What do I Self Host?

The problem with the internet today is that anything you do is tracked and used to gain money, and not money that will go in your pockets. This includes, but is not limited to: ads, selling information about you, and building a digital footprint about every little thing you do.

One of the ways I like to combat this is to self host as much as I can. Not only does this reduce my online footprint but most importantly, it lets me control my data. Some stuff I would much rather keep offline. Not only that, it allows me to help keep track of my daily life.

One of the most important aspects of self hosting is that it is completely on you to keep up with security, backups, keeping things up to date, etc. If you plan on keeping things between friends and family, then this shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but definitely something to keep in the back of your mind. If you do plan on hosting something that could be big, definitely take extra precautions to keep yourself safe.

Here to Stay

Apprise (+ API) – Unified notification system. Hoping to mostly use this with Matrix and maybe get customized notifications for people that use my services.

ChangeDetection.io – Allows me to track if a website has changed. I mainly use this to track for Raspberry Pi stock. Also used for ebay alerts.

CodeServer – VS Code in a browser setting.

Cloudflared – Cloudflare tunnel to close all the ports I had open.

Cross Seed – Automatically searches for cross seeds and gets them going. Who doesn’t like free ratio?

Deluge VPN – Torrent downloader with VPN. I like the UI of this one more.

ElasticSearch – Search and analitics engine. Needed for some of my containers.

Factorio – Server for the game Factorio. Only open to my friends.

Groccy – Grocery and common household consumable management. Used with Barcode Buddy to easily restock or consume items.

Homebox – Inventory management. Much easier to use than SnipeIt.

Homepage – Homepage that lets me have all of my services in one place. Not a huge fan of YAML configuration, but it is easy to configure and very customizable.

Home Assistant – Home automation.

Infisical – Secrets management. I tried Hashicorp Vault but it was too complicated to use for my use case.

Jackett – Torrent proxy for Sonarr and Radarr.

LanCache – Caching server used for services like steam, epic games, xbox, psn, etc. Great for those with metered connections and have multiple computers or consoles that play the same games.

MariaDB – Most widely used database software. If I can’t use Postgres, then I use this.

Matrix – Decentralized chat system? Going to try it out as a notification system.

Mealie – Recipe system. The best one for ease of use I have found so far.

N8N – Flow automation. Mainly used for webhooks to NTFY but finding more and more uses for it.

Netboot.xyz – Used for netbooting. I am using this to boot my Raspberry Pis. I did learn about Ventoy recently so I might actually switch to that.

Netbox – Used to map out my network. Also was playing around with it to learn about it since my work was looking in to it.

NextCloud – Personal cloud. Used to backup and sync things between devices. Also makes copies off site for 3 2 1 backup.

NGINX – Public facing webserver.

NGINX Proxy Manager – Easily allows me to map subdomains to my self hosted services. This also handles SSL certificates, allows you to set up basic authentication, and more.

NTFY – Used for notifications. Simple and works.

Overseerr – Plex requests, issue tracking, etc. Talks to all of the *arrs!

Pastey – Pastebin alternative. Mainly just use it to share logs or long errors.

Pelican Panel – Game server management. Very early beta but works well for personal servers.

PiHole – Network wide ad blocker. Also used to make fake domains to use within my LAN.

Plex Media Server – Media server. Lets my family watch TV shows and movies.

PostgreSQL – My preferred database software. Faster and allows more capabilities than MySQL/MariaDB.

Radarr – This searches for movies to add to Plex.

Readarr – Searches for books.

Redis – Database, cache, and message broker. I am not sure what it all does, just know it is needed for some containers.

sabNZBD – Newsnab downloader.

Sonarr – Searches for TV shows to add to Plex.

Splunk – Log aggregation.

Synapse Admin – Lets me do administration things for Matrix.

Tautulli – Plex statistics. Allows me to keep track of who watches what so I can make a decision to delete something in my yearly cleaning of media.

Tdarr – Automatic video transcoding. This transcodes all of my library to x265.

Transmission VPN – Torrent downloader with VPN. Only use it for a special use case.

Unimus – Network automation and ability to back up my configurations for my switches and access points.

UptimeKuma – Monitors some of my public facing services and notifies me if one of the services are down.

Vaultwarden – (Formerly BitwardenRS) Password management system. Self hosted version which allows you to have most of the paid benefits of Bitwarden.

Vikunja – To-Do app. I like it because you can switch from a simple checklist, to gantt chart, to a kanban board easily.

Windows 11 UUP Dump – Downloads and creates customized Windows installations.

WireguardVPN – Used to VPN in to my LAN.

Testing

BudgetZero – Budgeting app that uses a bucket system. Still learning how to use it.

CloudBeaver – Allows me to have one place to work with database engines such as PostgreSQL and MariaDB.

CrowdSec – Still playing with it but Fail2Ban but crowdsourced? It was easier for me to set up.

Retired

Cachet – Was used to check website status. Replaced with Uptime Kuma which has more options for notifications, a better UI, and just plain worked.

Chrome – Was used to get around the filters where I used to work.

Firefly III – Really complicated to use, bulky, and just not what I need.

Traefik – Used it up until Traefik 2 came out and could not get used to it. I replaced it with NGINX Proxy Manager.

Dashy – Dashboard that allows me to have all my services on one page. I am looking to replace this since it is a pain to configure. Replaced with Homepage.

EpicGames Free Games – This automatically claims any free games on the Epic Games platform. Doesn’t work anymore.

Firefox – Was used to get around the filters where I used to work.

macinabox – Downloads and sets up a Mac VM in Unraid. Depricated.

Ombi – Lets anyone that has access to my Plex server request TV shows and movies to add to Plex. Replaced with Overseerr.

Snipe IT – Inventory management. Used for not only the electronics, but also other regular household items. Replaced with HomeBox.

Gitea – Lightning fast and lightweight git repository system. Replaced with Forjo.

jDownloader – Used to mass download files with little effort. Didn’t use it enough.

DroneCI – Used to automatically build mkDocs when pushed to Gitea and serve the built documentation to Lighttpd so I can access it within my LAN. I will hopefully get to use this more in the future. I use Obsidian for my documentation and sync it with NextCloud.

Lighttpd – Very lightweight webserver that is mainly used to serve internal sites such as my documentation. I use Obsidian for my documentation and sync it with NextCloud.

mkDocs – Documentation for various things. Most notably, my homelab documentation. I use Obsidian for my documentation and sync it with NextCloud.

Snippet Box – Used to store code snippets that I find useful. I use Obsidian for this now.

UniFi Controller – Allows me to control my UniFi devices. I use Cisco devices now. Because: Free from work.

VM Custom Icons – Custom VM icons in Unraid. No longer use Unraid.

Looking For

Budgeting. I want something more along the lines of buckets. Hopefully something that would update itself with my banks once or twice a day. Preliminary results: BudgetZero, Facto

DMS or Document Management System. Something secure that I can use to archive receipts and documents and possibly use OCR to search through the documents if needed. Preliminary results: lodestone, PaperMerge, Paperless NG.

SSO agent. I don’t really fully grasp what this does quite yet, but if I can sign in once and access multiple applications… Sure, why not? Preliminary results: Authelia