Self Hosting

What Should I Self-Host? Link to heading

You have a lot of options and it depends on what hardware/devices you have or are willing to buy. That or what $/month you’re willing to spend on servers.

I compiled a list from this HN thread talking about this post

Most on the list used Docker to set them up, which I think is a good idea for most people. Running these things at home and accessing them via Tailscale is probably the easiest way to self-host there is¹.

Key services I would run are: Portainer, Smokeping, Home Assistant, and Minio.

I’d also consider running NextCloud, BitWarden (or VaultWarden), libespeed/speedtest, Plex, PhotoPrism, and CyberChef. Some of these are more involved to setup, but they’re useful.

Hacker News: “Most used Self-hosted Applications”

• Nextcloud
• Xbrowsersync
• Synchthing
• Jellyfin
• Home Assistant
• OPNSense on a protectli box
• Smokeping
• Pintry https://github.com/pinry/pinry
• cadvisor - simple graphs of resource consumption, insights per docker stack
• cyberchef - a LOT of handy operations packed into one small app. Encode/decode any secrets you need and don’t bother about privacy
• heimdall - all apps main panel
• minio
• photoprism
• pypiserver
• docker registry (with UI)
• portainer - easily manage all of the above.
• Seafile
• InfluxDB for recording a heap of metrics
• pfSense
• Minecraft Server - AMP - https://cubecoders.com/AMPInstall
• Unifi Controller
• Plex
• charlocharlie/epicgames-freegames - Bot that will automatically “purchase” free games from the epic game store. I have it setup to telegram me a link to enter the captcha.
• fusengine/apaxy - Decent web file browser
• jlesage/nginx-proxy-manager - I’m lazy and hate setting up reverse proxies
• jlesage/qdirstat - Pretty useful when dealing with a server that has as much data as mine does
• librespeed/speedtest - Good for troubleshooting networks that might preferentially give speedtest.net better speeds, also good for internal network testing

E-mail Link to heading

HN: Don’t self-host e-mail it’s impossible to maintain

Also HN: Hosting email is so easy it’s basically just pushing a button and it’s WAY better than Gmail.

Reality: E-mail sucks, but is a necessary evil. If you just need to receive email it’s fine to Self Host, but it’ll be a pain to setup No-Matter-What².

• Ask HN: Why can’t I run my own email server
  • tldr; Spam was horrible so it’s very hard not to get blocked. It’s start to get your mail accepted today.
  • Don’t send email from your own server (attejuvonen.fi)
  • Requires Dedicated IP which reputation is built up on. An IP requires a “predictable volume of email” sent and needs to be “warmed up” before the reputation begins tracking.
• email Authenticity authority dkim dmarc spf

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1. Not only does Tailscale secure the connection to your home (or cloud) server, but it avoids needing to make it accessible by anything else on the internet. It also solves the problem with all hosted-at-home setups which is accessing it outside your home. If the home server is small enough you can bring it wherever you want and since you talk to it via Tailscale your devices will find it as long as it has an internet connection. ↩︎

2. Pain is relative, but doing computer stuff “yourself” is always going to require skills, time, and persistence. Computers are just too hard to use still to make this a painless experience without essentially relying on someone else. ↩︎