Cards / needs
Start from a need
What people want to self-host, in their words, with an honest answer on whether a machine of your own suits it. Some needs are better met elsewhere, and their pages say so.
Leaving a hosted service?
- 1Password
- Adobe Acrobat online
- Alexa routines
- Amazon Photos
- Arlo Secure
- Auth0
- AWS Cognito
- Beehiiv
- Better Uptime
- Bitbucket
- Bitwarden cloud
- Botpress Cloud
- Box
- Braintrust
- Calendly
- Chatbase
- ChatGPT
- CircleCI
- Clerk
- Confluence
- Dashlane
- Descript transcription
- Doodle
- Dropbox
- ElevenLabs
- Evernote
- Evernote scanning
- Fastmail
- Fathom
- Feedly
- Firebase Auth
- Flickr
- Ghost(Pro)
- GitBook
- GitHub
- GitHub Actions minutes
- GitHub Pages
- GitLab CI minutes
- GitLab.com
- Gmail
- Google Analytics
- Google Calendar
- Google Calendar booking pages
- Google Contacts
- Google Drive
- Google Home
- Google Keep
- Google Photos
- Google Workspace
- Guru
- Helicone
- IFTTT
- Inoreader
- Instapaper
- Intercom Fin
- LangChain hosted tools
- LangSmith
- LastPass
- Make
- Medium
- Microsoft 365
- Midjourney
- Minecraft Realms
- Nest Aware
- NewsBlur
- NextDNS
- Notion
- Omnivore
- OneDrive
- OneNote
- OpenAI GPTs and Assistants
- Otter.ai
- Pinboard
- Pinecone
- Pingdom
- Plausible cloud
- Plex Pass
- Qdrant Cloud
- Raindrop.io
- Relevance AI
- Ring Protect
- SharePoint
- Simple Analytics
- Slab
- SmartThings
- Squarespace
- Stack AI
- Statuspage
- Substack
- Tidio
- UptimeRobot
- Voiceflow
- Weaviate Cloud
- Weights & Biases Weave
- Wix
- WordPress.com
- Zapier
- Zapier MCP
- Zilliz Cloud
Good fit
- Bookmarks and Link Sharingsave articles to read later, keep bookmarks across browsers and devices1 card
- Analyticssee who visits my website, stop paying for analytics2 cards
- Blogging Platformsstart a blog or newsletter, a blog with paid membersno card yet
- Wikisa team wiki, document how we do thingsno card yet
- Knowledge Management Toolshelp new staff learn what we know, a searchable library of our past work and best practices1 card
- Note-taking & Editorsprivate notes I can reach anywhere, shared notes with family or a teamno card yet
- Document Managementscan and organise paper documents, go paperless1 card
- Feed Readersfollow news and blogs in one place, an RSS reader I control1 card
- Media Streaming - Multimedia Streamingstream my films and music to my TV and phone, my own Netflix for home videos1 card
- Automationconnect my apps together, automate workflows without Zapier1 card
- AI tools for assistants (MCP servers)let Claude or ChatGPT use my files or database, use my MCP server when I'm away from my desk1 card
- Vector databases and AI searcha vector database for my RAG app, semantic search over our documentsno card yet
- AI app builders and agentsbuild an AI agent without code, prototype a RAG app2 cards
- LLM observability and evaluationsee what my AI app is doing, trace prompts and responsesno card yet
- Software Development - Project Managementhost my own Git repositories, a private GitHub2 cards
- Software Development - Continuous Integration & Deploymentbuild and test my projects on my own machine, stop paying for CI minutes1 card
- Monitoring & Status Pagesknow when my website goes down, a status page for my customers2 cards
Fits, with conditions
- Photo Galleriesback up my phone photos, a private place for family photos1 card
- File Transfer & Synchronizationsync files between my computers, a private Dropbox1 card
- Password Managersshare passwords with my team or family, stop keeping passwords in a spreadsheet1 card
- Booking and Schedulingmembers book our courts or rooms, schedule games or matchesno card yet
- Content Management Systems (CMS)cheaper hosting for my business website, edit my website without a developer3 cards
- Federated Identity & Authenticationadd sign-in to my site or app, members sign-up and login1 card
- Internet of Things (IoT)home automation, control my smart home from anywhereno card yet
- Video Surveillancerecord my security cameras without a cloud subscription, see my cameras from anywhereno card yet
- Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)chat with AI privately, ask questions about my own documents2 cards
- AI chatbots for customers and communitiesa chatbot for my website, an AI that answers customer questions from our docs1 card
- Image, audio, and speech AIgenerate images on my own GPU, transcribe meetings privatelyno card yet
- Calendar & Contactssync calendars and contacts without Google, a shared family calendarno card yet
- Gamesa Minecraft server for my friends, host a game server for my group1 card
Usually better elsewhere
- Static Site Generatorsa simple website with no logins, a documentation site1 card
- Communication - Email - Complete Solutionsmy own email server, email on my own domain without Google or Microsoftno card yet
Not recommended
- DNSblock ads on every device, my own DNS serverno card yet