My Self-Hosting Journey

I began my self-hosting journey in 2021 with the goal of hosting a game server for friends so they would not need to pay for external hosting. Through onsite IT work, I acquired several 6th and 8th generation i7 systems from companies that were downsizing or upgrading. After adding inexpensive NVMe storage and APC battery backups, the environment grew quickly.

What started as a single server eventually expanded to three dedicated game servers running 27/4, supporting up to 270 concurrent players at peak. These servers have been up for almost 4 years now.

---

Internet Connection

• ISP: Optimum Fiber (1 Gbps / 1 Gbps symmetrical) – $65/month
• ISP router configured in bridge mode if I return it they take away a discount.

---

Network Infrastructure

• Router: UDM Pro
• Switch: USW 16-Port PoE
• Access Point: AC Pro

---

Infrastructure Services

DNS Server

• Raspberry Pi 4 (4 GB RAM)
• DietPi OS
• Running Pi-hole for DNS filtering

---

Game Server Infrastructure

All game servers are connected to APC battery backups and maintain approximately 99% uptime, with downtime only occurring during scheduled maintenance. A custom watchdog script automatically restarts servers if a crash occurs.

• Game Server 1

  • i7 6th Gen
  • 24 GB RAM
  • 500 GB NVMe storage
  • Windows Server 2019

• Game Server 2

  • i7 8th Gen
  • 32 GB RAM
  • 500 GB NVMe storage
  • Windows Server 2019

• Game Server 3

  • i7 8th Gen
  • 28 GB RAM
  • 500 GB NVMe storage
  • Windows Server 2019

---

Virtualization / Homelab

Proxmox Server

• i7 12th Gen
• 40 GB RAM
• 1 TB NVMe storage
• External USB Media Drive – 22 TB (with backup)

Current Services

• Jellyfin – Replacing all commercial streaming services (currently LAN only, working on secure remote access)

---

Planned Additions

• NGINX – Reverse proxy for secure external access
• Apache Guacamole – Replace RemotePC for remote access
• Tailscale – Replace Surfshark for private networking
• Vaultwarden – Replace RoboForm for password management

If you think there are better options please let me know so I can do my research!

Hey all, I’ve been slowly building services on my server over many many years, starting with running a minecraft ftb server, to where I am now, which is 1 primary system(providing the network filesystem) and 2 auxiliary minipc systems my brother in law recently donated. I moved from Docker to Docker Swarm after getting those MiniPC’s and enjoying the added compute. Currently my swarm is running:

• PiHole x2 - AdBlocking and Local DNS Management
• Wg-easy - for Wireguard VPN Management
• nginx - for reverse proxy servicing
• authentik - for Authentication and SSO
• Duplicati - for cloud backups(pointing at backblaze buckets)
• Guacamole - for RDP services
• Grafana+Prometheus+Node-Exporter+Cadvisor+AlertManager - for aggregation and system monitoring
• Gatus - single pane of glass monitoring of services(might remove it now that I’ve started using Grafana)
• diun - monitoring docker image versions and notification
• Bookstack - Personal Knowledge Base system
• Linkwarden - Collaborative Link Sharing and archiving
• Fasten Health - Local Health Records Storage
• SnipeIT - personal asset management
• Affine - self hosted cloud notebook
• Actual - Budgeting Software
• it-tools - for swiss army knife utilities
• kitchenowl - recipes and grocery lists
• Reactive resume - for resume building with AI empowered editing
• Onetimesecret - for burn after reading secret sharing(using it for distributing credentials to my family)
• Searxng - Local Search Aggregation
• Homarr - Personal Dashboarding
• Home Assistant - Smart Home Management
• N8n - Automating codeless workflows
• Ollama and Open-WebUI - personal Agentic AI
• AudioBookshelf - Audiobook streaming and Management
• OwnCloud - local file sharing and storage
• Plex - Video Streaming
• BitMagnet - DHT network sniffer
• syncthing - for transporting data between local and remote systems
• the *Arrs - for acquiring content
• Docspell - for digitizing and storing important documents
• picsur - for local meme storage
• Calibre+Calibre-web - for Ebook management
• Crafty Controller - for Minecraft Server Management
• RomM - For Emulation and ROM Management.

As I go about my day I’m always looking for new and interesting containers to run, and then scrutinizing if they fill a need, replace an existing service with a better version of the same service, or if it’s better off not implementing, then I pull them down. this has been a great experience in devops learning and the longer I work on the server the more best practices I put in place and the more I understand why corporate clouds have some of the practices they have. I look forward to poking around in this community looking to help and to find new containers to accrete into my platform.

Hey fellow self-hosters! I’m just starting but I’m now running my own instances of Jellyfin, Nextcloud, Readeck and Kitchen Owl. It’s really a great feeling to know the data is safe with me!

@devve

- Nextcloud
- Miniflux
- Gitlab
- HomeAssistant
- Wallabag
- Ghost (for my personal blog)
- Umami analytics
- Searx NG
- OnlyOffice document server
- ntfy
- Lychee
- LAMP Stack
- TheLounge (IRC web client)
- Cockpit (server manager)
- RSSHub
- Jellyfin
- Adguard

On an Intel NUC in my closet.

I’m new to self-hosting world, for starting I subscribed to a VPS with 240GB of storage with Debian installed on so I could run my Yunohost server

I’m trying it out mostly for streaming music with Navidrome and run Fresh RSS. Also I use RSS Bridge so I can stay updated with some Instagram accounts

I have been self hosting things for over 15 years. I now host on 7 computers. I’m proud of the fact that I stay under 100W idle, including 3 Omada WLAN APs and network technology (all via PoE and all is on a UPS). For most of the services i normally used the helper scripts. i’m currently in the process of moving everything to komodo. there should be an lxc for each service or service group, komodo pulls the compose files from gitea and deploys everything.

Proxmox pve0: M910x i5.7500 4x3,4GHz, 32 GB RAM, 256 GB NVMe

• OPNSense (VM)
• Omada (LXC/komodo-server - control for 3 WLAN-APs)
• apt-cacher-ng (LXC/komodo-server - cache for debian-updates)
• searxng (LXC/komodo-server - my standard google-alternative)
• technitium (LXC/komodo-server - DNS, Adblock)
• nginx (LXC/komodo-server - own ssl-domain over cloudflare, no ports open to the www, my devices connect only via tailscale)

UNRAID-NAS - odroid h2+ Intel J4115 4x1,8 GHz, 32 GB RAM, 2x24GB HDD - fileserver)

Proxmox Backup Server (M90n-1: i5-8265U, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB NVMe, 2TB SSD)

Proxmox pve1 (M90n-1: i5-8265U, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB NVMe)

• bifrost (LXC/komodo-server - hue emulator)
• paperless (LXC/komodo-server - DMS)
• paperless-ai (LXC/komodo-server - tagging DMS)
• mosquitto (LXC/komodo-server - mqtt broker)
• zigbee2mqtt (LXC/komodo-server - mqtt-zigbee bridge)
• snowflake (LXC/komodo-server - tor relais)
• RaspberryMatic (VM - Homematic)

Proxmox pve2 (M90n-1: i5-8265U, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB NVMe)

• ghost (LXC comm-script, business soltion, wanna play around)
• hoarder (LXC/komodo-server - bookmarks with AI tagging)
• memos (LXC/komodo-server - notes - I play around)
• obsidian-sync (LXC/komodo-server - notes, but I hate the need of action for this)
• vaultwarden (LXC/komodo-server - password manager backup for my payed bitwarden instance)
• gitea (LXC/komodo-server - hoe to, IP-addresses, compose-files)
• komodo-management (LXC/komodo-server - komodo main-server to manage all the servers)
• firefly-iii (LXC/komodo-server - finance - I’m looking for an alternaticve for actualbudget )
• actual-budged (LXC/komodo-server - finance with AI tagging)
• investbrain (LXC/komodo-server - stock management, but only in USD, I wait for other currencies)

Proxmox pve3 (M920x: i7-8700, 64 GB RAM, 250 GB NVMe, 2 TB NVMe)

• ollama+open webui (LXC/komodo-server - AI)
• immich (LXC/komodo-server - photo backup for my ios-photos)
• iobroker (LXC/komodo-server - smarthome for some tricky scripts)
• home assistant (VM - smarthome - for UI, its stupid for scripts)
• nextcloud (LXC/alpine - Im using it for documents, but Im looking for an alternative)
• plex/jellyfin/management (LXC/komodo-server - multimedia)

*raspberry pi 5

• venus OS (solar/accu management software)

i’m happy to have found an entry point and an alternative to reddit here, even though my second post (question about suitable hardware with 32 answers) has already been deleted. hello everyone!

• AdguardHome
• Nextcloud
• Redlib
• DrawIO
• Wireguard
• Matrix server
• SearxNG
• Jellyfin
• LibMedium
• Linkwarden
• IT-tools
• Vaultwarden
• Memos
• Miniflux
• Rimgo
• Invidious
• Quetre
• Anonymously Overflow

All except few are routed via VPN.

Hosted on: Raspberry Pi 4B + Alienware M14x R2

I have vaultwarden, navidrome, uptime kuma (on a vps, because it doesn’t make sense to host it on my pi, because if it goes down, I’m not gonna know), pihole (though it’s not currently working with Mullvad), dokuwiki, freshrss, searxng, ntfy, and tugtainer (replacement for watchtower since that’s now abandoned).

Host all the things!

Wordpress, SMTP/IMAP, tor, bittorrent, Nextcloud, Plex, NTP, photo galleries, DoT…

I even started hosting the website for my local Italian restaurant and they haven’t even realised it yet.

Currently HTTP, XMPP (internet chat) and Minecraft servers.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters	More Letters
DNS	Domain Name Service/System
HTTP	Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
MECO	Main Engine Cut-Off
~	MainEngineCutOff podcast
NVMe	Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
PoE	Power over Ethernet
ROC	Range Operations Coordinator
~	Radius of Curvature
RP-1	Rocket Propellant 1 (enhanced kerosene)
SAR	Synthetic Aperture Radar (increasing resolution with parallax)
SECO	Second-stage Engine Cut-Off
SES	Formerly Société Européenne des Satellites, comsat operator
~	Second-stage Engine Start
VPN	Virtual Private Network
VPS	Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
XMPP	Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (‘Jabber’) for open instant messaging

---

[Thread #11 for this comm, first seen 11th Jan 2026, 14:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

I joined to learn, still not self-hosting anything, but I intend to use an 11yo Compaq laptop (i5, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD) as a server while I’m still practicing. I intend to self-host a lemmy instance and a nextcloud server.

Thanks for everything you guys have been sharing I’ve already got some good leads, gonna try out YunoHost for starters

I had a small X.25 network as combination coffee-table and space-heater at one point; this was before most homes had internet. It almost cost me a divorce.

I’m hosting Trillium Note for my personal note taking.

Hi there. My first post in this community.

I’m currently running:

• Pi-hole
• Plex Media Server
• Grafana
• Torrent server
• Monica
• Shaarli
• Matrix instance
• Arch package cache
• Several game servers such as Minecraft and Terraria
• VM running Volvo software to troubleshoot my cars.

My hardware: I used to run it all on a Supermicro x9drd-7ln4f-jbod with dual Xeon E5-2670 v2 with 16x16GB ECC ram and 6x 3TB disks in raidz2 for storage and 2x 60gb Intel SSDs for OS. I started with less and upgraded towards this configuration but it was consuming 300 watt idle which was just unacceptable.

So earlier this year I upgraded to an ASRock Rack x470D4U with Ryzen 7 5700x and 4x32GB ECC (non-registered) ram and 6x 2TB SSDs in raidz2. 1 ssd is in the nvme slot on the motherboard, 4 are in a 4x4 bifurcation card in the 16x slot and 1 more in a 4x riser. All PCIe lanes of the CPU are used. This setup is not possible with an AMD CPU with integrated GPU since it will take up 4 PCIe lanes (you can guess how I know). It uses about 20 watt idle without any containers and VMs running. I initially didn’t want to move away from Supermicro but the ASRock Rack motherboard has IPMI so I’m not missing out on much.

Hardware and software suggestions are welcome :D