I've been self-hosting a few small projects lately, and honestly, they use a lot less resources than I expected.

I started out thinking I'd need something much more powerful, but a basic setup has handled everything just fine so far.

Now I'm wondering if most people overestimate how much server they actually need.

What are you running your smaller projects on?

Hi, I'm planning to host a few services (Tailscale mesh VPN, file sharing, media streaming and password vault), aside from the VPN the server won't work 24/7, it will spend quite a bit of time idle.

Environment sustainability is really important for me, so I'm curious about which option produces less CO2. At home I have an old Raspberry Pi 3B+, an old-ish SSD and a few second hand HDDs. Or, I know that Hetzner uses often recycled servers, and powers them with 100% renewable energy (but they don't neccesarily produce 0% CO2), and they are based in Germany/Finland (I live in Italy). The cheaper option is probably the homelab, but what about in terms of CO2? Thanks!

I'm hoping someone can help me figure out a networking issue that has me completely stumped.

Setup

• Ubuntu 24.04 on a DigitalOcean droplet
• Nginx + Let's Encrypt
• React frontend
• Node.js backend
• Domain: morecreator.app

What's happening

My iPhone can access the site perfectly on:

• Home Wi-Fi
• Cellular

However, two completely different Windows laptops both fail.

The browser eventually returns:

ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

curl also times out:

curl.exe -vk https://morecreator.app

Trying <server IP>:443...
Timed out

What I've already verified

• Nginx is running.
• HTTPS is configured correctly with Let's Encrypt.
• The site responds correctly when accessed locally on the server.
• UFW allows ports 80 and 443.
• DNS resolves correctly.
• No proxy configured.
• Reset Winsock and TCP/IP.
• Disabled Internet Connection Sharing (ICS).
• Tried different DNS servers.
• Disabled IPv6.
• No VPN installed.
• Windows Defender only (no third-party antivirus).
• Same behavior on two different Windows laptops.

The strange part

Everything worked perfectly a couple of weeks ago while I was in California.

After returning home to Georgia:

• ✅ iPhone still works
• ❌ Windows laptops both time out

The server configuration hasn't changed.

I'm trying to determine whether this is:

• a Windows networking issue,
• something with my ISP/router,
• DigitalOcean routing,
• or something I'm overlooking.

Has anyone run into something similar?

I have multiple local “websites” i use to access things like jellyfin. I’m running into an issue where Bit Warden doesn’t autofill for these websites. I have to manually scroll through all my logins to select it. Is there a solution for this?

Does anyone have a cli tool to manage self hosted apps or docker containers and monitor health and consumption

How hard can it be to build a CI/CD system? Concourse CI has the right model but the operational overhead is brutal. That question stuck with me long enough that I started building it. What kept me going was realising I needed it for my own side projects too: games and open source tools that require custom environments GitHub Actions can't provide.

The design goal was something that grows with you. A binary and a pipeline file is all you need to start: runs entirely in memory. Add SQLite for persistence. Add Postgres and distributed workers when you scale. Never have to migrate or reconfigure.

Key things:

• Single binary, zero setup, in-memory by default
• Run pipelines locally: pikoci run --pipeline-config pipeline.hcl --job test runs any job on your laptop. No server, no push, no waiting.
• Services: start any process before your tasks, stop it after, guaranteed. No Docker-in-Docker.
• Four sourceable abstractions: resource types, runners, services, secret backends. All defined in HCL, all pullable from a URL. Write it once, host it anywhere, reference it by URL.
• HCL pipelines: Terraform-style syntax
• Public pipelines: share status without an account

PikoCI deploys itself. Live at ci.pikoci.com/teams/main/pipelines/pikoci, no login needed.

http://pikoci.com · github.com/pikoci/pikoci

Hello,

I started looking into HomeServers, and after a day of reading on Reddit and watching videos, I am lost...

At first, I had two things I needed that made me look into it :

\- I want, for me and my wife, to be able to save our photos automatically from our phones and to be able to look at them from all our devices, in and outside the house

\- I want to set up different VLANs on my network to separate the computers and the IOTs on two different wifi networks, and the NAS on a third VLAN with a wired connection to the router/switch.

But then I also got interested in setting up a media server with torrent download (though my protonVPN), Vaultwarden, a cloud with documents and maybe some other stuff later (but probably nothing heavier than the media server).

So for the router, I am thinking about an TP-Link Omada ER706W. Power effective, easy to setup, all-in-one...

I didn't go for a PFSense/OPNSense option because I don't have the PC for it, and I would need to buy a mesh for the wifi I guess.

Then for the NAS, I am a bit lost.

\- My first option was getting a Synology that would do all of this (DS225+). It seems very easy to use, it should be able to do everything I need, and it seems safe for someone with my level of knowledge.

\- My second option was a cheaper Synology (DS124 or 223 or beestation), and a mini PC for the transcoding part

\- My third option was a more powerful NAS that would run on TrueNAS (I was thinking of a pre built NAS with the possibility to install a different OS) with everything on it. The Ugreen seems to be the best option in terms of price and power consumption for this type of performance.

I love the idea of having everything opensource and to have something more powerful for a slightly lower price. But I am a beginner in cyber security and I am worried that it would be dangerous to run something all by myself compared to something easier to setup like DSM.

I would obviously like to setup a VPN tunnel for my connections to the NAS from outside (from my router and not the NAS itself I guess), and to completely block any access to the admin pages from devices that are not physically in the network (so no VPN).

Do you think it is doable for a beginner to setup TrueNAS safely, without having to constantly check it ? Is it worth the trouble ?

What do you think about these ideas of setups and do you think of a better idea (with the price and power consumption in mind) ?

Thank you !

I'm an experienced selfhoster, and run in excess of 100 containers doing all sorts of things, but I'm not a gamer and I'm old, but have young kids.

I've recently set up a Luanti server so we can play together at home, I have my Fedora laptop and they have Android tablets or ChromeOS Laptops.

It's a lot of fun and it got me thinking about whether there's any other games I could host this way, but not knowing anything about the selfhosted gaming ecosphere I figured I'd ask here.

I don't need any in depth instructions as I can always figure out the sysadmin type stuff myself, but would appreciate any suggestions if there's anything out there.

I just got into self hosting, now my wife wants to be able to have music player, I have been doing some research on a self hosted music player. I need it to be able to connect to a Bluetooth speaker. It would be a major plus if I could access it via mobile phones and windows.

I have seen a few recommendations, however I would like to hear from people who have actually used this stuff before I install a bunch of programs just to test them. Looking for a good place to start.

Thank you.

suggest to choose between one or if there is any better deal than these ? I use it for my application backend, some cron jobs, scraping etc

https://preview.redd.it/ug1o2qu8dkah1.png?width=2686&format=png&auto=webp&s=f04bbd1792b6aa59e98bd0ce299412f5a6cf76f3

https://preview.redd.it/qmuwqu69dkah1.png?width=2678&format=png&auto=webp&s=d8d395e82f0f6aa4198ca0cbc0a0c20a496e6f7d

Hey there!

So I have been trying to read up more on docker, containers, etc. I found a few services/apps I would love to run for my own use locally like Komga (to organize my digital comics), Booklore, a few others. I would like to run/host them locally on my laptop (primary computer) so I can pull them up anywhere when I want.

But I am wondering if it makes more sense to have a single virtual machine (Virtualbox?) running a Linux server and all of those services/apps, instead of multiple docker containers. I have a fairly powerful laptop, so I am not too concerned about all of this using up all my machine resources, but I'd like to do this as cleanly, organized, and straightforward as possible.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated, and thanks in advance!

So I’m doing a lot of this on a budget, but my current goals are to repurpose some old hardware and purchase some new hardware cheaply to do the following:
Update from a lousy ISP router.
Be able to host a NAS service.
Start a media library I can stream.
Start a photo cloud backup.
Tinker with an LLM.
Potentially be able to record content from my gaming PC via a VM (unsure yet if I’ll be able to do this, but it’s not a priority.)

Currently the hardware I either have or am about to order is:
Ryzen 9 3900x
32GB DDR4 3600mhz
RTX 3070
1x 500gb NVME
2x 1TB Sata SSD’s
4x 2TB Ironwolves
Ubiquiti Dream router 7.

Originally I was going to drop $2k on a Ubiquiti Dream router, AP, Cameras etc… but my budget changed. I know Ubiquiti might not be the best compared to some more enterprise brands, but it’s something I’m super familiar with and I know my wife will be able to use also so it should get the job done.

My server goal is to install Proxmox on the NVME, Set up FreeNas to run a RAID 1 to get the best balance of performance and redundancy, then the 2x Sata SSD’s in Mirror as secondary storage drive for the VM’s. What I’m thinking is Proxmox, then Docker installed with the following services:
Portainer
Ollama
Open Web UI
Jellyfin
Immich
Nginx Proxy manager
Windows 11 VM.

As this is my first foray, I just wanted some critique and feedback on what I’ve got set up and if there is a better way to do it. I’m not sure what the best resource allocation will be, if I have enough hardware performance etc…

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

I’m running a Raspberry Pi 5 hosting several Docker containers, and I’m trying to find the cleanest way to access them securely over Tailscale from my iPhone.

Current services include:
Paperless-ngx
Open WebUI
Home Assistant
Portainer
Uptime Kuma
Calibre-Web
Pi-hole
I’m using:

Docker Compose
Caddy as a reverse proxy
Tailscale with MagicDNS
Tailscale HTTPS certificates

I can successfully access everything using different HTTPS ports, for example:
https://raspberrypi.tailxxxx.ts.net:8441
https://raspberrypi.tailxxxx.ts.net:8442

However, this causes practical problems with Safari and iCloud Keychain. Because every service uses the same hostname, Safari often suggests the wrong username and password.

I also tried path-based routing, for example:
/paperless
/openwebui
but some applications don’t work correctly behind a subpath without additional configuration.

I then looked at Tailscale Services using:
tailscale serve --service=svc:paperless
but received: service hosts must be tagged nodes

I’m not looking to buy my own domain.
Ideally I’d like URLs such as:
paperless.raspberrypi.tailxxxx.ts.net
openwebui.raspberrypi.tailxxxx.ts.net
kuma.raspberrypi.tailxxxx.ts.net

My questions are:
Is this possible using only Tailscale and Docker?
Is there a way to create separate HTTPS hostnames on a personal tailnet?

Is there a better approach than using different ports?

How are other people exposing multiple self-hosted services over Tailscale while avoiding browser password conflicts?

I’m looking for the approach that is generally considered best practice rather than just something that works.

Thanks

What if you could get 80% of the dbt Cloud experience while keeping everything self-hosted? That’s the question that started a side project I’ve been building using React, FastAPI, dbt Core, and Prefect.

If you are interested in how I did please read and let me know what you think.

Szukam taniego vps obecnie mam ovh za 35 zł ale ma bardzo mało miejsca na dysku. Po wygraniu przez ich darmowe Ubuntu windows 2025 nie mieszczę się z projektami ... Czy jest coś z lepszymi parametrami za niższą cenę z taką samą stabilnością ? Jestem w stanie miesięcznie wydawać około 50zl

I wanted to type one prompt and see several models answer side-by-side, on something always-on the whole household could use. Off-the-shelf tools either charged, wouldn't take my own key, or couldn't show answers side-by-side.

What I ended up with:

- One OpenAI-compatible endpoint in front of several models

- Open WebUI for side-by-side + merge (Mixture-of-Agents)

- Both in Docker on a Synology NAS, so it survives my laptop being closed

- Keys stay server-side, never sent to the browser

- Rule-based routing: only foreign-model domains go through a proxy; domestic ones connect directly

Two real gotchas: a nightly crash that turned out to be the NAS hitting its inotify instance limit, and dead proxy nodes I now auto-detect by pointing health checks at a real model endpoint.

Honest caveat: bridging consumer subscriptions into an API is a ToS gray area — I keep it personal/internal. Curious how you all run always-on multi-model setups?

Given how expensive hard drives are I’m trying to think of new ways to source storage.

I’m very new to this and I’m looking to set up a Plex server. Would the community recommend using a 16TB Recertified SATA Drive if I can find it cheaper than a brand new desktop external hard drive?

I spent 20 years working on critical systems for air traffic control. UNIX, Linux, bare metal. Nothing ran on someone else's server, since many lives depended on it.

Then I came home and looked at my own setup. Gmail. Google Drive. Dropbox. Notion. Every file, every conversation, every document -- on infrastructure I had zero control over.

It felt like building a house and realizing the foundation belongs to someone else.

The moment I stopped ignoring it, it was around 2010. I created a Facebook account. Just to see. Immediately hated how it was designed to waste my time. When I tried to delete it, I couldn't. That was it. My dad died defending his liberty of speech. Not being able to delete my own account felt like a small version of the same thing.

 So I started building. Not because self-hosting is fashionable -- it wasn't then. But because owning your own infrastructure is the only thing that makes sense if you take control seriously.

Three years of building later, I'm still asking the same question: why do smart engineers who would never run critical infra on untrusted servers accept this for their own data?

Anyone here made the switch to fully self-hosted? What was the tipping point for you?