I often get asked why i self-host a lot of my apps and services, which is a good question, as the answer isn’t always that obvious to someone looking in from outside the hobby, despite what some people on certain websites might claim.
Financial Reasons
Put simply, I’m not a fan of paying out the nose for every single service i want to use on a monthly basis, presumably until i stop using whatever service that happens to be of my own accord, or until such time as the service raises their prices higher than i can tolerate, forcing me to leave, while simultaneously making the service worse for the people who do decide to stay.
No points for guessing who I’m referring to.
I think i speak for a lot of people when I say that cost can be the biggest factor when it comes to using the services we access. Most of them are free to a degree, I know, but they ultimately limit you horribly unless you navigate their intentionally confusing plans and pay their overinflated subscription fees, which I hate with a burning passion.
Sure their prices are cheap enough now, and yes it might be fine for your needs now, but who can say how long it’ll stay that way.
Genuine Interest
Self-Hosting is a great way to learn about concepts within computing that you find interesting or want to know more about, which could be how a Network functions, how to program your own Applications, or even to solve a problem you’ve encountered.
This is usually done with the help of whatever hardware and software a person has at home, but it is not unusual for people to use services like Amazon Web Services, Hetzner, or OVH as well, all of whom I’ve used in some capacity in my early days of Self-Hosting.
For example, I Self-Host a number of applications, most of which augment or outright replace a commonly used corporation-backed service:
- A Source Control Server for storing my Project’s code and keeping track of issue and changes
- A Media Server to share my Music and Movie libraries to multiple machines
- A Storage Server that securely and safely stores all my files and backups
- An Application that acts like a library for ebooks, which can be viewed on Desktops, Laptops, and Smart Devices
I want to stress that you don’t necessarily need to spend a lot of money to self-host, or do things a certain way, it’s about what works for YOU.
Self-Sufficiency
This is the one that I’ve found that people don’t quite get, you shouldn’t have to rely on a corporation to run things for you, especially when you’re paying them good money. Google is notorious for killing off projects the moment they become unprofitable, so how long will it be until they throw your favourite tool into a dustbin. A year, two, five?
I’ve never believed in paying for something i could reasonably do myself, so I’m not going to pay the likes of Google or AWS for their products, when i have suitable hardware laying around and the skills to build something myself.
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to use these company’s services, I’m saying it’s a bad idea to RELY upon them under the false assumption that service will be around forever, it wont, don’t make that mistake.