Self-hosting

Self-hosting is the practice of implementing digital services with server applications under one's own control. This is opposed to relying on large public services or cloud services, compared to which it provides significantly more control over how the services are provided at the cost of responsibility for setting them up and keeping them operational over time.^[1]

It is typically taken up as a hobby, but enthusiasts report practical benefits as reasons to do this too, such as lower costs, less privacy concerns and greater flexibility.^[2] Some enjoy the feeling of independence and a sense of autonomy it brings, for some it's an alternative to digital services offered on worse terms than self-hosting can provide, and sometimes it's a viable alternative when commercial service providers make sudden significant changes detrimental to their users.^[3]

Self-hosting typically refers to usage of digital services hosted by a person for just themselves (hence the self- prefix), but they're often made available also to a circle of family and friends, especially services that feature collaboration. Before self-hosting rose to prominence similar installations were typically limited to organizations and housed internal tools, such as company chats and internal knowledge bases.^{[citation needed]} This is still common in organizations, only partially supplanted by software-as-a-service (SaaS).

Today, there are numerous free and open-source server applications available to everyone with an internet connection^[4]. Companies commonly employ dedicated system administrators to run such applications, due to some specialized knowledge required to set them up. But over the years the amount of knowledge required for this has been reducing, which has allowed more people to install such server applications by themselves.^{[citation needed]}

Because both organizations and self-hosters largely use the same methods and software, most of the same risks and mistakes that companies have to deal with are present in some form in self-hosting as well. What can be configured poorly in a self-hosted setup can be configured poorly in professional installations as well.

Messaging (such as e-mail, social networks and instant messengers), publishing (blogs, wikis, etc.), software as a service, most forms of continuous data synchronization between devices and remote access of other devices are examples of services that can provide value to users by themselves, with clients widely available or unnecessary.

Self-hosting such services can be useful for privacy: for those that do not wish for their activity on these services to be transmitted to the internet at all to reduce the number of ways it can leak.

Self-hosting can also provide additional resilience: the service can remain fully functional in a local network where it's deployed — which is useful in case the internet service provider (ISP) has an outage or if an alternative public service falls under new legal restrictions (e. g. censorship) and becomes inaccessible.

Self-hosting can also be a viable alternative when an existing service changes in an undesirable way (e. g. changes its terms of service in a controversial way, changes existing features, gets acquired or taken over), providing a baseline against which service providers could be forced to compete in serving the needs of their users.

Various products in addition to (or instead of) autonomous functioning are increasingly relying on a service elsewhere for some of their features, often marketed as "smart" or "connected".

Most of the time, product manufacturers do not allow users to specify their own servers for these services. In such cases manufacturers' infrastructure becomes integral to the product and often gives manufacturer complete access to the product post-purchase through software updates, allowing for a number of anti-consumer actions such as retroactively amended purchase (manufacturer changing the way the product functions) and discontinuation bricking (manufacturer shutting down their server, reducing functionality of the product or rendering it entirely inoperable). When using a self-hosted server these such actions can be prevented by cutting access to manufacturer's servers while preserving product functionality; however, most of the time it's not officially supported.

This isn't limited to just physical products, it affects software as well. For instance, games as a service typically require a server to fully function, and server software for such games is not made available to users, making self-hosting for such games impossible and requiring manufacturer's active involvement in order to maintain full game functionality. There are, however, many multiplayer games, especially older ones, that do support self-hosting of servers through dedicated server software^[5].

A lot of server software is capable of running on "normal" (consumer-grade) computers as well. So it is common to start self-hosting by installing server software on an unused computer that can be run continuously or whenever access to its services may be needed.

Because most self-hosted servers are typically used by only a few users in practice^[2], hardware requirements for some of the most popular services can be meager^[1][6][7] and can be satisfied by very old or cheap computers, which can be seen as a step towards circular economy.

Software-wise, depending on requirements and the level of technical expertise, one might opt for a generic server OS such as Debian, Ubuntu Server, and FreeBSD for a more do-it-yourself experience, or an OS purpose-built for self-hosting such as YunoHost or UmbrelOS which guides its users through some of the complexities of the process. In some more niche circumstances, OpenBSD might be preferred to other options as a server operating system due to its focus on security and simplicity.

Companies such as Synology, QNAP, UGREEN and others offer commercial hardware products called NAS (Network Attached Storage) that expose disks to a network for shared access to files on them^[8] in form of a "network drive", "file share" or "shared folder". As an additional function, many such devices can also run server software, and may even offer user-friendly graphical interfaces for this out-of-the-box.

Such devices are typically optimized for file management, and applications using the files stored by a NAS are expected to run on other devices on the same network (e. g. a PC running heavy video editing software utilizing video files stored on a NAS). As such, NAS devices, especially budget ones, often do not have much capacity for server applications. For a small number of users, however, as is common in self-hosting, they can be sufficient.

A consumer NAS is typically more expensive than self-built solutions or second hand server-grade hardware, but due to better power management, the higher costs can be worth it in regions with high electricity prices.

Rather than purchasing, configuring, running and maintaining physical hardware, a user can instead delegate most "hardware" aspects of self-hosting to a server hosting provider, which provides almost complete control of a general-purpose computer to a user for a subscription fee.

Control over not just the service but also the platform it runs on (the computer) provides the user with significantly more control over data that it processes compared to just using a service hosted by another party.

An expensive high-end option that most closely resembles professional setups, with all the perks and downsides of professional setups: professional server hardware is designed to be more reliable and easily serviceable, but also can be very noisy, which may not matter much inside a proper server room or a data center, but for an apartment might be completely unacceptable.

These are commonly set up for services with high hardware requirements or maintained as a hobby by those who'd like to practice business-grade system administration at home. For the vast majority of services this is unnecessary and is sometimes mocked as such.^[9]

One of the most prominent free & open source projects in self-hosted home automation space.

Because it provides an unofficial self-hosted interface to and between "connected" products of many brands, it prominently announces anti-consumer actions by supported brands aimed at reducing or disabling that capability, bringing them to attention. Some vendors reconsider their plans afterwards, providing alternative solutions or entirely cancelling their plans for such changes, which Home Assistant reflects in their announcement posts as well.^[10][11][12]

Counters consumer rights issues such as discontinuation bricking, retroactive policy enforcement and post-purchase EULA modification, mostly in regards to "connected" devices and smart homes.

Provides remote file storage and sharing as a core function and numerous other functions available for easy installation: synchronization of contacts and calendars, a full-fledged browser-based editor for contacts and calendars, collaborative document editing, chat, video conferencing and more. Many of these are functions commonly seen as available only from large commercial providers, and Nextcloud serves as an example that disproves this notion.

In addition to offering a comprehensive interface for the browser and a suite of first-party mobile apps, some third-party applications allow the use of Nextcloud for storing user data. Some such applications are:

• DAVx⁵, a synchronization app for calendars, contacts and tasks on Android over the standard DAV protocols that Nextcloud implements
• OnlyOffice, an in-browser document editor within Nextcloud's interface and a desktop editor that connects to a Nextcloud account, both allowing access to files in Nextcloud and collaborative editing with other users
• Floccus, a synchronization service for browser bookmarks and tabs, available across many browsers and as a mobile app, and synchronizing with a server chosen by the user, Nextcloud being only one of several supported options
• Les Pas, a photo album Android app, automating photo uploads and browsing both local and remote photo albums
• Apps that rely entirely on files for storage and can access Nextcloud through the operating system's interfaces and a Nextcloud client

In numerous alternatives, particularly among mobile apps, similar functions are only provided by the app's developer or affiliated parties, and often for a fee, with no alternatives,^{[citation needed - needs examples]} resulting in a vendor lock-in.

Main article: Ad block

Software suites that block access to advertising platforms to devices on the local network.

While limited in what kinds of ads they are capable of blocking, they work where installing a more advanced ad blocker is more difficult or impossible, such as on devices with heavily locked down software or within individual applications.

Examples: PiHole, AdGuard Home.

• TrueNAS, OpenMediaVault, Unraid: Stores files on a server and makes them available to multiple devices
• CasaOS, Umbrel, YunoHost: Systems that aim to make it easy for non-technical users to run their own server and install services on it using a familiar app store paradigm
• Proxmox VE: Allows users to host multiple services isolated from each other on one server
• Mailcow, Mailu, Modoboa: Email servers that allow users to send and receive emails without the data collection of free mail services or the price of paid mail services
• Jitsi Meet, BigBlueButton: Video conferencing without relying on third party servers
• Matrix, XMPP: Federated messaging platforms
• Jellyfin: Allows for media hosting with various clients for different devices to access the server

• Cloud (service)
• Local Area Network
• Right to own
• Software as a service