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Comparison · Collab
Flame vs Nextcloud
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Flame and Nextcloud — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Flame vs Nextcloud: at a glance
What is Flame?
Self-hosted dashboard that finished its feature arc and stopped shipping in 2023.
Flame is a self-hosted startpage for homelab services — app tiles, bookmarks, weather, and a search bar. The feature set it set out to build was finished across 2021 and 2022: custom app descriptions, Docker secrets support, a secondary search provider, and a custom theme editor. The most recent release in this feed is v2.3.1 from July 2023, and it is entirely bug fixes.
What is Nextcloud?
Nextcloud's November patches lean on preview speed and sharing fixes across three branches.
Nextcloud released 35.0.3, 34.0.6 and 33.0.11 on November 12, a month after the previous patch round. 35.0.3 is the largest, with about a dozen calendar and contacts sync fixes, faster cold preview generation, a cached mimetype table, share expiration times that are kept, share-by-mail passwords sent readable instead of hashed, and sharing with remote owners. The two older lines get the same sharing, encryption and audit-log backports.
Flame vs Nextcloud: editorial side-by-side
Flame
0.0COLLAB
Self-hosted dashboard that finished its feature arc and stopped shipping in 2023.
◆ Current state
Flame is a self-hosted startpage for homelab services — app tiles, bookmarks, weather, and a search bar. The feature set it set out to build was finished across 2021 and 2022: custom app descriptions, Docker secrets support, a secondary search provider, and a custom theme editor. The most recent release in this feed is v2.3.1 from July 2023, and it is entirely bug fixes.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc reads as a project reaching completion rather than one under active development. Later releases shifted from adding capability to correcting the edges of what already existed — search-provider interactions, iOS input rendering, theme editor field sizes, label wording. There has been nothing since.
◆ Prediction
Nothing in these entries suggests further releases; anyone deploying Flame should treat the current version as the final one unless the project resumes.
Nextcloud
5.0COLLAB
Nextcloud's November patches lean on preview speed and sharing fixes across three branches.
◆ Current state
Nextcloud released 35.0.3, 34.0.6 and 33.0.11 on November 12, a month after the previous patch round. 35.0.3 is the largest, with about a dozen calendar and contacts sync fixes, faster cold preview generation, a cached mimetype table, share expiration times that are kept, share-by-mail passwords sent readable instead of hashed, and sharing with remote owners. The two older lines get the same sharing, encryption and audit-log backports.
◆ Where it's heading
Since the 35.0 major in September, Nextcloud has returned to its monthly three-branch patch rhythm. The fixes concentrate on sharing correctness, CalDAV/CardDAV sync and performance on large instances, with few new features. The 35 line receives small additions, such as remote share owners, that the older branches do not.
◆ Prediction
The next patch round should land in mid-December on the same three branches; the entries do not show when 36 development will surface.
Alternatives to Flame and Nextcloud
Other Collab products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Flame or Nextcloud.
Mattermost
Mattermost v12.1 puts bots and burn-after-reading messages under the same access rules.
Asana
Asana lets Division admins run their own custom roles, on top Enterprise plans only.
Double
Double turns a recorded Chrome session into an agent that repeats the task.
SiYuan
SiYuan 3.8.11 alphas add freeform mind maps and plugin snapshots right after 3.8.10.
Hive
Hive turns reporting into a planning tool: shared inputs, grouped values, per-person drill-downs.
See all Flame alternatives → · See all Nextcloud alternatives →
Recent activity from Flame and Nextcloud
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2d agoNextcloudNextcloud 34.0.6: sharing, encryption and upload backports
- 2d agoNextcloudNextcloud 33.0.11: sharing and legacy DAV auth backports
- 2d agoNextcloudNextcloud 35.0.3: faster previews, sync and sharing fixes
- 1mo agoNextcloudNextcloud 35.0.2: webhook metadata, sharing fixes, report API
- 1mo agoNextcloudNextcloud 34.0.5: share CSRF fix, log redaction, sharing backports
- 1mo agoNextcloudNextcloud 33.0.10: share CSRF fix and sharing backports
- 3y agoFlameBug fixes for local search, iOS input styling, and theme editor
- 4y agoFlameCustom theme editor and secondary search provider
- 4y agoFlameIn-app location detection and tightened file permissions
- 4y agoFlameLocal search covers app descriptions; background task tuning
- 4y agoFlameCustom app descriptions and a cluster deployment fix
- 4y agoFlameDocker secrets support
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Flame and Nextcloud?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Nextcloud is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Flame better than Nextcloud?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Nextcloud is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Collab products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Flame?
Top Flame alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Flame alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/flame-dashboard for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Nextcloud?
Top Nextcloud alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Nextcloud alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/nextcloud for the full list with editorial commentary on each.