Hey all,
Im looking at if i should self host or use services like proton, apple music and some other things?
Self hosted services would be:
Cloud would be:
The main advantage for cloud is little work required, just login and use, but of course its a monthly subscription.
Self hosting requires money and time up front, and potentially maintenance time.
Suggestions?
Tia
I have asked myself this too, and as someone who has the hardware and uses Linux daily, I am very much looking into using self-hosted alternatives to software I use. It is partially a cost thing, but also because some services like Proton make you use their specific clients, which I don’t like.
I am only wondering about the practicality of 3 things I may host: Email, password management, and email aliasing. I worry about email because I have heard it is very difficult to host.
I worry about password management because I don’t think Vaultwarden would provide any real advantage over Bitwarden to me. I feel as though my data is secure with Bitwarden and I don’t think Vaultwarden provides any perceptible advantage.
I worry about email aliasing because I think using my own domain for all of my aliases could defeat the point. On addy.io, standard aliases end in @username.addy.io, which I already don’t like because it could be traced back to me, but self-hosting would have the domain end in @mydomain.com! I don’t know if that could be traced back to me in a data leak and used to spam my other email aliases. I’m guessing not, but I’m not sure! For email aliasing, maybe using addy.io’s shared domain aliases ending in addy.io would be the best.
Overall, for everything else, I think self-hosting would provide great choice and control while still saving money. If you’re ready to learn and tinker with stuff to get going, then I highly recommend it! Especially if you are already familiar with Linux.
Self-host where it matters most, personal files, photos, etc… otherwise cloud is fine for stuff like email, but custom domains are a good practice (though a bit more cost also) in case you want to switch providers.
Saving money should not be the only reason to self-host. I think you need to be willing to play around and tinker. If money is the only reason, then you will quickly give up.
I corrected that statement for you. You seem to be underestimating the time needed for it. Also there is a big difference between simply spinning up something and doing it reliably and secure. The latter it takes a lot more time. Would recommend to use E2EE cloud service, like Ente and Peergos, instead.