this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2025
103 points (98.1% liked)

Selfhosted

59939 readers
469 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam.

  3. Posts here are to be centered around self-hosting. Please ensure it is clear in your post how it relates to self-hosting.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or git here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title.

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
ruud@lemmy.world
Loki@lemmy.world
CannaVet@lemmy.world
devve@lemmy.world
ayyy@sh.itjust.works
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus
curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world
103
how do you explain selfhosting to the non-techies in your life? (lemmy.world)
submitted 7 months ago by thelocalhostinger@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
50 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

i am not looking to manipulate or convince anybody, just something informative in general, like "this is the bigtech world, this is the open source / selfhosted world." any good knowledge bases, blogs, youtube channels and alike that you would recommend? the less technical, the better. it's not about "how to install this and that" but rather "what do i need this and that for, what are the advantes and what are the downsides". also, are there resources like that in your language (if you or your people are not english native speakers)?

also very interested in anything else you have to share regarding your personal selfhosting experience and how it may or may not affect those around you.

i'll start: in my own experience, there are so many other things going on in people's life, that i understand are far more important than whether their todo list is stored on their own disk or in some other part of the world. especially in the beginning, going open source / selfhosted does often feel like losing comfort, only to be left with more to take care about in return. so getting started as a non-technical person seems incredibly difficult. another thing that comes to mind is, yes i could do the selfhosting for related people and friends, and yes they would trust me with some of their data โ€“ but no i don't want that. not because i am not willing to help, but i honestly don't want to have access to their data, it just doesn't feel correct.

thanks for your inputs and have a nice weekend!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Like a cab, but it's your car and you take care of everything.

If you need a car only once a year when going to the airport, a cab will be cheaper. If you need to go somewhere at least once a week, driving your own car will be cheaper. Likewise, if you need only a little bit of cloud storage for your photos, free iCloud or Google Drive might be fine. If you need a whole lot of storage, self-hosting becomes cheaper.

When you take a cab, do you need to worry about maintenance, gasoline, insurance, or other things? No. The same goes for cloud storage. When you throw your photos on Google Drive, you don't need to worry about electricity bills, security updates, or hardware maintenance.

When you drive your own car, you need to be a responsible driver and a car owner. Maintenance is your responsibility. Likewise, self-hosting means you need to be a responsible server admin.