For a long time at RESET, we were glued to Google Drive. Put simply, it was practical for our editorial team, offered a decent chunk of space and, crucially, allowed us to edit documents and lists together in real-time. But convenience wasn’t enough. Google’s business model didn’t align with our commitment to sustainability and the common good.
The final straw? Google offers zero transparency: it’s nearly impossible to trace the specific servers where our sensitive documents are actually stored.
Are they located in Germany and therefore covered by the GDPR? Is our data not being used to train new language models? And do the servers actually run on green electricity? In our search for a data-secure and green alternative, we came across “Nextcloud”. This free software can easily be installed on your own server.
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However, installing the open source software can be challenging without the necessary expertise. We also lacked some of the standard functions that we need for our work; we were used to Google Drive and, let’s face it, it runs smoothly (for the most part). Fortunately, however, Nextcloud itself offers the cloud as a service and there are now various service providers online that offer the complete cloud package for a monthly fee. We opted for the co-operative provider infra.run, which offers Nextcloud for non-profit companies and educational institutions on its own green and data-secure servers.
This article explains what Nextcloud is and the easiest way to use it. And we spoke to Andreas Steinhauser from infra.run about why data hosting in Europe makes sense at all.
What is Nextcloud?
Admittedly, searching for Nextcloud on the Internet can be a little confusing. This is because interested parties can download Nextcloud as a free programme and install it on their own server. However, Nextcloud itself also offers enterprise solutions for companies, which can be quite expensive. And then there are hosting companies that offer storage space on their own servers and pre-install Nextcloud here on request.
Andreas Steinhauser from infra.run therefore describes Nextcloud as a “cloud ecosystem”. This emerged from the Own Cloud project and initially only describes a cloud storage system with versioning. “Nextcloud has established itself thanks to its many features,” reports Andreas Steinhauser in the interview. And Nextcloud can now be expanded to include plug-ins for collaborative working, messaging and video conferencing.
There is currently a Community Edition, which is the free open source version, and an Enterprise Edition. Interested parties can install the community edition on a home server using the virtualisation program Docker or Kubernetes, which was developed by Google. Although the two systems are different, they work a bit like app stores on a smartphone. Users can install packages with just a few clicks and run the programmes on their home server.
Nextcloud : How to get started
You can install Nextcloud yourself or use a service provider.
Nextcloud itself offers instructions for server installation, where you can find the required packages.
Alternatively, you can also find 1-click solutions offered by Nextcloud itself.
With various hosting providers, including Hetzner and PortKnox, you can also select and use Nextcloud pre-installed.
How it works
Nextcloud runs within a virtual environment, providing its core functionality, explains Steinhauser. Installed on a home server or a rented server space, it immediately allows you to upload data and download it on another device. Used in this way, Nextcloud is a rudimentary form of cloud storage, similar to the services used some years ago as an alternative to external hard drives.
However, Nextcloud also offers simple plug-ins that you can install to add features. Users can, for instance, install a messenger app or use a survey tool. With these additional extensions, Nextcloud gains functions familiar from established cloud solutions like Google Drive or Microsoft’s OneDrive. For teams wanting to work collaboratively with the cloud, plug-ins such as Collabora or OpenOffice are available. For example, the RESET team uses Collabora to work together on documents.
Andreas Steinhauser advises caution when setting up more complex Nextcloud installations. He warns: “With a lot of plug-ins, you have to stay on top of things and keep everything up to date. For this reason, it often makes sense to use a service provider who can guarantee that all installed packages remain current.”
Cloud alternative also available from other hosters
Although installation via virtualisation programmes is quite straightforward, users also need a server or at least a virtual machine connected to the internet. However, just like Google Drive, Microsoft’s OneDrive or pCloud from Switzerland, subscription-based Nextcloud solutions are also available. Many cloud hosts, such as 1&1, Hetzner, or PortKnox, offer Nextcloud as a managed service, for example.
Andreas Steinhauser mentions the importance of choosing providers that operate servers within a secure jurisdiction in Europe. At the same time, he warns against providers who, while running their service from a European base, operate their servers through non-European services like Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the USA. “In the context of the Patriot Act, data stored there can fall under US regulations,” says Steinhauser. This can sometimes be a disadvantage for sensitive data or with regard to data-hungry AI companies operating outside of strict European data protection laws.
For this reason, infra.run operates its own servers in Europe, which run on green electricity. Organisations focused on the common good and schools can thus utilise a data-protection-compliant and sustainable IT infrastructure.
Fair IT infrastructure for companies, schools and universities
With the cooperative infra.run, Andreas and his team offer fair IT solutions for schools and other educational institutions, as well as for companies interested in societal added value. “We originally started to help schools get through the pandemic,” the IT expert explains. During the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns, schools had to find IT solutions for online teaching very quickly.
Part of infra.run’s offering is therefore the video conferencing software “Big Blue Button”. This free alternative to Zoom or Microsoft Teams allows organisations and users to run video conferences on local, GDPR-compliant servers that are powered by green electricity. “infra.run is therefore also a provider of a path to digitisation that promotes digital sovereignty,” Steinhauser reports. The solutions they offer are intended to be “well-functioning and easy-to-use alternatives to the established, but completely unacceptable from a data protection perspective, solutions offered primarily by US providers.”
Approach to be realised for language models in the future
Andreas Steinhauser would like to realise a similar approach for language models in the future. This is because the AI applications that most people use are stacked with disadvantages, from energy consumption to huge thirst for fresh water and perpetuation of inequality. At the same time, applications such as Chat-GPT or Google Gemini are run by US companies and therefore do not fall under European data protection regulations.
One of the future projects is therefore to build a data protection-compliant and local AI environment that can be used by investigative journalists or companies, for example. Thanks to its cooperative structure, infra.run is protected from being acquired by large tech companies.
Although language models (like ChatGPT or DeepSeek) can be run locally on a computer, much like a regular software program, their performance generally can’t match the online solutions from OpenAI, Google, and others because they are so resource-intensive. Critically, feeding personal and sensitive data into those online models poses a significant privacy risk.
A cooperatively managed, data-secure, and sustainable AI infrastructure would therefore be a crucial tool for developing and running Artificial Intelligence for the common good. After all, if you want digital sovereignty, you need an ethical AI tool that won’t just ask to borrow your data—it’ll have to wait its turn.
