Why do you self host?

[WindirBear]

for privacy?

learning?

are you planning to coordinate political dissent?

Are you anti government?

data backups?

[Guest]

One reason I could think of of why you would self host is just because relying on a sketchy online platform to keep your VPS safe and not disconnect you from it at any point and ask for payment would be frustrating, plus its cool to be able to work on it in person and do upgrades. Another reason is because its likely much cheaper. (In terms of running costs)

[manikyath]

because it's fun.

[Russsell]

It started as an experiment, I wanted to save some on cloud storage (funny me, NAS, drives, power is much more expensive :-D). But later grew into it. Have Synology, second actually now, while first is used as offsite backup.

 

Host HA, hosted Ubiquiti controller, feed from 2 cameras go there, auto backup for phones, even some for my family members, wife uses it as work backup... And of course Emby server, much more convenient. 

[Aleph256]

A bit of everything - not being reliant on a service provider aside from the Internet, actual cost savings compared to similar capacity plans (though there is a steeper upfront cost), and the fun of tinkering with it.

Though I'm admittedly at the baby steps.

[kirashi]

1 hour ago, WindirBear said:

for privacy?

learning?

are you planning to coordinate political dissent?

Are you anti government?

data backups?

For me, self-hosting started out 15+ years ago as a way of running a Transmission daemon without the need to have my PC on 24/7, but has evolved into all kinds of things these days. I have a Synology NAS doing the bulk of our computer backups, mobile phone photo backups, running its own variety of file transfer clients, and acting as a web server for non-production web development related things I want to test or otherwise don't want or need running on my paid shared webhost. I also have an HP ProDesk 600 G1 with dual SSD's and 12GB RAM running ProxMox acting as a test bed for VMs and place to spin up Minecraft or Valheim servers for friends.

 

It's just nice to have a homelab to learn about things without the need to spend thousands on post-secondary education or otherwise purchase expensive enterprise gear brand new. There's a whole https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/ community on Reddit for stuff like this too, if you're looking to get started.

[digitalscream]

Mainly performance and cost - 20TB of data isn't cheap, especially when you're also using compute capacity (128GB RAM and 10+ cores). Add to that a need for private AI services, and...yeah, that'd get really expensive, really fast.

[Satan_Prometheus]

All of the above? I want to know more about how it works, and I 100% don't trust anyone else with my data.

[therealfuntimeswithdanny]

You have more control over your HomeLab and you don't give away your data, you save money.

[unijab]

Dear OP, Sounds like something a glowie would ask.

[olimexsmart]

Home automation started as a fun project, now I'm kinda dependent on it. Could never do what I'm doing with Home Assistant with any cloud based smart home ecosystem.

 

Do I plan to coordinate political dissent with self hosting? Can I really?

[denishay]

Reason #1 - control

Reason #2 - privacy