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.
Rules:
Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam posting.
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
No trolling.
Resources:
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
Only use jellyfin. Have a list of things want to update... but it works for now.
Yes that is a laptop usb cooler used as supplemental placebo cooling. Also a pc fan I have propped up against the hard drive feeding into the pi.
Can't recall last time used the ps4 or switch. But they're there
Running TrueNAS with 4TB usable mirrored storage, 32GB RAM, and an i5-7600. Mostly holds backed up files from my switch from Windows to NixOS. I've got it running Frigate with a Coral TPU, Gitea, Homer, Unifi Controller, and Uptime Kuma. I was managing some helm charts on the TrueNAS k3s cluster with flux but conveniently dialed back to only using their built-in apps right before they removed it in favor of docker only.
For the network I'm running OPNSense on a Protectli device with Ubiquiti Unifi for the wifi. The native WireGuard integration on OPNSense is pretty nice.
https://lotide.fbxl.net/api/stable/posts/165851/href
My whole empire, made almost entirely of parts scavenged from roadside signs. (not a single fan on the whole setup)
Your machine is going to get fried
What do you mean? Because no ups?
No, the case is open and there is stuff everywhere. At some point something will fall in and it will cause chaos
Oh, definitely. Waiting on a power supply for that machine. Using a backup that doesn’t quite fit right now.
shes listing to the starboard side
My dirty data diddler. 10+ yr old amd octacore black running at 4ghz. 4TB of writeable space in it. HD and SSD mix. Old sb xfi audio running to a BT5.0 USB dongle for my games and music. Pioneer CD/DVD writer. Yes I still burn CDs and DVDs for my music and backup purposes heh. White cable on the right hanging vertical is a USBC data/charging cable. The squirrely wires lefttoright are a power line for a digital clock I'm gonna hang on the wall soon.
Is that just, like, an external hard drive?
16TB btrfs (+ECC RAM) on Debian 12.
lmao mine looks simple af compared with most people here.
Behold my server :
Hardware:
Rasberry pi 5 8GB
1TB raid between old drives ( one from PC the other a just a regular external WD hard drive ).
Services
Everything in containers, if you want to know more check this blogpost.
What made you go with a RPI 5?
Nothing wrong with simple! If it works for you that's all that matters!
Oooo I should do something like this! Right now I have a Pi 4 with OMV and just OMV on it. It’s even running on a SSD. It could do so much more!
The cable modem is no longer in use, finally got fiber in my neighborhood but the ONT/GW is in the basement. Beelink is my single (for now) proxmox node, HP is running Plex w/ Intel iGPU for transcoding. DS220+ NAS w/ 2x 16TB drives. Unifi switch 8 and USG-3P (fiber ONT/GW passes through to that and it's soon to be replaced with a Palo Alto 410, thanks to work) and then another Unifi 8 port lite in my basement office where the ONT/GW lives. Nothing special, very ugly but I hope to upgrade the wired network to 10g in the future to support a proxmox cluster and my ISPs 5Gbps offering. Also plan on converting my old desktop into an Unraid box since I can get a lot of drives from work and don't really want to stick with the Synology.
So mines a weird hodge-podge of a HP Proliant (running my modded Minecraft server and Plex) under a bistro table that I use as a standup desk. A HP Thinclient that I run lighter services like my Pi-Hole and Homebridge. and a laptop
Iteration one, the original https://drkt.eu/library/Museum/old_website_hw.jpg
Iteration two, taking it seriously https://drkt.eu/library/Museum/ye_olde_server-rack.jpg
Iteration three, evolved LACK rack https://drkt.eu/library/Museum/new_apartment.jpg
Bonus https://drkt.eu/library/Museum/backside_mess.jpg
'Artemis' Server
MOBO : GigaByte MB GA-Z170XP-SLI
CPU : Intel Core i5 6600K 4c/4t
RAM : 2x DDR4 8GB CL14 2133 Kingston HyperX
PSU : ## TO BE ADDED ##
Storage - SATA : SSD 2TB
- SATA : HDD 4TB
- SATA : SSD 1TB
'Deimos' Server
MOBO : ASRock H81M-ITX
CPU : Intel Pentium G3220 2c/2t
RAM : 2x DDR3 8GB C8 1600 Crucial Ballistix OC
PSU : ## TO BE ADDED ##
Storage - SATA : HDD 300GB
'Phobos' Server
MOBO : Intel H81 Express Chipset
CPU : Intel Core i3 4330T 2c/4t
RAM : 2x DDR3 4GB 1333
PSU : 65 watts AC/DC adapter
Storage - SATA : SSD 2TB
Ikea shelf instead of a rack, but I used metal shelves for better thermals!
Top to bottom:
My tech stack:
And my storage NAS:
Bottom NUC: General compute
Top NUC: Proxmox with homeassistant, windows server and debian
Raspberry Pi4 inside N64 case: PiHole
Access Point: Unifi Pro
PC for gaming: R7 7800X3D + Nvidia 3070 inside Fractal North
NAS: Ugreen 4800+ with 4x 15TB drives for a total of RaidZ2 30TB usable storage. Used as NFS storage for proxmox.
How it started: 2 8TB external HDDs connected to my bottom NUC.
Primary applications:
*arr Suite, Jellyfin, several minor apps.
This is how I started in a tiny room. I am not proud, but maybe good to show between all the shiny thongs here.
Used it for Minecraft server for a week then never used it again. Don't know anything it would be good for that my computer can't already do better tbh
Don't use a RPI for hosting
Get a cheap used workstation instead
yeah I just ended up using my PC as it is pretty much always on anyways
What do all you guys use these setups for?
Life
My primary use case is safeguarding my important personal artifacts (family photos, digitized paperwork, encryption key / account recovery / 2FA backups) against drive failure (~2TB), followed by my decently sized Plex server (23TB), immich, nextcloud, and various other small things like selfhosted bitwarden, grocy, ollama, and stuff like that.
I run all of my stuff off of a 6 bay Synology (more drives helps with capacity efficiency as double redundancy with 6 drives costs you 30% and I wanted to be protected against drive failures during rebuilding) with an Intel nuc on top to run plex/jellyfin transcoding using quicksync instead of loading the poor nas with cpu transcoding, I also run ollama on the nuc since it has faster cores than the nas.
The basement network and storage/server racks.
Heavy lifting boxes…
Why on earth do you have so many DVD drives. Also, are you using Windows?
Sorry to be so judgmental
Probably bought an old Redbox and is making a local backup of all the disks
literally one these with loads of RAM and a wifi card, so i can fit all the shenanigans in one box
Not my favorite device
Why not? They look cool, if not a little pricey.
They don't represent a good value for me. I want something cheaper that has room for expansion.
You people are such nerds. Wish I could self-host too.
Well you are here so that's a start
You can get a setup going on whatever personal computer until you throw ~$150 on a mini PC.
My dusty Intel NUC 10:
With a 2TB USB drive plugged in on the right there.
Runs all these services via Docker like a champ: AudioBookshelf, Dockge, File Browser, Forgejo, FreshRSS, Immich, Jellyfin, LemmySchedule, Memos, Navidrome, Paperless NGX, Pihole, Planka, SideQuests, Syncthing, Wallos
Lenovo ThinkCentre M900 that I bought refurbished for ~€130
Custom build
(Not the Proliant Microserver Gen8 on top, the device below)
The antennas are from a Sonoff Zigbee dongle and a bluetooth dongle for Home Assistant.
I've mostly focused on power usage, price, and reliability since I'm a student and don't want to spend a month's worth of income on a "home lab".
It's running the following:
It's using about 10% CPU and is running below 40°.
was going through some old pictures and decided I'd post a retro setup. pretty sure I took this picture with my android g1....so 2008ish?
here is a pic of one of my first selfhost setups. I began selfhosting for music and have never stopped. this iteration was stuffed behind a bar that was built in to the basement at my old house
the old fashioned was custom built and was running some flavor of windows server. the one on the floor was the first Linux server I had run to do something useful...torrents and subsonic IIRC. I pieced that server together with random parts, mostly donated from old family PCs. two UPS units were on the bottom rack of that metro shelf to battery back the servers and the tomato router out of frame.
