(This is a repost of this reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1fbv41n/what_are_the_things_that_makes_a_selfhostable/, I wanna ask this here just in case folks in this community also have some thoughts about it)
What are the things that makes a selfhostable app/project project good? Maybe another way to phrase this question is, what are the things that makes a project easier to self-host?
I have been developing an application that focuses on being easy to selfhost. I have been looking around for existing and already good project such as paperless-ngx, Immich, etc.
From what I gather the most important thing are:
- Good docs, this is probably the most important. The developer must document how to self-host
- Less runtime dependency--I'm not sure about this one, but the less it depends on other services the better
- Optional OIDC--I'm even less sure about this one, and I'm also not sure about implementing this feature on my own app as it's difficult to develop. It seems that after reading this subreddit/community, I concluded that lots of people here prefer to separate identity/user pool and app service. This means running a separate service for authentication and authorization.
What do you think? Another question is, are there any more good project that can be used as a good example of selfhostable app?
Thank you
Some redditors responded on the post:
- easy to install, try, and configure with sane defaults
- availabiity of image on dockerhub
- screenshots
- good GUI
I also came across this comment from Hacker News lately, and I think about it a lot
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40523806
This is what self-hosted software should be. An app, self-contained, (essentially) a single file with minimal dependencies.
Not something so complex that it requires docker. Not something that requires you to install a separate database. Not something that depends on redis and other external services.
I’ve turned down many self-hosted options due to the complexity of the setup and maintenance.
Do you agree with this?
Configuration by config file is preferred but not mandatory for me, but a docker image is mandatory for me to even try the app anymore. And the ability to backup and restore state is key, preferably in such a way that I can write my backup to a mounted smb share rather than writing locally and copying to the network.
I'm running everything on commodity or 2nd hand gear, so failures aren't unheard of. I had one of my micro PCs cook itself this year, and the majority of my services on that box fit that mold (mostly), so I got them back up pretty quick. Though, I did run into issues with container backups not working (because they write the backup like a database, so it has to be a local write for a db lock) and had to start from scratch .