Overview
Why was this website created?
This website is for people who are sick of relying on the cloud and on large monopolistic companies for all the services they use; whether this is e-mail, Git, hosting a web app, or anything else that requires running a computer attached to a network. Big cloud and SaaS platforms like AWS or Gmail concentrate power in the hands of a few massive companies, leading to prohibitive and complex pricing for small users. It also reduces the democracy and personal agency once held by Internet users, as these companies can choose to suppress any content they do not like.
What can I find here?
In 2022 I started self hosting some web apps I had made on an old laptop, as I found cloud hosting solutions too expensive. This worked so well that I eventually started setting up other things to run on the laptop, such as a static file server and my own self hosted e-mail solution. Thankfully I documented my work in detail, so that I could re-create it at a later stage if need be. This website aims to make my documentation public for anyone who is also interested in self hosting.
I’ve decided to organize content on this page into two categories:
- Reference material: This is content which is useful or necessary for understanding some of the services which can be self hosted. For example the SMTP reference provides information about the SMTP protocol which is useful for understanding how e-mail servers are configured.
- Tutorials: These are pages containing hands on tutorials for self hosting and configuring different services.
Content is also organized by the type of service (e.g. e-mail, web app hosting, etc..) on the Docs page.
Why do I want it?
What is it good for?: This website is good if you want a quick way to configure and self host certain services on your own consumer grade hardware. Despite aiming to be fast to use, it also provides a surface level understanding of the services being configured.
What is it not good for?: This website is not the most flexible when it comes to the selection of tools used in tutorials and their configuration. Tutorials usually detail a single setup that aims to cover the most common (but not all) use cases.
Where should I go next?
Give your users next steps from the Overview. For example:
- Getting Started: Get started with $project
- Examples: Check out some example code!