What deserves to be self-hosted?
A practical way to decide which services belong on your own hardware and which ones are better handled elsewhere.
read field note ↗LOCAL FIRSTOFF THE CLOCK / 02 — SELF-HOSTINGMy own little
My own little
cloud.
The stack keeps photos, files, media, home automation, and local AI on hardware I control. Most services remain inside the LAN; only deliberate entry points are published.
immichLocal photo library and family archiveUp
nextcloudFile sync and sharingUp
plexMedia library streamed from the storage arrayUp
open-webuiInterface for local AI modelsUp
psitransferTemporary file transfersUp
postgres ×2Data stores for multiple servicesUp
mariadbDatabase for services that require itUp
redisCaching and queue storageUp
swagReverse proxy for published servicesUp
cloudflaredTunnel for selected public endpointsUp
RESTART POLICY: UNLESS-STOPPED · 11 SERVICES HEALTHYexit 0
EXPOSURE MAPKnow what crosses
Know what crosses
the boundary.
immichlocal / photoshome-assistantlocal / homenextcloudpublished / filesplexlocal / mediaopen-webuilocal / aipsitransferpublished / filesswagedge / networkcloudflarededge / network
Most services remain on the LAN. Only deliberate entry points cross the boundary.
✱OPERATING PRINCIPLE
A service belongs here only when the control it provides is worth the responsibility to secure, update, back up, and restore it.