For me, it was PhotoPrism. I used to be an idiot, and used Google Photos as my gallery. I knew that it was terrible for privacy but was too lazy to do anything about it. When Google limited storage for free accounts, I started looking for alternatives. Tried out a lot of stuff, but ended up settling on PhotoPrism.

It does most things that I need, except for multiple user support (it’s there in the sponsored version now). It made me learn a bit about Docker. Eventually, I learned how to access it from outside of my home network over Cloudflare tunnel. I’m happy that I can send pics/albums to folks without sharing it to any third party. It’s as easy as sending a link.

Now I have around a dozen containers on a local mini pc, and a couple on a VPS. I still route most things through Cloudflare tunnels (lower latency), only the high bandwidth stuff like Jellyfin are routed through a wireguard tunnel through the VPS.

Anyway, how did you get into selfhosting? (The question is mostly meant for non-professionals. But if you’re a professional with something interesting to share, you’re welcome as well.)

  • LimitedDuck@septic.win
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    At the beginning of the pandemic I looked into ways to de-Google and found Nextcloud. It wasn’t the easiest thing to start with, especially for a novice, but I had the time and the hardware, and I’m the type to not mind jumping into something difficult if it means solving a specific problem. I then found out about Bitwarden and had a great experience setting that up. After that I was confident enough to try hosting anything I could find. It’s been good times ever since 😀

  • iMeddles@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    A pihole. Given how much I’ve spent over the years on self hosting kit, few ‘cheap’ things have ended up costing me more than that first 30 quid raspberry pi

  • mim@lemmy.sdf.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Honestly? Probably boredom. Computer-related projects are addictive to me.

    Haven’t ventured too far, but searxng was my first selfhosted service. It’s very easy, single container, no database.

  • Pope-King Joe@lemmynsfw.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    I like to tinker with things, and I had hardware lying around I wasn’t using. First thing I ever self-hosted was very basic: a Terraria server.

    Then a Minecraft server.

    And then a fully featured and defederated Matrix server with a fully functional telegram bridge, mostly as a test to see how feasible it was. Ran it for several months before shutting it down, deciding to wait for dendrite, since it’s supposed to be lighter.

    Haven’t done anything since, but I’ll be looking to build a few more things in the near future.

    • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Of all the things I have or am self-hosting the Matrix server was the biggest pain in the ass. I seriously hope they streamline that process because as it was it’s too much work for what it does.

  • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    A desire to set up a permanent download station that could extremely securely and very automatically keep track of all the Linux distributions (eg I really want to make sure I try every version of Mint Linux and with various arr programs I could ensure that as soon as a new version of Mint shows up, I automatically download it and get it shown in an interface where I can try the new version of Mint Linux. Linux distributions - I just love them!!