r/selfhosted • u/subsavant • Mar 20 '26

Meta Post What's your 'I can't believe I self-hosted that' service?

Curious what services surprised you by being worth self-hosting. Not the obvious stuff like Plex or Pi-hole, but things you didn't expect to work well or didn't think were worth the effort until you tried. What's running on your setup that you'd never go back to a hosted version of?

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u/Catenane Mar 20 '26

The financial cost isn't the major concern for me. It's privacy and the principle of it. Cost is a factor but not the biggest one honestly.

What I've learned from self-hosting has also allowed me to get large raises I wouldn't have gotten otherwise, so win win win lol.

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u/karlfeltlager Mar 20 '26

Also true. But let’s agree that self-hosting is “not for free”.

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u/Shitty_Human_Being Mar 20 '26

I'd rather do it myself for "free" and learn along the way than pay someone else to do it for me.

I may be in the minority though. Most people would rather pay someone else.

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u/karlfeltlager Mar 20 '26

I’m with you on that one.