Self-hosting software on your own servers is an awesome way to learn about sysadmin topics, as well as providing yourself with useful services free from the typical adtech networks online. Whether you have your own homelab or rent a VPS, what are you running on it?
My homelab (and by homelab I mean a single Raspberry Pi 4) currently runs Jellyfin to host all of my legally obtained media, Pihole to block ads on my entire home network and provide DNS to my computers, and Jenkins to learn a bit about CI/CD tech.
My DigitalOcean VPS hosts my website(s), some Discord bots I’ve written, and the 32-Bit Cafe’s FreshRSS instance.
I want to work on hosting a Nextcloud or Owncloud instance next, but I need slightly more robust hardware to do it. Namely, hard disks that are not connected via USB.
So what are you hosting on your machines? What would you like to try hosting next?
unfortunately the network i am on doesn’t let me self-host apps over the network itself, so i can’t use jellyfin
however i do use my online VPS to host freshrss, linkding, a tiny discord bot, and an akkoma instance (which i will probably shut down soon because i never use it LOL)
freshrss is actually on an older server of mine. i’ve been needing to move it to the new one but it’s such a pain to do that i’ve been putting it off…
That’s a bummer that you can’t self host on your own network This is the first time I’ve heard of linkding, though, it seems super cool, I might set up an instance myself!
I’ve got a media box that does my entertainment heavy lifting
Audobookshelf
Beets
FreshRSS
Jackett
Lidarr
Organizr
Plex
Portainer
Prowlarr
Radarr
SabNZBD
Sonarr
Tautulli
Storage is on a DS923, 16TB atm…
This allows me to stream music, movies, tv, and audiobooks.
I try to buy everything DRM free first, if I can’t then I take matters into my own hands.
Staying with Plex for the meanwhile as PlexAmp is too good for my locally hosted music library.
I had to self-host a bunch of stuff for college during an entire semester, which ended up with me earning one of those free Hurricane Electric certified IPv6 sage T-Shirts.
I’ve been a lot less ambitious since then. On my previous computer I hosted a Facebook Chat to IRC bridge, but by now it’s no longer feasible given Meta finally implemented E2E encryption. So currently I’ve only got Plex running. I’ve been meaning to set up a server so it’s not tied to my desktop, but I dunno if my old Raspberry Pi is powerful enough for Plex and most of my other needs have become obsolete so I’ve put it all on the backburner. Maybe something to stream music?
Nextcloud - secondary location for important files
Navidrome - Music streaming for my music collection
Kavita - eBook reader
Memos - almost like singleplayer twitter. It is meant for note taking and I really gravitated toward it being like a twitter feed for just your thoughts
I was able to learn about docker and in addition writing docker compose files to self host these services. I’ve used regular nginx as a reverse proxy for them, as well as Traefik at one point, but have settled on Nginx Proxy Manager for now.
Self-hosting apps is really cool but I just simply have no use for any of that (maybe except a Pi-hole). But if we’re counting VPSes, I do run my website on a VPS.
here’s what i’m currently running on my home server! i’m using docker to run each service in a separate container for ease of setup and portability.
Seafile for file storage and syncing. it operates much like google drive or dropbox, except all of my files are saved locally on my server. i used to use nextcloud for this, but switched to seafile a couple years ago, as it tends to sync much faster and more reliably in my experience.
PiHole for blocking ads (and occasionally distracting sites like youtube) on my local network - looks like a few other people here use it as well.
DokuWiki for documenting personal projects/ideas and keeping notes on my home network and computer setups.
Miniflux for reading RSS feeds and listening to podcasts.
Node-RED for home and network automation (using huemagic-fork to control my hue stuff).
i’ve been interested in switching from google photos to a self-hosted alternative, but there’s almost too many options out there for self-hosted photo syncing/management. does anyone here have any suggestions or recommendations?
I have been using Immich. I was never a heavy photo app user but it seems to do the job so far. It currently just a place for my hundreds of cat photos but will be useful in the future when I begin photographing local plant and wildlife.
I’ve tried many times to self-host but I always get stuck on firewall or reverse proxy stuff! If we count VPSes (not really self hosting but controlling your content to an extent) I have a pika pod for Gitea to mirror my most important repos
At home I have a Synology NAS that I’d like to re-install Plex on to hold some home videos and my slowly growing music collection. Maybe I’ll venture into using more of the Synology software to forward to a domain that I own for my photo library and files.
After playing with many services listed in Awesome Self Hosted, what mostly sticks around are services that help in collaboration.
Nextcloud: I use this to create password-protected share links that expire.
Forejo: This hosts mirrors of GitHub repositories I care about.
HedgeDoc: Whenever I want to quickly discuss ideas with someone, I create a sharable collaborative markdown document.
Overleaf: Collaborative LaTex editor that creates PDF files. I use this when a collaborator of mine doesn’t already have an Overleaf pro account.
For managing my personal files, it’s a mix between using Git and Syncthing. I have a script that regularly performs a restic backup and sends it to an off-site server.
There’s been a number of times I’ve been tempted to try self-hosting something and see how it goes, but the process gets intimidating enough (e.g. reverse-proxies) that I’ve never actually been game to try As a result, the only thing I actually self-host is a Plex server, and even then I don’t try accessing it when I’m not at home. (I think I’d have to call my ISP and opt out of CG-NAT. I could do this, but that would require me not to always procrastinate on making non-critical phone calls.) There definitely are so many nifty tools around for self-hosters though!
I’ve hosted a lot of things, but at the end I never used them enough to justify keeping them. I just realize I don’t require that many services I very agree with CEO of Obsidian File over app — Steph Ango and mostly try to do the same.
The only thing I self-host now is PI-Hole on RPI, it never gets in my way and maintenance is very minimal.
Yeah I totally get that, reverse proxies are very helpful but a bit of a hurdle to get over when you’re first learning how to do all this. I’ve avoided self-hosting publicly available services (at home) specifically because I don’t want to deal with my ISP, though I know it’s possible to set up some sort of tunnel from a cloud VPS to your home machines, which would be preferable I think.
Unfortunately I’ve put the project on hold, but I got pretty far in setting up Paperless-ngx. While I was actively using it, and testing it out on my mother (she struggles with finding documents, even when she has an organizational system), it was incredible. It says it on the page, but basically:
Organize and index your scanned documents with tags, correspondents, types, and more.
Performs OCR on your documents, adding searchable and selectable text, even to documents scanned with only images.
@Empyrean Paperless stores your documents plain on disk. Filenames and folders are managed by paperless and their format can be configured freely with different configurations assigned to different documents.
And so much more, yo. If I were to pick back up self-hosting, it’d be this project first, no doubt.
Self hosting is so cool! It’s really neat to see all the things you can do…
I don’t have anything self-hosted yet, myself. I’m pondering the idea of setting up a media server like Plex, which I could use to watch movies and shows with people in VR with the Bigscreen Beta app, but it’s a bit intimidating. And it involves quite a few steps beyond simply setting up, like getting the files. It’s been a long time since I ripped my physical media - I don’t even have a disc drive in my PC anymore! (I didn’t choose my PC, or I’d have tried to get one; but I can’t really complain, since I won it~)
I hear you about lots of steps and getting setup. There are several projects floating around that help automate everything. I’ve been using saltbox the past couple years and makes this easy, once you get through the hurdles of getting it setup and configured…
This is the first time I’ve heard of linkding, though, it seems super cool, I might set up an instance myself!
As a result, the only thing I actually self-host is a Plex server, and even then I don’t try accessing it when I’m not at home. (I think I’d have to call my ISP and opt out of CG-NAT. I could do this, but that would require me not to always procrastinate on making non-critical phone calls.) There definitely are so many nifty tools around for self-hosters though!