diff --git a/nixos/doc/manual/release-notes/rl-2505.section.md b/nixos/doc/manual/release-notes/rl-2505.section.md
index 1dd9eb1cae47..06758b4af6c4 100644
--- a/nixos/doc/manual/release-notes/rl-2505.section.md
+++ b/nixos/doc/manual/release-notes/rl-2505.section.md
@@ -115,6 +115,15 @@
 
 - `ps3-disc-dumper` was updated to 4.2.5, which removed the CLI project and now exclusively offers the GUI
 
+- [](#opt-services.nextcloud.config.dbtype) is unset by default, the previous default was `sqlite`.
+  This was done because `sqlite` is not a reasonable default since it's
+  [not recommended by upstream](https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/30/admin_manual/installation/system_requirements.html)
+  and thus doesn't qualify as default.
+
+- Nextcloud's default FPM pool settings have been increased according to upstream recommentations. It's advised
+  to review the new defaults and description of
+  [](#opt-services.nextcloud.poolSettings).
+
 - `asusd` has been upgraded to version 6 which supports multiple aura devices. To account for this, the single `auraConfig` configuration option has been replaced with `auraConfigs` which is an attribute set of config options per each device. The config files may also be now specified as either source files or text strings; to account for this you will need to specify that `text` is used for your existing configs, e.g.:
   ```diff
   -services.asusd.asusdConfig = '''file contents'''
diff --git a/nixos/modules/services/web-apps/nextcloud.nix b/nixos/modules/services/web-apps/nextcloud.nix
index eae005bca545..64c17aa44b4a 100644
--- a/nixos/modules/services/web-apps/nextcloud.nix
+++ b/nixos/modules/services/web-apps/nextcloud.nix
@@ -374,14 +374,18 @@ in {
       type = with types; attrsOf (oneOf [ str int bool ]);
       default = {
         "pm" = "dynamic";
-        "pm.max_children" = "32";
-        "pm.start_servers" = "2";
-        "pm.min_spare_servers" = "2";
-        "pm.max_spare_servers" = "4";
+        "pm.max_children" = "120";
+        "pm.start_servers" = "12";
+        "pm.min_spare_servers" = "6";
+        "pm.max_spare_servers" = "18";
         "pm.max_requests" = "500";
       };
       description = ''
-        Options for nextcloud's PHP pool. See the documentation on `php-fpm.conf` for details on configuration directives.
+        Options for nextcloud's PHP pool. See the documentation on `php-fpm.conf` for details on
+        configuration directives. The above are recommended for a server with 4GiB of RAM.
+
+        It's advisable to read the [section about PHPFPM tuning in the upstream manual](https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/30/admin_manual/installation/server_tuning.html#tune-php-fpm)
+        and consider customizing the values.
       '';
     };
 
@@ -416,7 +420,6 @@ in {
     config = {
       dbtype = mkOption {
         type = types.enum [ "sqlite" "pgsql" "mysql" ];
-        default = "sqlite";
         description = "Database type.";
       };
       dbname = mkOption {
diff --git a/nixos/tests/nextcloud/basic.nix b/nixos/tests/nextcloud/basic.nix
index f8306503d85f..217f22714c1c 100644
--- a/nixos/tests/nextcloud/basic.nix
+++ b/nixos/tests/nextcloud/basic.nix
@@ -59,6 +59,7 @@ runTest (
 
           services.nextcloud = {
             enable = true;
+            config.dbtype = "sqlite";
             datadir = "/var/lib/nextcloud-data";
             autoUpdateApps = {
               enable = true;
diff --git a/nixos/tests/nextcloud/with-declarative-redis-and-secrets.nix b/nixos/tests/nextcloud/with-declarative-redis-and-secrets.nix
index 6b0dd71f85ef..74343a22b7ae 100644
--- a/nixos/tests/nextcloud/with-declarative-redis-and-secrets.nix
+++ b/nixos/tests/nextcloud/with-declarative-redis-and-secrets.nix
@@ -69,14 +69,13 @@ runTest (
 
           services.postgresql = {
             enable = true;
-            package = pkgs.postgresql_14;
           };
           systemd.services.postgresql.postStart = pkgs.lib.mkAfter ''
             password=$(cat ${config.services.nextcloud.config.dbpassFile})
             ${config.services.postgresql.package}/bin/psql <<EOF
               CREATE ROLE ${adminuser} WITH LOGIN PASSWORD '$password' CREATEDB;
               CREATE DATABASE nextcloud;
-              GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE nextcloud TO ${adminuser};
+              ALTER DATABASE nextcloud OWNER to ${adminuser};
             EOF
           '';
 
diff --git a/nixos/tests/nextcloud/with-objectstore.nix b/nixos/tests/nextcloud/with-objectstore.nix
index 48e1edea67ba..5f24fc48851c 100644
--- a/nixos/tests/nextcloud/with-objectstore.nix
+++ b/nixos/tests/nextcloud/with-objectstore.nix
@@ -36,6 +36,8 @@ runTest (
           networking.firewall.allowedTCPPorts = [ 9000 ];
           environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.minio-client ];
 
+          services.nextcloud.config.dbtype = "sqlite";
+
           services.nextcloud.config.objectstore.s3 = {
             enable = true;
             bucket = "nextcloud";