Self-hosting is the practice of running and maintaining a website or service, as well as own servers for e-mail, IM, NTP and so on, using a private server, instead of using a service outside of the administrator's own control. Self-hosting allows users to have more control over their data, privacy, and computing infrastructure, as well as potentially saving costs and improving skills. [1] [2]
The practice of self-hosting web services became more feasible with the development of cloud computing and virtualization technologies, which enabled users to run their own servers on remote hardware or virtual machines. The first public cloud service, Amazon Web Services (AWS), was launched in 2006, offering Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) as its initial products. [3]
Self-hosting web services became more popular with the rise of free software projects, open source software projects and free and open-source software projects that provide alternatives to various web-based services and applications, such as file storage, password management, media streaming, home automation, and more. There is also a sizeable hobbyist community around self-hosting, made up of hobbyists, technology professionals and privacy conscious individuals. [2] [4]
| Software class | Non-selfhosted examples | Self-hosted alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| Password managers | 1Password, LastPass | Bitwarden |
| Home automation | Apple Home | Home Assistant |
| Bookmarks | del.icio.us | |
| Read it later | ||
| Messaging | WhatsApp, Discord, Viber, Telegram | XMPP, IRC, Matrix |
| Office suite | Google Docs | Nextcloud, ownCloud |
| Note-taking | Evernote | Joplin |