this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

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We welcome posts that include suggestions for good self-hosted alternatives to popular online services, how they are better, or how they give back control of your data. Also include hints and tips for less technical readers.

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Why is starting with Self-hosting so daunting? (alien.top)
submitted 1 year ago by Ieris19@alien.top to c/main@selfhosted.forum
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I’ve been a Software Engineering Student for 2 years now. I understand networks and whatnot at a theoretical level to some degree.

I’ve developed applications and hosted them through docker on Google Cloud for school projects.

I’ve tinkered with my router, port forwarded video game servers and hosted Discord bots for a few years (familiar with Websockets and IP/NAT/WAN and whatnot)

Yet I’ve been trying to improve my setup now that my old laptop has become my homelab and everything I try to do is so daunting.

Reverse proxy, VPN, Cloudfare bullshit, and so many more things get thrown around so much in this sub and other resources, yet I can barely find info on HOW to set up this things. Most blogs and articles I find are about what they are which I already know. And the few that actually explain how to set it up are just throwing so many more concepts at me that I can’t keep up.

Why is self-hosting so daunting? I feel like even though I understand how many of these things work I can’t get anything actually running!

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[–] PTwolfy@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I feel like Self-hosting is like playing the game of life on the hardest mode possible.

The easiest is always to pay for services or let others have the responsibility. That's the Easy Mode.

When Self-hosting, mind blowing fucked up things will happen, your head will sometimes explode because you will doubt everything you learned, things that always worked will stop working for no apparent logical reason.

Maybe you'll understand that some data was corrupted, maybe you backed your servers up, maybe you didn't, maybe you can recover data, maybe you can't.

Sometimes you will feel amazing for your achievements, sometimes things just stop working even for things you won't control. ( Energy and Internet Suppliers ).

Most people even with high curriculum and studies opt for the easy mode. And that's okay.

Others enjoy the struggle and the amount of knowledge that comes with that.

Choose your path, and stick with it.

Pros of Self-hosting: self enlightenment, joy of achieving great things, freedom, saving money, power.

Cons of Self-hosting: Time consuming, stress, dangerous if not done with responsibility, requires patience and perseverance, may be actually more expensive on your personal and professional time, if your time can be indeed valuable. You may be able to actually sell more, or be more profitable if you don't lose time thinking about the hosting itself.