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One problem with "self-hosting" is you're usually still hosting in the cloud – say, on a DigitalOcean droplet or something. That means you're spending $5-10 eve

One problem with "self-hosting" is you're usually still hosting in the cloud – say, on a DigitalOcean droplet or something. That means you're spending $5-10 every month or whatever, plus you're still vulnerable to some amount of cloud-provider fickleness (though much less than a SaaS provider). Much better would be a physical device in your own home. Lately I've been dreaming about a home wifi router that doubles as a personal server, with a few TB of storage, with tailscale-type networking for remote administration and a nice App store for self-hosted apps (FOSS or otherwise). Not a company I am going to start, just one that I hope someone does.

kbuck 5y ago
Check out Synology NASes (and now they make a router too). Basically exactly what you describe.
- rattray 5y ago
  Very interesting – thanks! For reference, https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS720+ https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS720+ lokos like a representative model. Seems to offer competitors to Google Photos, Drive, Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and more…
wmf 5y ago
Given the choice between $5/month and, say, $300 upfront most people will choose monthly. I think both options should be available but realistically not many people are going to buy the box. There have been a bunch like FreedomBox, IndieBox, Helm, etc. but they don't seem to take off.
- rattray 5y ago
  Interesting – Helm definitely looks cool, close to what I had in mind. Pricing of $400 plus $99/yr subscription sounds tough – and it doesn't include a wifi router, which I think is an element that would make more sense to the average home user (and ensure it's not connected to the internet over wifi).
  - wmf 5y ago
    I prefer the router+server approach as well but Helm takes a different approach of VPNing all traffic through AWS so it can have a public static IP; unfortunately this introduces a bunch of cost and overhead. For hardware there's some interesting stuff like https://www.servethehome.com/inexpensive-4x-2-5gbe-fanless-router-firewall-box-review-intel-j4125-i225-pfsense/ https://www.servethehome.com/inexpensive-4x-2-5gbe-fanless-r...
rr808 5y ago
Those cheap $5 servers are weak, probably best to compare to a rasberry pi which is cheap.
- hsn915 5y ago
  powerful enough to serve a lot of basic websites (blogs, forums, chat .. etc) without breaking a sweat
  - rr808 5y ago
    yes, and so is a rpi.
hsn915 5y ago
The internet is a network. You are on the edge of the network. There's a gateway between you and the network. This is impossible to eliminate. It's a feature of the network. The only mitigation you can do is own your data and programs, so that you can change your gateway if they don't serve you faithfully. From this point of view, hosting on a provider is not any worse than on your home network, as long as you regularly backup your data to your local machine. Switching from one VPS provider to another is a lot easier than switching from an ISP to another. Switching VPS can be done in minutes. Just login to another VPS website and sign up for an account to start renting a server from them. Switching ISP takes on the order of days instead of minutes.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > The internet is a network. You are on the edge of the network. There's a gateway between you and the network. Everything you have said above is wrong, and sounds like propaganda from Silicon Valley cloud computing cults: - the Internet is a network of networks, not a single unified network - you are not "on the edge" (this is only valid from a cloud vendor perspective): if the target audience for your services is in your neighborhood and your ISP is user-friendly, you are in fact "in the center" right where it matters and you can provide much better services to end-users than from a remote continent - there's routers on your path on the network, but there's no gateway between you and the network: you may have a LAN with local addresses but that doesn't even have to be the case (you can have public IPv6 for everyone on your LAN), and if Google just happens to be next door to your house you can take your own cable to them (assuming they would let you) and do BGP with them directly from your home router (assuming you can configure it, and you get an AS number) So i agree with you what you describe is typical in the centralized setups that Silicon Valley has pushed to (successfully) render our lives miserable, but there's no reason this has to be. People from non-profit ISPs such as NYCMesh or the FFDN federation certainly make sure we don't have to live in this perpetual nightmare. > Switching ISP takes on the order of days instead of minutes. Good point, but this is only because public-serving infrastructure have been cannibalized by corporations. It doesn't have to be this way, in the great scheme of things. Moreover, once you have a decent neutral ISP you usually never need to switch.
southerntofu 5y ago
You should check out internetcu.be or or freedombox.org, both very successful at bundling a selfhosting distro with some consumer-oriented hardware! PS: No i'm not mentioning the many hardware-first solutions which are usually just a scam.
- rattray 5y ago
  Thanks, freedombox.org does indeed look cool!

kbuck 5y ago

Check out Synology NASes (and now they make a router too). Basically exactly what you describe.

rattray 5y ago
Very interesting – thanks! For reference, https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS720+ https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS720+ lokos like a representative model. Seems to offer competitors to Google Photos, Drive, Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and more…

wmf 5y ago

Given the choice between $5/month and, say, $300 upfront most people will choose monthly. I think both options should be available but realistically not many people are going to buy the box. There have been a bunch like FreedomBox, IndieBox, Helm, etc. but they don't seem to take off.

rattray 5y ago
Interesting – Helm definitely looks cool, close to what I had in mind. Pricing of $400 plus $99/yr subscription sounds tough – and it doesn't include a wifi router, which I think is an element that would make more sense to the average home user (and ensure it's not connected to the internet over wifi).
- wmf 5y ago
  I prefer the router+server approach as well but Helm takes a different approach of VPNing all traffic through AWS so it can have a public static IP; unfortunately this introduces a bunch of cost and overhead. For hardware there's some interesting stuff like https://www.servethehome.com/inexpensive-4x-2-5gbe-fanless-router-firewall-box-review-intel-j4125-i225-pfsense/ https://www.servethehome.com/inexpensive-4x-2-5gbe-fanless-r...

rr808 5y ago

Those cheap $5 servers are weak, probably best to compare to a rasberry pi which is cheap.

hsn915 5y ago
powerful enough to serve a lot of basic websites (blogs, forums, chat .. etc) without breaking a sweat
- rr808 5y ago
  yes, and so is a rpi.

hsn915 5y ago

The internet is a network. You are on the edge of the network. There's a gateway between you and the network. This is impossible to eliminate. It's a feature of the network. The only mitigation you can do is own your data and programs, so that you can change your gateway if they don't serve you faithfully. From this point of view, hosting on a provider is not any worse than on your home network, as long as you regularly backup your data to your local machine. Switching from one VPS provider to another is a lot easier than switching from an ISP to another. Switching VPS can be done in minutes. Just login to another VPS website and sign up for an account to start renting a server from them. Switching ISP takes on the order of days instead of minutes.

southerntofu 5y ago
> The internet is a network. You are on the edge of the network. There's a gateway between you and the network. Everything you have said above is wrong, and sounds like propaganda from Silicon Valley cloud computing cults: - the Internet is a network of networks, not a single unified network - you are not "on the edge" (this is only valid from a cloud vendor perspective): if the target audience for your services is in your neighborhood and your ISP is user-friendly, you are in fact "in the center" right where it matters and you can provide much better services to end-users than from a remote continent - there's routers on your path on the network, but there's no gateway between you and the network: you may have a LAN with local addresses but that doesn't even have to be the case (you can have public IPv6 for everyone on your LAN), and if Google just happens to be next door to your house you can take your own cable to them (assuming they would let you) and do BGP with them directly from your home router (assuming you can configure it, and you get an AS number) So i agree with you what you describe is typical in the centralized setups that Silicon Valley has pushed to (successfully) render our lives miserable, but there's no reason this has to be. People from non-profit ISPs such as NYCMesh or the FFDN federation certainly make sure we don't have to live in this perpetual nightmare. > Switching ISP takes on the order of days instead of minutes. Good point, but this is only because public-serving infrastructure have been cannibalized by corporations. It doesn't have to be this way, in the great scheme of things. Moreover, once you have a decent neutral ISP you usually never need to switch.

southerntofu 5y ago

You should check out internetcu.be or or freedombox.org, both very successful at bundling a selfhosting distro with some consumer-oriented hardware! PS: No i'm not mentioning the many hardware-first solutions which are usually just a scam.

rattray 5y ago
Thanks, freedombox.org does indeed look cool!