Get the latest tech news
Self-Host and Tech Independence: The Joy of Building Your Own
Why I self-host my websites, newsletter, and homelab—and the satisfaction that comes from building and using your own digital tools.
Of course, you can start with a ready-made blog and a URL not yours, but if you want to do it long term, I saw many people changing from WordPress to Medium to Substack to Ghost, so what’s next? Paperless: Digital document management system that scans, indexes, and organizes your physical documents with OCR and tagging capabilities PhotoPrism: Self-hosted Google Photos alternative with AI-powered face recognition, automatic tagging, and privacy-focused photo management Pi-hole: Network-wide ad blocker that acts as a DNS sinkhole to block advertisements and tracking domains across all devices on your network Nginx Proxy Manager: Web-based reverse proxy management tool with SSL certificate automation and easy domain routing for self-hosted services Audiobookshelf: Self-hosted audiobook and podcast server with mobile apps, progress tracking, and library management features Calibre: Comprehensive e-book management suite for organizing, converting, and serving your digital library with web-based reading interface Syncthing: Decentralized file synchronization tool that keeps folders in sync across multiple devices without cloud dependencies Gitea: Lightweight, self-hosted Git service with web interface, issue tracking, and collaboration tools for code repositories That’s why Derek calls it tech independence, because you are not depending on the big players such as Google, Apple, and others to implement your features or tweak them to your needs.
Or read this on Hacker News
