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Self-hosting is having a moment. Ethan Sholly knows why. (arstechnica.com)
submitted 2 months ago by credo@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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[-] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 153 points 2 months ago

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.

Richard P. Feynman

I think the same is true for a lot of folks and self hosting. Sure, having data in our own hands is great, and yes avoiding vendor lock-in is nice. But at the end of the day, it's nice to have computers seem "fun" again.

At least, that's my perspective.

[-] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 54 points 2 months ago

99% of people want computers to serve them, not to be fun. My SO couldn't care less how much fun I have setting up home assistant. They just want to turn on the lights.

[-] EvilCartyen@feddit.dk 14 points 2 months ago

Well, yes, most people want computers to be unnoticable and boring. I agree, we need more boring tech that just does a job and doesn't bother us. That said, plenty of people find self-hosting to be fun - your SO and mine excepted, of course.

[-] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 months ago

most people want computers to be unnoticable and boring. I agree, we need more boring tech

professional UI designers don't seem to agree. they always feel the urge to come up with the next worst design

[-] aksdb@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

For me it's not even about better or worse, but about different. For them it's a nice iteration after many years, but for be it is one of the dozens of apps I use irregularly that suddenly behaves and works different and forces me to relearn things I don't have any gain from. Since each of the different apps get that treatment every once in a while, I end up having to adjust all the damn time for something else.

I would really like we could go back to functional applications being sold as is without forced updates. I do not need constant changes all the time. WinAmp hasn't changed in 20 years and still does exactly what it is supposed to. I could probably spin up an old MS Word 2000 and it would work just like it did 20 years ago.

Many modern apps however change constantly. No wonder they all lean towards subscriptions if they "have to" work on it all the time. But I, as a user, don't even want that. I want to buy the thing that does what it's supposed to and then I want it to stay that way.

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[-] dojan@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Personally I don't enjoy setting things up. I do enjoy not being tied down to evil corporations.

[-] SirQuack@feddit.nl 5 points 2 months ago

I do like setting things up.

Then I realise I need to fuck around with DNS to get it working nicely.

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[-] AVengefulAxolotl@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

This same argument goes for Linux as well. Linux allows you to turn the computer into anything you want it to be!

[-] tehn00bi@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Recently getting back into Linux, it’s like choose your own adventure in computing. It’s been fun.

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[-] Xanza@lemm.ee 67 points 2 months ago

Escaping vendor lock-in. It's why people hate the cloud when it used to be the answer for everything. You make a good product that can only be used with your hardware/software, whatever, and people run from that shit because it's abused more often than not.

Apple is the biggest example of this. Synology is getting worse and worse. Plex not far behind either.

[-] JakenVeina@lemm.ee 34 points 2 months ago

I recently discovered that Plex no longer works over local network, if you lose internet service. A) you can't login without internet access. B) even if you're already logged in, apps do not find and recognize your local server without internet access. So, yeah, Plex is already there.

[-] Xanza@lemm.ee 10 points 2 months ago

I try to explain this to the plex cultists and they usually have one of two responses;

  1. "Why would I be without internet?"
  2. "How is that helpful?"

Takes every ounce of willpower I have to not eye roll.

[-] Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 8 points 2 months ago

A lot of people that run Plex have a Jellyfin container on standby, or they'll use Plex for friends and family and use JF at home.

[-] dojan@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

What is the point of Plex? I just went straight for Jellyfin and it does everything I need and then some. Is it just that people went with Plex initially and then stuck with it as it got enshittified?

[-] Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 5 points 2 months ago

Plex has better security, federates and shares with other plex servers and generally is less hands-on for transcoding.

But, I don't use it. I like Jellyfin. It's free and while it may lack a few features, it isn't worse by any measure.

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[-] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 months ago

I’d say plex is up there. “Want to use your hardware and bandwidth to view your own files? Pay us!”

[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 15 points 2 months ago

I'm down for paying for a piece of software. I bought a lifetime subscription back in the day I feel like until recently it served me pretty well. And to be fair they are caching the movie database, providing SSL keys, epg, low speed proxy through cgnat for people, there's quite a bit too there cloud operations that they do deserve money for.

What pisses me off is the mining of my watch habits, and the slow and enshitification of features.

14 years of lifetime Plex pass for $75, they don't really owe me anything, But I am moving on.

I'm slowly digging my way out of sights with algorithms, clawing my way out of Google is particularly difficult. I'm considering spinning my own Alexa with whisper

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[-] AustralianSimon@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

No way, plex is completely enshitified.

[-] jeena@piefed.jeena.net 59 points 2 months ago

I wanted to ask where the border of selfhosting is. Do I need to have the storage and computing at home?

Is a cheap VPS on hetzner where I installed python, PieFed and it's Postgres database but also nginx and letsencrpt manually by mydelf and pointed my domain to it, selfhosting?

[-] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 73 points 2 months ago

I would say yes, it's still self-hosting. It's probably not "home labbing", but it's still you responsible for all the services you host yourself, it's just the hardware which is managed by someone else.

Also don't let people discourage you from doing bare-metal.

[-] stefenauris@pawb.social 12 points 2 months ago

That's actually a good point, self hosting and home lab are similar things but don't necessarily mean the same thing

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[-] tripflag@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It depends who you ask (which we can already tell hehe), but I'd say YES, because you're the one running the show -- you're free to grab all of your bits and pieces at any time, and move to a different provider. That flexibility of not being locked into one specific cloud service (which can suddenly take a bad turn) is what's precious to me.

And on a related note, I also make sure that this applies to my software-stack too -- I'm not running anything that would be annoying to swap out if it turns bad.

[-] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

It’s self hosting as long as you are in control of the data you’re hosting.

[-] Xanza@lemm.ee 11 points 2 months ago

I would say there's no value in assigning such a tight definition on self-hosting--in saying that you must use your own hardware and have it on premise.

I would define selfhost as setting up software/hardware to work for you, when turn-key solutions exist because of one reason or another.

Netflix exists. But we selfhost Jellyfin. Doesn't matter if its not on our hardware or not. What matters is that we're not using Netflix.

[-] hperrin@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 months ago

Your stuff is still in the cloud, so I would say no. It’s better than using the big tech products, but I wouldn’t say it’s fully “self hosted”. Not that that really makes much of a difference. You’re still pretty much in control of everything, so you should be fine.

[-] jeena@piefed.jeena.net 8 points 2 months ago

Where is the tipping point though? If I have a server at my parents house, they live in Germany and I in Korea, does my dad host it then because he is paying for the electricity and the access to the internet and makes sure those things work?

[-] hperrin@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 months ago

Your parents’ house isn’t the cloud, so yeah, it’s self hosted. The “tipping point” is whether you’re using a hosting provider.

[-] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 10 points 2 months ago

They are using a hosting provider - their dad.

"The cloud" is also just a bunch of machines in a basement. Lots of machines in lots of "basements", but still.

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[-] jeena@piefed.jeena.net 6 points 2 months ago

Isn't my dad the hosting provider? I ordered the hardware, he connected it to his switch and his electricity and pressed the button to start it the first time. From there on I logged in to his VPN and set up the server like I would at Hetzner.

But you're right it doesn't really make a difference. I feel the only difference it makes for me where I post my questions on Lemmy if it is in a !selfhosting community or a !linux community.

From a feeling perspective, even if I use Hetzners cloud, I feel I self host my single user PieFed instance (and matrix, my other websites, mastodon, etc.) because I have to preform basically the same steps as for things I'm really hosting at home like open-webui, immich, peertube.

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[-] Luffy879@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago

Self hosting just means maintaining your own Instance of a web service instead of paying for someone else‘s

As long as you dont pay hetzner for an explicit fully maintained Nextcloud server, it dosent matter if the OS you‘re running it on is a VM or a bare bones server

[-] irmadlad@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Is a cheap VPS on hetzner where I installed python, PieFed and it’s Postgres database but also nginx and letsencrpt manually by mydelf and pointed my domain to it, selfhosting?

I don't get hung up on the definitions and labels. I run a hybrid of 3 vps and one rack in the closet. I'm totally fine with you thinking that is not selfhosting or homelabbing. LOL I have a ton of fun doing it, and that's the main reason why I do it; to learn and have fun. It's like producing music, or creating bonsai, or any of the other many hobbies I have.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Why wouldn't you just use Docker or Podman

Manually installing stuff is actually harder in a lot of cases

[-] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 11 points 2 months ago

Yeah why wouldn't you want to know how things work!

I obviously don't know you, but to me it seems that a majority of Docker users know how to spin up a container, but have zero knowledge of how to fix issues within their containers, or to create their own for their custom needs.

[-] FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

That's half the point of the container... You let an expert set it up so you don't have to know it on that level. You can manage fast more containers this way.

[-] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 7 points 2 months ago

OK, but I'd rather be the expert.

And I have no troubling spinning up new services, fast. Currently sitting at around ~30 Internet-facing services, 0 docker containers, and reproducing those installs from scratch + restoring backups would be a single command plus waiting 5 minutes.

[-] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

I'd rather be the expert

Fair, but others, unless they are getting paid for it, just want their shit to work. Same as people who take their cars to a mechanic instead of wrenching on it themselves, or calling a handyman when stuff breaks at home. There's nothing wrong with that.

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[-] walden@sub.wetshaving.social 4 points 2 months ago

I use apps on my phone, but have no clue how to troubleshoot them. I have programs on my computer that I hardly know how to use, let alone know the inner workings of. How is running things in Docker any different? Why put down people who have an interest in running things themselves?

I know you're just trying to answer the above question of "why do it the hard way", but it struck me as a little condescending. Sorry if I'm reading too much into it!

[-] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 7 points 2 months ago

No, I actually think that is a good analogy. If you just want to have something up and running and use it, that's obviously totally fine and valid, and a good use-case of Docker.

What I take issue with is the attitude which the person I replied to exhibits, the "why would anyone not use docker".

I find that to be a very weird reaction to people doing bare metal. But also I am biased. ~30 Internet facing services, 0 docker in use 😄

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[-] jeena@piefed.jeena.net 6 points 2 months ago

I did that first but that always required much more resources than doing it yourself because every docker starts it's own database and it's own nginx/apache server in addition to the software itself.

Now I have just one Postgresql database instance running with many users and databases on it. Also just one Nginx which does all the virtual host stuff in one central place. And both the things which I install with apt and manually are set up similarly.

I use one docker setup for firefox-sync but only because doing it manually is not documented and even the docker way I had to research for quite some time.

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[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Learn Podman since Docker has some licensing restrictions in some cases.

[-] mutual_ayed@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 months ago
[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It is less user friendly but theoretically more powerful and secure

The learning curve can be steep but if you have ever worked with config files it isn't bad.

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[-] ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee 10 points 2 months ago

I’m curious if this community would do a community survey.

[-] neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 months ago

If it didn’t ask me irrelevant personal information

[-] ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago

What’s you favorite color?

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[-] LordCrom@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

It's all about privacy.

I am amazed at services offered that run rampant in the home.

My ISP offers fiber. But only if you also sign up for managed wifi where they manage your internal net....no way

I got a quote for solar power....but they must use a 3rd party cloud to manage your power and it uses eth over electrical .... If you use eth over electrical already, then it does whatever it wants in your home network ....no way.

Cell phones? They all go into a guest wifi....not on my home network.

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this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
322 points (100.0% liked)

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