Syncthing

people I know have said it’s a resource hog and finicky at best

Those people may be the kind who tell you formatting your hard drive and reinstalling windows every other week is the best way to keep it 'clean'.

Ive been using Nextcloud at multiple businesses for years, its a rock.

If you're looking to self-host, nextcloud is the way go. But if you're just looking for a drive alternative, there's plenty of simpler alternatives, like proton or kdrive.

The UI is a little crazy but I am a big fan of copyparty. I have moved my entire family off of Google Drive and we use copyparty, and it works great. Uploads are fast, lots of features, easy to stand up and doesn't consume lots of resources. But like I said, the UI could be better.

You've got some good suggestions, I think most of the suggestions I can think of. Nextcloud is of course the big one but after using it for quite a while, I think it's important to break down your needs. If you need file sharing/syncing only, there are better options that are easier and faster. If you only need chat/voice, rocket chat is really lightweight and easy. If you need file sharing, online office suite, chat, etc. Then Nextcloud is the right option. Just keep in mind, even if you think you need some of those things, will anyone but you ever actually use them? No, they won't, because they don't appreciate how cool it is to self host and how much effort you put into it.

Seafile is an alternative for self-hosting: https://www.seafile.com/en/product/seafile_on_premise/

I haven't tried it. Seems to be more efficient than Nextcloud. It also has way less features. So. 🤷

I run Nextcloud inside a VM, running on a decade+ old Intel gen 3 computer and the interface is snappier than navigating around google drive.

It is finickier to self-host than syncthing though, if all you need is sync. There are also tones of providers out there that will sell you Nextcloud or similar services.

Sign up for 10 different free accounts of Proton Drive? It has 5gb free cloud storage.

Though I always prefer the simple physical backup to SD card and backup to PC.

I also have a simple sshd server and use sftp when I'm feeling frisky.

Sending from any device to any device using KDE connect is good too.

I moved to pCloud + Cryptomator for general cloud file storage and Cryptpad for online document editing. These cover some of the main functions of Google Drive.

Syncthing is good if you just want files to show up on more than one machine, with no cloud services involved.

Bewcloud?