I’ve been self-hosting my apps since 2009; here’s why you should (or shouldn’t) do it too

I’m your average techie millennial who saw the dotcom bubble burst and was around when many of the OG services of the internet era simply vanished. Let’s just say, watching favorites like GeoCities and Launchcast go bust was a big motivation for me to start self-hosting my most-used services as soon as I was able to. Initially, it was mostly curiosity and tinkering. That changed over time. Today, self-hosting for me is equal parts habit, convenience, and once-in-a-while stubbornness to stick with open-source solutions.

But first, what the heck is self-hosting and how is it any different from running an app on your computer? Honestly, it’s not all that different. Broadly speaking, self-hosting is all about replacing software that is traditionally associated with cloud-hosted tools with applications and services that run on your local hardware. It sounds complicated, and at first it is, but over the years you come to appreciate the freedom it gives alongside the occasional headaches it might bring. Take the bitter with the better, eh?