this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2026
199 points (98.5% liked)

Selfhosted

62351 readers
814 users here now

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:

Detailed Rules Post

  1. Be civil.

  2. No spam.

  3. Posts are to be related to self-hosting.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title.

  6. No trolling.

  7. Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details. Tags [CBH] or [AIP] are required, see the links in Rule 8 for details.

  8. AI-related discussions and AI-involved promotional posts have additional requirements for tagging, as noted in Rule 7 and the AI & Promotional Post Expanded Rules post, and find example disclosures here.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm not affiliated with this in any way but saw it posted at the other place & thought fellow Lemmyzens might like to take a look.

I always find it quite hard to answer "favorite" apps as some infrastructure critical self hosted apps aren't as sexy as others which sit front & centre so I feel they often don't seem to get as much credit or attention (such as NGinX/DuckDNS compared to Immich/Jellyfin etc)

Hi everyone,

Like in previous years, I'm running a survey about self-hosting. The focus is on your favorite self-hosted apps, but there are plenty of other (optional) questions too. The top five app lists are free response fields, you don't have to select the suggestions.

Link to take the survey:

https://survey.deployn.de/s/self-host-2026

Last year's results

More info:

  • The survey is anonymous. Like last year, results will be published in aggregated form. I'm currently planning to publish them in December.

  • It takes about 10-25 minutes.

  • Some of you asked for more questions in the comments. I added a lot at first, then realized it took 45 minutes to fill out properly. So I threw some out again, but there are still quite a few. The survey now has a core section that mainly covers the MVPs (your 5 favorite apps), and you can switch on other modules if you want. Almost every question is optional and can be skipped. If you answer everything at a reasonable pace, it takes around 20 minutes.

  • The proprietary survey tool caused new problems every year, so last year I switched to HeyForm while the survey was already running. That wasn't ideal for my purposes either, so this year the survey runs on a new app. It should also make entering your apps faster.

  • It's still easier to fill out on a desktop computer.

Thank you in advance for participating.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] pranay@lemmy.zip 1 points 42 minutes ago

Data Hoarder πŸ’Ύ

  • Fleet: More than 10 devices Β· More than 50 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Cost savings
  • My MVPs: Jellyfin, Linkwarden, Vaultwarden, Syncthing, Netbird
[–] phase@lemmy.8th.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Not reddit, but lemmy...

[–] menas@lemmy.wtf 1 points 1 hour ago

Community classics you run : 0 Edgy of edginess

[–] Strider@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

I wanted to do the survey, but at some point the ui is barely understandable (#10 or so) and I gave up shortly after. And that's from a nerd.

[–] dragonlover@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 hours ago

Fleet Commander πŸš€

  • Fleet: 6–10 devices Β· 5–10 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Learning & experimenting, Cost savings
  • My MVPs: Authentik, Kavita, Continuwuity, Suwayomi, Nextcloud
[–] Branny@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago

AI Pioneer πŸ€–

  • Fleet: 1 device Β· 21–50 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Learning & experimenting
  • My MVPs: Jellyfin, Navidrome

Homelab Veteran ⚑

  • Fleet: 1 device Β· 11–20 TB
  • Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Privacy & data ownership, Learning & experimenting
  • My MVPs: Nextcloud, Traefik, Jellyfin, Home Assistant, Audiobookshelf
[–] Scrath@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago

Self-Hoster 🏑

  • Fleet: 2–3 devices Β· 11–20 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself
  • My MVPs: Home Assistant, Navidrome, Jellyfin
[–] clmbmb@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

Homelab Veteran ⚑

  • Fleet: 4–5 devices Β· 1–4 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Learning & experimenting
  • My MVPs: Jellyfin, miniflux, Navidrome, Authelia, beets

I know beets is not something self hosted, but it's very important for me, as I'm a music collector and like to have everything very well tagged.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

Data Hoarder πŸ’Ύ

  • Fleet: More than 10 devices Β· More than 50 TB
  • Motivation: Learning & experimenting, Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself
[–] darkreader2636@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 hours ago

Self-Hoster 🏑

  • Fleet: 1 device Β· Less than 1 TB
  • Motivation: Fun / the hobby itself, Customization & full control, Learning & experimenting
  • My MVPs: Nginx Proxy Manager, Tailscale, Karakeep, Immich, Syncthing
[–] Noggog@programming.dev 2 points 5 hours ago

Data Hoarder πŸ’Ύ

  • Fleet: 2–3 devices Β· More than 50 TB
  • Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself, Privacy & data ownership
  • My MVPs: Jellyfin, Plex, Foundry, Immich, Pangolin
[–] Hal@piefed.nz 1 points 4 hours ago

Looking at last year's survey, the number of self-hosted devices has 2-3 first. And Raspberry Pi is most popular.

I wonder about this, because I have Pi for Pi hole, and one for Home Assistant, each dedicated. Then almost everything I self host is on a different server. But this still represents Raspberry Pi twice as much as the main server. I think Pis may be most popular because there's many single-purposes uses for them.

[–] UxyIVrljPeRl@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Homelab Veteran ⚑

  • Fleet: 2–3 devices Β· 21–50 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself
  • My MVPs: Jellyfin, Forgejo, Pi-hole, bookorbit, Transmission
[–] 503@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 hours ago

AI Pioneer πŸ€–

  • Fleet: 1 device Β· 11–20 TB
  • Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself
  • My MVPs: Plex, Radarr, Immich, RomM, BookOrbit
[–] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 13 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

This survey definitely looks vibe-coded as heck lol but I hope the results will be good.

My results :)

Data Hoarder πŸ’Ύ

  • Fleet: 2–3 devices Β· More than 50 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Customization & full control
  • My MVPs: Immich, Baikal, Forgejo, qBitTorrent, Home Assistant

God knows I wasn't going to put cost as a motivation... I am actively losing money running double the storage I am using and 100+ GB of RAM on a Xeon chip, but having the headroom is certainly nice and has allowed me to expand as much as I want. Getting a good deal a couple of years back before the price explosion was a huge stroke of luck. If this server ever failed I could figure out a smaller operation with more confidence.

[–] uuj8za@piefed.social 1 points 1 hour ago

Baikal

Have you tried out Radicale? Curious if you have any comparison details between the two.

[–] Jolteon@lemmy.zip 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Cost was one of my motivations, but it wasn't cost to me. Most of the people using my server definitely can't afford to subscribe to all those streaming services.

[–] achsonaja@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago

Glad you mentioned that. A lot of folks are saying costs isn't a good reason (for valid reasons), but I don't think the other users costs are typically thought of. I don't host to a lot of people, but they are active and use a few different services I host. That easily multiplies the cost savings imo.

[–] xSikes@feddit.online 2 points 9 hours ago

I’m surprised we don’t have something like this for this community. Curious what everyone uses through out the Fediverse

Self-Hoster 🏑

  • Fleet: 2–3 devices Β· 5–10 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself
  • My MVPs: Mythtv, PocketID, Plex, Immich, Home Assistant
[–] dimjim@sh.itjust.works 4 points 12 hours ago

Self-Hoster 🏑

  • Fleet: 2–3 devices Β· 11–20 TB
  • Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself
  • My MVPs: Immich, Navidrome, Dockhand, Proxmox VE, Caddy
[–] gaiety@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 9 hours ago

Self-Hoster 🏑

  • Fleet: 1 device Β· 1–4 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions
  • My MVPs: Navidrome, Jellyfin, Pi-hole, Linkwarden, Paperless-ngx
[–] 6_electrons@piefed.social 1 points 9 hours ago

Self-Hoster 🏑

  • Fleet: 4–5 devices Β· 11–20 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Learning & experimenting
  • My MVPs: Sabnzbd, *arr, LemonadeAI, Kimai, Manager.io
[–] habitualTartare@lemmy.world 23 points 18 hours ago (6 children)

Top Motivation: Cost

The several hundred dollars a year and hours spend is definitely worth saving that $14-30/month in subscriptions right? right?

[–] Jolteon@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 hours ago

That's $14 to $30 a month per subscription per user. I've got close to a dozen people using mine, most of which can very much not afford those kind of subscriptions.

Absolutely. I refuse to rely on cloud anything after being bitten too many times: company gets purchased, unstable pricing or service changes/discontinuation, data trapped in someone else’s server, internet or service instability… 100% self hosted is the safer, saner, more predictable option.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

My wife spent about $130 for a year subscription to a service that she figured would always have her favorite show on it, because they own that show. Then like 10 seasons of it left for an exclusivity deal on another service. This was a contributing factor to pushing me into self hosting. Some of it is saving money, but some of it is also making sure you actually got what you paid for.

[–] imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 16 hours ago

Initial cost may be high. But I have calculated that my system. Would cost me 9 euros a month at 12tb of cloud storage. Something that I can't achieve if I pay for cloud storage to a big man.

What brings me from clouds back to earth is current hard drives prices. Fuck AI.

[–] esc@piefed.social 9 points 18 hours ago

Right, $14-30/m actually adds up to hundreds and is less reliable.

I know, I know super duper clouds, six nines of availability for cloud services etc., yet github (for example) fails more often then my media/git/file/print server on 10 y.o. laptop with tens of terabytes of media and data, that is less maintened and exists in a far worse conditions (comparison is incorrect but the fact stays).

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 6 points 16 hours ago

$14-30/month in subscriptions is $168-360/year.

You likely spend more than that a year on what you host (I know my power alone is going to run higher than that), but the monetary cost doesn't cover the joys of the hobby, the knowledge aquired, and the fact that your shit still works even after the Internet goes out

[–] skankhunt42@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 hours ago

Fleet Commander πŸš€

  • Fleet: More than 10 devices Β· 21–50 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself, Learning & experimenting
  • My MVPs: BookStack, Plex, Home Assistant, music Assistant, Grafana
[–] DickCaramel@piefed.social 3 points 12 hours ago

Homelab Veteran ⚑

  • Fleet: 4–5 devices Β· 21–50 TB
  • Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Learning & experimenting, Cost savings
[–] SpatchyIsOnline@lemmy.world 8 points 15 hours ago

Self-Hoster 🏑

  • Fleet: 2–3 devices Β· 5–10 TB
  • Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Privacy & data ownership, Customization & full control
  • My MVPs: Jellyfin, Sonarr, Pi-hole, Navidrome, Home Assistant

This survey is going to become our version of Spotify Wrapped isn't it?

[–] cirrokumulus@slrpnk.net 2 points 11 hours ago

Self-Hoster 🏑

  • Fleet: 1 device Β· Less than 1 TB

  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Learning & experimenting, Customization & full control

Homelab Veteran ⚑

  • Fleet: 4–5 devices Β· 11–20 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Cost savings, Customization & full control
  • My MVPs: Proxmox VE, Paperless-ngx, Immich, Jellyfin
[–] laserkaspar@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Homelab Veteran ⚑

  • Fleet: 4–5 devices Β· 5–10 TB
  • Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself, Privacy & data ownership
  • My MVPs: Outline, Home Assistant, Plex, Audiobookshelf, Caddy
[–] DrunkAnRoot@sh.itjust.works 2 points 12 hours ago

Self-Hoster 🏑

  • Fleet: 1 device Β· Less than 1 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself
  • My MVPs: Nextcloud, Searxng, BentoPDF, PocketID, kutt
[–] antsu@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 11 hours ago

Fleet Commander πŸš€

  • Fleet: 6–10 devices Β· 21–50 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself
  • My MVPs: Home Assistant, Immich, Jellyfin, Mailcow, Navidrome
[–] giant_smeeg@feddit.uk 11 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

Eternal Tinkerer πŸ”§

  • Fleet: 2–3 devices Β· 21–50 TB
  • Motivation: Cost savings, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Privacy & data ownership
  • My MVPs: FreshRSS, Home Assistant, Radarr, Sonarr, Nginx Proxy Manager
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] CyberChicken@whatcom.social 1 points 11 hours ago

Eternal Tinkerer πŸ”§

  • Fleet: 4–5 devices Β· 21–50 TB
  • Motivation: Fun / the hobby itself, Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions
  • My MVPs: Proxmox VE, Nginx Proxy Manager, WireGuard, iptables, Bind9
[–] Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 3 minutes ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
DNS Domain Name Service/System
Git Popular version control system, primarily for code
Plex Brand of media server package

3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 6 acronyms.

[Thread #116 for this comm, first seen 27th Sep 2026, 22:40] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] Ransack3@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

Homelab Veteran ⚑

  • Fleet: 4–5 devices Β· 21–50 TB
  • Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Cost savings, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions
  • My MVPs: Pi-hole, Plex, Radarr, Linkwarden
[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Fleet Commander πŸš€

  • Fleet: More than 10 devices Β· 21–50 TB
  • Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself, Customization & full control
  • My MVPs: Homepage, homelable.net, healthchecks.io, ntfy.sh, WireGuard

My fleet sounds bigger than it is since theyre all small or older and also small underpowered devices (repurposed laptops, low end chromebox, various pis).

load more comments
view more: next β€Ί