self hosting
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self hosting is the practice of running the software for your personal website on hardware under your own physical control, typically on a server at home, or sometimes refers to only the aspect of running web applications on a (possibly virtual or shared) server under your control but not necessarily in your home.
The IndieWeb principles do not make any requirement or even recommendation that this is a good or bad practice. As long as you have your own domain and can export your data, you can move between hosting companies and locations without needing to tell people who visit your website that anything has changed.
IndieWeb Examples
In the broader sense, everyone with a personal website is already an example of self-hosting their web presence, but not necessarily on a server (hardware) in their home.
rosano
rosano self-hosts:
- Ghost for Strolling
- CapRover for his personal website and Easy Indie App.
Challenges
- You have to be your own sysadmin. This means that if the server goes down, you are responsible.
- You have to run your server 24/7 in your home.
- If you are environmentally conscious, it may be difficult to justify having another computer running all the time when you could use a shared hosting service that is already live.
- You have to open up network ports to run a public web server.
- This makes it difficult to retain your anonymity because your IP address may be tied to your physical location.
- Some ISPs may not provide the functionality necessary to run a web server from home, or have restrictions in their terms of service.
Articles
- 2021-09-02 Vice: Meet the Self-Hosters, Taking Back the Internet One Server at a Time
[…] A self-hoster controls it all, from the hardware used to the configuration of the software.
Elsewhere
- Self Hosted Show: podcast showcasing free and open source technologies you can host yourself.
- Awesome-Selfhosted: 'Free Software' network services and web applications which can be hosted on your own servers.
- /selfhosted community discussion on Reddit: place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
- Easy Indie App: showcasing apps that can be self-hosted with a few clicks via control panel like CapRover and others.