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Self-hosting, mostly

A list of software products and services I use both for personal and professional use. I self-host whenever I can, but not always.

When I host, I do so on remote Linux VMs. I don't run anything from home anymore, except for the home automation system (duh!) which runs on a Raspberry Pi.

My database engine of choice is PostgreSQL. My go-to web server/reverse proxy is Nginx. I also host my own DNS servers running ISC BIND9. I backup all my systems and data with Restic, to remote Object Storage with a local replica on a NAS device.

I am naturally drawn toward free and open-source software first, but I recognise the fact that sometimes proprietary/paid software can be more efficient. I'd rather use the software than waste all my time maintaining it.

So here is a list of the main tools and services I use on a daily basis.

Professional

I work as part of a small team of independent consultants and I have put in place the following tools for us to use. We use Samba 4 as an Active Directory provider for user authentication and ACLs.

Confluence -- wiki, documentation. This one is commercial but for a small team of under 10 people, it costs $10 a year, which is great value (over 10 users it gets much more expensive)

Nextcloud and

Collabora -- file and document hosting, groupware (an alternative to Google Apps, OneDrive, O365)

Zimbra -- email and calendaring (an alternative to Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo mail)

Z-Push -- a companion to Zimbra that allows ActiveSync (mobile connections)

eFa Project -- mail filtering based on MailScanner/SpamAssassin

Zabbix -- monitoring and alerting

Gitea -- Git version control (an alternative to Github)

Zammad -- helpdesk, support tickets (an alternative to Zendesk)

MeshCentral -- remote desktop assistance (an alternative to Bomgar, Teamviewer)

Matrix/Synapse -- secure instant messaging using the Matrix protocol (an alternative to Slack)

Samba 4

Wikipedia page for Active Directory

Personal

I have been self-hosting since my first BBS in the early 1990s, and I love the freedom and control. It also helps me understand how things work together. I am a big proponent of the "eat your own dog food" approach: I am a service provider but I can also put myself in my users' shoes.

WriteFreely -- federated blogging

WordPress -- another blog (for family; don't judge)

Mastodon -- federated micro-blogging (an alternative to Twitter)

Peertube-- federated video sharing (an alternative to Youtube)

Funkwhale -- federated music and podcast sharing (an alternative to… Spotify?)

Jitsi Meet -- video-conferencing (an alternative to Zoom)

Nextcloud and

Collabora -- file and document hosting, groupware

Zimbra and

Z-Push -- email and calendaring

Zabbix -- monitoring and alerting

Confluence -- wiki, documentation

Gitea -- Git version control

Vaultwarden -- password management: Rust re-implementation of the Bitwarden server, entirely compatible with the official Bitwarden clients and browser extensions (an alternative to Lastpass)

Home Assistant -- Home automation

Agate -- a simple Gemini server

Things I used to self-host but don't anymore

These are things I used to self-host but have abandoned for various reasons.

Astersisk -- PBX (phone system) -- I now register my phone devices directly to my provider's servers: they provide all the features of Asterisk at no extra cost, with a much better SLA

InvoiceNinja -- excellent invoicing and quoting system. But I don't want to be drowned in accounting tasks and have hired the services of a bookkeeper; as a result I switched to QuickBooks Online. I don't particularly like QuickBooks but I have to admit it makes my life easier and my bookkeeper can connect to my account and fix things directly. I really don't like the fact that you can't take a full backup of your data, though.

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Self-hosting, mostly was published on 2020-08-20