The Appstore is an important part of the vision behind Nextcloud: building a healthy ecosystem around our project. The store makes it easy for users to discover and install new applications while it enables developers to reach a wider audience. In this blog we go over the main improvements as well as some plans for the future.
For developers
As we’d like to encourage developers to contribute to the Nextcloud ecosystem, making it easy to distribute applications was a major goal for the updated app store.
Parsing, validating and REST API
To avoid having to enter details twice, the info.xml is parsed after upload and validated. We catch mistakes in folder structure or naming and other issues. Then, from the xml we generate the details of the app store entry like app name, description and more. A special XML Schema will be provided so developers can validate their info.xml offline, which also enables IDEs such as PHPStorm to provide autocompletion and validation. And very cool: descriptions support Markdown so you can finally include proper looking links and markup!
Log in with OAuth
Another really cool improvement is our REST API for publishing apps, enabling developers to automate everything even more. The new app store also makes it easy to offer ‘nightly’ versions and in the future we might also add alpha, beta or rc support in the store.
OAuth, multiple versions and security
Developers can now choose to log in with GitHub or BitBucket (no need for ANOTHER account) and multiple app developers can publish new versions. GUI support for co-maintainers isn’t finished yet, but coming soon!
Note that we do not host the archives on our server (for now), we only download and parse the archive’s info.xml. That allows us to easily host more than one release, especially as we recommend to ‘just’ link to a github-generated zip file of a release branch.
Since we also provide all dependencies in the API the built in app store (the one in the apps section) can actually let you install the latest working version instead of marking the app as incompatible because the newest version added dependencies which you can’t satisfy. We also might make it possible to explicitly install an older version of an app.
As for security: download URLs have to be HTTPS and we also create sha256 sums over the downloaded archive. Additionally you can sign your app using a certificate. We’re still very much looking for feedback on the security of the app store; while the new store is a big step forward there is much to do.
Easy to host and contribute to
A community isn’t really open if it doesn’t encourage people to fork, self-host and contribute! We want to make running and working on this app store easy and we’ve already made some big steps.
The API is designed in a way that we could also dump JSON files on a webserver and it would still work fine, so it should scale very well. This also means that people can just create two JSON files on their own server and deliver a fully fledged custom app store repo for their users. The store code is documented here.
We use Python and Django in the app store, giving access to quite a large number of libraries on a stable infrastructure. Contributions welcome!
For users
On the user side, changes are done in such a way that those using the built in app store in Nextcloud 11 should not notice a thing. Of course, if you visit apps.nextcloud.com you will see a nice, modern interface with many improvements!
This includes multi language support (not yet finished), a much more mobile-friendly web UI thanks to Twitter’s Bootstrap and a more visual experience with screenshots and such much more prominently visible. Thanks to recaptcha we make it harder to spam the app store or abuse the rating system.
The UI has gotten a overhaul with a cleanup of features and abilities. Commenting is integrated in our community forums’ app section, we direct people to the proper places for comments or bug reports and we have plenty of toughts on how to further improve the user experience.
The web store is Native ES6, meaning it supports the latest Edge, Safari (10, beta for upcoming OSX release), the latest Firefox and Chrome. However, older versions of these browsers or IE don’t work that well.
The new app store needs testing, feedback and several improvements are still planned. A neat example would be changelog support which enables Nextcloud to show the change log before the user approves updating to a new version. Another work-in-progress is rating; we’re thinking about a Steam like rating system so you can see both overall and recent ratings.
This blog was written with a lot of help from BernhardPosselt, who’s also done much of the work on the app store, but a well deserved kudos goes to the other contributors, especially janibonnevier and adsworth who both made a big impact on the store. See who’s building and contributing here.
The landing page for our upcoming Nextcloud Hub release is now live! On September 27, 2025, at 10AM (CEST), we will present the latest Nextcloud Hub live from the Nextcloud Community Conference in Berlin, Germany. And you can be part of it, too, by signing up for the online launch! While you’re registering, you might […]
In early 2025, BigTech hyperscalers in the US began to push new “sovereign cloud” offerings in a big PR campaign in Europe. In the past weeks, their narrative has collapsed. It’s not critics or watchdogs exposing the contradictions — the tech firms themselves have admitted their "sovereign" promises are empty.
In the Nextcloud 2024 wrap-up, we want to take a moment to celebrate this year's achievements. Join us as we continue to reimagine what’s possible - shaping a world where open source, privacy and connection come together and drive progress for the greater good.
Organisations, small and large, need a way to ensure the resiliency and digital sovereignty of their operations – an open-source, privacy-respecting alternative to Teams. And today, we present that solution - Nextcloud Talk.
Nextcloud has been recognized with the World Summit Award Germany that selects and promotes local digital innovation improving society, aiming to contribute to the United Nations' agenda of sustainable development goals.
DIE ZEIT, a prominent German outlet, interviewed Nextcloud’s founder Frank Karlitschek for an article on Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour on the European office software market. Read for a recap of the article and the key takeaways.
MagentaCLOUD’s migration to Nextcloud in 2021 resulted in a fully equipped Online Storage with an integrated online office suite that further improves the user experience, flexibility and security for customers.
We bring you a major update to the Nextcloud AI Assistant, plus the news we work with several big hosting providers like IONOS and OVHcloud to bring AI-as-a-Service options to you!
Bechtle and Nextcloud announce today a complete managed collaboration platform for the public sector that requires no tender and can be deployed immediately.
Discover how to make the switch from ownCloud to Nextcloud. Our quick guide provides insights into the migration process, helping you make the transition smoothly.
Today, US-based file sync & share vendor Kiteworks announced their acquisition of ownCloud and Dracoon. Kiteworks points out that their customers now have access to their file-sharing application. It is to be expected they will not maintain 3 similar products, but customers will have to migrate to the US firms’ platform or look for another […]
As part of Schleswig-Holstein's state digitization strategy, the state chancellery has announced they will work with Nextcloud to develop AI for working with government documents. This comes just after we announced the first private AI assistant last weekend with Hub 6. The German state already uses Nextcloud and their AI strategy aligns with our work on ethical, local AI technologies.
Over the last year, AI has become a popular topic. Some is hype, some is substance. Some is good, some is bad. We want to give you the good, not the bad, and ignore the hype! AI has a ton of opportunity – but also risk. So we put you in control – off by […]
With the EU law proposal “Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse” — more commonly know as the EU Chat Control Law — our democracy is threatened from the inside: by our own governments. Citing child protection as the reason, the EU wants to backdoor end-to-end encryption, so they can access and read any […]
We save some cookies to count visitors and make the site easier to use. This doesn't leave our server and isn't to track you personally!
See our Privacy Policy for more information. Customize
Statistics cookies collect information anonymously and help us understand how our visitors use our website. We use cloud-hosted Matomo
Service:Matomo
Cookies description:
_pk_ses*: Counts the first visit of the user
_pk_id*: Helps not to double count the visits.
mtm_cookie_consent: Remembers that consent for storing and using cookies was given by the user.
Cookies expiry:_pk_ses*: 30 minutes
_pk_id*: 28 days
mtm_cookie_consent: 30 days