, such as moving emails into a specific folder based on the subject or sender. Fewer clicks, more organization: Nextcloud Mail makes it happen.

You can also now save and reuse content blocks from emails, and switch off email threading.

Scheduling made simple with Nextcloud Calendar

Does finding a time slot for your next meeting feel like a juggling act? Especially with external people, you often have to ask for multiple slots, or give them yourself, wait for replies, see if you found a slot… It’s a lot of work.

We essentially automated this process! You can create a meeting proposal. Add your team members — you will see their and your availability. Then pick some slots that are suitable for you and them. Then, add the external people — and click “Create”.

The external invitees will get a nice poll where they can vote on the slots that work for them. Once everybody has shared their preference, you’ll get notified and can lock down the final meeting.

For simple internal meetings, we improved the free-busy view as well.

Let Nextcloud Hub do the work for you: AI and automation

In Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn, even complex tasks can become easier. Sometimes you just need more advanced tools for that. Read on for updates in Nextcloud Flow automation features and AI in Nextcloud.

Nextcloud Assistant: your privacy-first AI assistant, now with even more powerful agents

With the Nextcloud Assistant, we enabled you with the industry-first Ethical AI assistant that runs on your own server: a fully integrated and large language model that never sends any data to third parties.

This time around, we improved Nextcloud Assistant’s responsiveness and UI. And we already told you about live transcriptions and sticker generation in Nextcloud Talk. Besides that, what’s next for your AI assistant?

Taking the agent features further

Agents make Nextcloud Assistant even more like your personal assistant. We expand the agents, adding new abilities and give you more control over performance in settings.

New tasks the Nextcloud Assistant can perform through agents:

• Check tasks in calendar
• Create tasks and Deck cards
• Search YouTube videos
• List projects and create tasks in OpenProject
• Search in DuckDuckGo
• Read emails
• Plan routes on the map with different means of transport
• Generate documents

Create docs, sheets and slides with a simple prompt

Save time and effort by having the Nextcloud Assistant get you started! For instance, make a spreadsheet for your next product meeting, or get a quick overview of all your support tickets. Give it a rough idea or outline of a presentation and it’ll create a great start for you! The Assistant can generate documents, spreadsheets, slides and PDFs.

Ask, and you shall find

Find any document super quickly thanks to the Nextcloud Assistant’s Context Chat search. Ask it what you are looking for, and get the relevant documents.

“Nextcloud Assistant, give me a summary”

Ask the Assistant to summarize your documents or get transcripts of audio files — directly from your file’s context menu.

Last but not least: voice input

All of these features are accessible through typing a prompt as well as through voice input. Say what you’d like to do, and the Assistant will start working on it — and even reply with its own voice!

Automate more with Nextcloud Flow

We have expanded our automation tools in Nextcloud Flow by adding new building blocks for our Windmill-based process automation app:

• Getting users from a group
• Listening for tag assignments
• Creating/copying/moving files and folders
• Creating calendar events
• Listing folder trees
• Locating folders and files

For example, you can set a flow triggered by a “meeting agenda” tag on a file: automatically file it in the meetings folder, share the agenda in a team chat, and then create a calendar event for the meeting.

Streamlined file approvals

The Approval app lets you set up an easy approval system for your files, without the back and forth between parties. We improved the app both in the back-end and in functionality, adding options to unapprove files and delegate the approval workflow to other people and groups.

Under the hood: maintenance and performance

Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn carries many back-end improvements and maintenance, boosting stability, performance and security of the entire platform.

Maintenance work: the big clean-up

Typically, around 90% of our work is maintenance and hardening, and only 10% of the changes in each release are features. In Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn, the numbers are similar: For example, Files had 2725 pull requests, of which 225 were feature related and for Mail it was 625 and 45. Across a number of repositories we looked at only about 6% were related to features.

This time around, we’ve done a particularly big issue clean-up in Nextcloud Groupware, Nextcloud Assistant and the Approval app.

Performance gains, measured

We made many performance enhancements across Nextcloud Hub. Here are some numbers to give you an idea:

• Up to 6X faster uploads with Chunked Upload, now also available for public links.
• Snappier iOS and Android apps. 2X faster upload and 80% less instability issues measured on iOS.
• Optimized Virtual File System (VFS) on macOS and Windows.
  • For Mac OS, the VFS is now near-instant in setup, and during navigating folder, updates to folders are done in parallel with ongoing file syncing for instant navigation.
  • The VFS in Mac OS also has a massively reduced battery drain and network usage, syncing only the limited set of files and folders you have been using.
  • The VFS setup on Windows is about 30% faster, while Windows also introduces a “keep file locally available” menu option.
• 15% less database queries Nextcloud-wide
• And many more improvements in apps, especially Nextcloud Whiteboard, Mail and Calendar.

Operational excellence:
a smoother Nextcloud

If you are the one keeping the Nextcloud server running, this part is for you. Let’s see how Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn helps you do your admin magic with precision.

Assisted deployment with new setup checks

Setup checks guide you through configuration and installation options that need adjusting. We added checks on the push notifications setup in Talk, a check for Mail and a check for the Assistant. New Adaptive Setup Checks are available in Nextcloud Guard for enterprise users.

Config presets for simple setup

Kickstart a customized instance with one of the config presets that apply a number of default settings depending on what you use Nextcloud Hub for.

Lots of new admin tools

Whether you are looking to automate things or want to make life of people on your server easier, we give you a host of new tools and commands to do that.

Nextcloud Teams 2.0

With Nextcloud Teams, people on your instance can self-organize in groups to work on common tasks, share and track team-related resources easily. Teams integrate into the Nextcloud Hub ecosystem, a self-sustaining layer of user management.

What’s new in Nextcloud Teams:

• New Nextcloud Teams Dashboard widget
• Redesigned user interface for the team and improved team management
• We added the ability to create a Guest account in a new dialog, directly from the Teams interface

Nextcloud Ecosystem and developer tools

Hundreds of apps and integrated external services extend the functionality of Nextcloud Hub beyond its core products. Here’s what Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn brings to ecosystem and tools for developers.  

New in integrations

We have updated integrations with Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Discourse, and Google, and added new social sharing links for Mastodon, WhatsApp, and Bluesky.

New integration: Overleaf

Overleaf integration in Nextcloud lets you work with LaTeX files primarily used by scientists and researchers for creating and publishing technical documents.

How to start building apps for Nextcloud

Build applications for Nextcloud in any programming language using our complete API documentation and a growing library of ready tutorials. What’s more, you can subscribe to a dedicated developer newsletter and get all the relevant updates delivered to you.

Nurtured by a thriving community

Nextcloud Hub is a product not just of our great team’s work, but also numerous contributions by our community: to features, integrations, translations, testing, and documentation. Thank you for being a part of Nextcloud, creating it with us and putting it to the test in all the many ways.

Easy to start, easy to stay

With Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn, you stay in control over all your data. Choose your preferred method of deployment: run it on your own server or set up Nextcloud Hub with one of the providers — or take a peek into the new version with an instant trial.

Get Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn now!

Download the latest version of Nextcloud Hub here. Or if you are new – start your instant trial right away!

Try nowDownload Nextcloud Hub

The Nextcloud Enterprise version of Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn will become available soon, once we successfully run the additional testing and complete certification.

Explore all Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn features

Nextcloud Files

• Search in files
• Guests Improvements
• Photo albums based on filters
• Allow chunked public upload
• Support for multiple primary storage backends
• Replace X with Bluesky for social sharing
• Adjust date display in modified column to be more useful
• Allow uploading folders on file-drop shares
• Control e2ee folders via API (OpenAPI spec needed)
• Block uploads when the virus scanner is unavailable
• Allow to view .PDF / videos / images in internal share with download disabled
• Support more file-types for view-only
• Add support for secure Redis connections to the Files High Performance backend (notify_push)

Nextcloud Talk

• Threads in chats
• Event conversations
• Sensitive conversations
• Important conversations
• Nextcloud Talk Home dashboard
• SIP Dial-In
• Improved right sidebar in one-to-one conversations
• Quicker way to share the latest images from mobile apps
• Shortcuts / Automation support on Talk-iOS
• Allow selecting output device
• “Busy” user status
• Setup check to ensure notify_push is configured
• Adding participants to one-to-one calls
• iOS Talk Chat redesign (Bubbles and split own messages to the side)

Nextcloud Mail

• Quick actions
• Text blocks
• Improved Mail frontend performance
• More smooth perceived frontend performance
• Disable email threading
• Create a filter from a message
• Link to OAuth admin documentation from the Mail admin settings
• Suggest recipients from own identities in Mail
• Remember preferred composer state per Mail account
• Warn when sending an email without a subject in Mail
• OCS API to list accounts and aliases of a user
• Setup check for php-mail in Mail
• AVIF contact avatars
• Detect emails that need translation
• Allow AVIF content type in PhotoCache
• HTML source editing for Mail signatures and the composer
• Option to disable/enable the system address book from the admin settings UI

Nextcloud Calendar

• Calendar invitation time proposals
• Change view and colors of the find a time modal (free/busy)
• Full screen event detail view
• Outline icons in Calendar
• Calendar API to retrieve availability of attendees
• Example event
• Fix, update and optimize automated timezone updates for @nextcloud/timezones used in Calendar and other components
• Use browser-native UUID function in calendar-js
• Send custom default headers with each request in cdav-library
• Serialize namespaced attributes consistently across browsers in cdav-library
• OCC command to list and delete calendar subscriptions
• Read-only calendar federation

Nextcloud Office

• Secure view for Nextcloud Talk shares
• Ability to switch to OOXML as default formats
• Ability to generate documents/spreadsheets/slide with AI
• Reduce loading time by asynchronous script loading
• WOPI proof validation
• More updates from Collabora Online’s latest version and COOL 25.04

Nextcloud Text

• Viewing E2EE markdown files in the browser
• Suggestion bar to inspire writing new documents
• Keyboard shortcut for links
• Drag handle for text nodes
• Typography insert rules
• Improved image loading performance

Nextcloud Deck

• Board import and export via WebUI
• OCC commands for global calendar feature opt-in and opt-out

Nextcloud Collectives

• Template improvements
• Landing page design improvements
• Page tags
• Enhanced version support
• Short URLs for Collectives and pages
• OpenAPI support / Migration to OCS API

Nextcloud Tables

• Inline editing
• Remove rows in view after edit when they no longer match filter

Nextcloud Whiteboard

• Library support
• Grid support
• Text search within a whiteboard
• Presentation mode
• Integration of Nextcloud Assistant to generate Mermaid diagrams
• Whiteboard: Local centric architecture

Nextcloud clients

• Desktop: Performance enhancements for Virtual File System on Windows and macOS
• Android: Use only webdav for sharing information
• Android: Re-order and group drawer items
• Android: Ui overhaul: outline icons
• Android: Glide v4 migration
• Notes for Android: Share a note
• iOS: Elevating iPad app with a tab bar and sidebar
• iOS: performance improvements
• iOS: Trashbin
• Notes for iOS: Enhance login view
• iOS: allow using default sorting order
• iOS and Android: Speed up sync of metadata
• Use default sharing permissions from server
• CRUD permissions – set permissions
• CRUD permissions – handling

AI and Nextcloud Assistant

• Nextcloud Assistant: a range of new agents supported
• Document generation
• Context Chat: search files using natural language
• Live AI transcription in Nextcloud Talk
• Voice as input and output in Assistant
• Usability improvements
• IBM Watsonx integration
• Image generation: generate images with different resolutions
• Sticker generation through a Smart Picker
• Integration of Assistant features in Nextcloud Files via context menu
• Assistant & AppAPI: big performance optimizations; no more additional overhead for Nextcloud instance.
• Assistant: improved support for fully green models
• Assistant: API for the ChatUI is now an OCS API, so other developers can easy integrate the ChatUI in their apps or clients.
• Integration OpenAI: added support for the TogetherAI service, and added text-to-speech functionality

Nextcloud ecosystem and integrations

• Overleaf integration
• Integration Jira: filter project notifications, get Jira alerts, and see link previews – inside Nextcloud.
• Direct sharing of files via WhatsApp or BlueSky, using shared links.
• Mastodon Integration feature: share file
• Discourse integration: show read and unread notifications
• GitHub integration improvements
• GitLab integration improvements
• Google integration: easier to connect account
• WebSockets support in the AppAPI ecosystem
• MCP server for Nextcloud
• Using Nextcloud as identity provider through user_oidc
• User OIDC: nested-claim support and smart fallback fields mapping – broader compatibility with more identity providers

Nextcloud Flow

• New blocks: getting users from a group, listening for tag assignments, creating/copying/moving files and folders, starting flows on calendar events, listing folder trees, and locating folders.
• Approval app: general improvements, ability to unapprove files, admin delegation

Contacts

• Multiselect contacts
• Outline icons in Contacts
• Create an example contact
• Address book sync truncation
• Migrate Contacts to Vue 3
• OCC command to clear dav photo cache
• AVIF contact avatars

Other features

• Teams 2.0
• Notable maintenance, especially in 3 repositories: App Store, Approval app, Assistant
• A set of config-defaults for operational modes
• Global Scale with OIDC
• Implement OCM v1.1 + 1.2
• Migrate two-factor Webauthn to Vue 3
• Migrate @nextcloud/timezones to typescript
• Add user and file details to antivirus detection logs
• Welcome app: multilanguage support so users see messages in their own language, like Swedish.
• Account retention: avoid immediate re-expiration of re-enabled eccounts
• Harmonize user name display in a Global Scale setup
• Setup checks for recommended config and hardware values for differently sized Nextcloud instances
• Re-enable the update notification app in Nextcloud AIO in order to send statistics to the statistics server
• Add a Cancel button when editing a user
• Allow group admins to assign existing users

How to update: AIO users

For new Nextcloud All-in-One (AIO) users, you can install Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn directly by checking the “Install Nextcloud 32” box. For active AIO users, we have a dedicated setup guide. Follow the guidelines to easily set up Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn.

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The post Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn: Your digital workspace, ready in no time appeared first on Nextcloud.

About the update

This is an out-of-band maintenance release for Nextcloud Hub 9 (version 30.X) that marks its End of Life. We released this additional version to fix the issue with updating.

Found an issue? Please report any issues you find in our GitHub repositories.

Updates are available for:

• Nextcloud Hub 9 (version 30.0.16, EOL)

Nextcloud Hub 9 (30x) reaches End of Life. What does it mean?

Major versions that have reached their End of Life no longer receive further bug fixes or security updates. Support for major releases may be extended through Nextcloud Enterprise offered by Nextcloud developers via Nextcloud GmbH.  For more details to help with planning your updates, check the documentation page.

Always keep your server up to date!

Nextcloud’s minor releases primarily focus on addressing security vulnerabilities and functionality bugs, avoiding major system overhauls that could jeopardize user data. Keeping your server up to date is vital, and our approach to testing and validation ensures that upgrading to minor releases is generally smooth and reliable.

For mission-critical Nextcloud systems in enterprise settings, consider switching to Nextcloud Enterprise. The tier provides you with ultimate deployment confidence: direct access to the Nextcloud engineering team, full assistance throughout deployment and integration, and peace of mind for system administrators. If you’re responsible for maintaining Nextcloud in your setting, this option may be the ideal solution for you.

The post Out-of-band maintenance release for Nextcloud Hub 9 appeared first on Nextcloud.

Address: Paul-Lincke-Ufer 21, 10999 Berlin, Germany

What to expect

The Nextcloud Community Conference is all about collaboration and innovation. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s in store:

• Inspiring keynotes: Hear from thought leaders on topics like the EU AI Act and digital sovereignty through open source.
• Hands-on workshops: From accessibility to ExApp development, dive deep into practical skills.
• Lightning talks: Quick, inspiring sessions to discover new ideas and projects.
• Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn launch: Be the first to experience our biggest release of the year!
• Contributor Week: Four extra days to code, design, and plan with the global Nextcloud community.

What to bring?

• Lanyards: In light of sustainability, we would ask attendees who have come before to bring their lanyard. If you haven’t been before, don’t worry, we will have lanyards and badges for you to wear.

• Nextcloud T-shirt: If you have a Nextcloud T-shirt, please bring and wear it! If not, then there will be T-shirts available.

• Headphones: There will be free time and areas to work in, so be sure to bring your own ear buds or headphones if that’s your thing to get in the zone.

• Laptop (+ charger): You will need to bring your own laptop if you want to use one, as we will not have ones for rent or borrowing.

Event venue

The conference takes place at bUm, a vibrant community space by the canal in Kreuzberg, Berlin.

bUm is a place for social movements, for commitment to freedom, equality and a society based on solidarity in which people stand up for each other. Read their full Attitude & Awareness guide.

Arrival information

Venue address: Paul-Lincke-Ufer 21, 10999 Berlin, Germany

Before arrival, please have already in hand your ticket or ticket confirmation which you should have received per email.

Once you’ve entered the building, you will be greeted at our registration desk where you will check in, receive a badge and lanyard (if you didn’t bring your own lanyard from the last Nextcloud Conference), a Nextcloud T-shirt and a tote bag and have the opportunity to be able to ask any questions you might have.

Photos & privacy

We’ll have photographers capturing the energy and fun throughout the conference. These images help share the spirit of the event with our global community.

• If you do not want to be photographed, stop by the registration desk to get a privacy sticker for your badge.
• By attending, you agree that photos and videos may be used for promotion and documentation purposes.

Accessibility & inclusion

We want everyone to feel welcome and supported.

• The venue is wheelchair accessible.
• Silent room will be available in -1 for anyone who needs a break.
• If you require assistance or special accommodations, please reach out to the event team ahead of time or during the event.

Our goal is to create a safe, inclusive space for everyone.

Sustainability

Nextcloud is committed to sustainable, responsible practices and ensuring empathy in a (digital) society. As we host a major in-person event, we are aware of our social responsibility and environmental impact. Therefore, we will recycle all we can and try to avoid waste.

As for your contribution, we ask you to bring your old lanyard and/or Nextloud T-shirt from a previous event to help our cause. We hope to make the #NextcloudConf25 a sustainable and friendly environment for all so we can continue these events in the future responsibly.

Together, we can make a positive environmental impact.

Code of conduct

We are committed to providing a safe and welcoming environment for all participants.
Please review our Nextcloud Code of Conduct before attending.

We expect everyone to:

• Be respectful and inclusive.
• Listen, collaborate, and support others.
• Help create a positive experience for everyone.

If you experience or witness any issues, please report them to the event staff immediately.

Share your feedback

Your feedback helps us improve each year!

After the event, you’ll receive a short survey — please take a few minutes to let us know how we did and what you’d like to see next time.

Connect with us

Stay connected before, during, and after the event:

• Hashtag: #NextcloudConf25
• Mastodon: @Nextcloud
• X: @Nextclouders
• Forum: Welcome to the Nextcloud forums
• Instagram: @nextclouders
• LinkedIn: Nextcloud
• Bluesky: @nextcloud.bsky.social

See you in person!

We can’t wait to welcoming you in Berlin and work together towards Building a safer digital world!

The post All you need to know about the Nextcloud Community Conference 2025 appeared first on Nextcloud.