Why you should self host
Why should you?
My first reason? Money. With the incline in subscription costs and the increasing number of streaming services it's getting to the point where it's simply not worth it. If I want to watch a specific show or movie it may only be available on a subscription service that I don't have. Do I want to pay another $10/month on top of what I might already pay for other services? Think about all of the services you currently pay monthly for. Now think about how many of those could be hosted in your very own home. How much money would you save in the long run?
My second reason for self-hosting is the freedom. I can pick and choose what kind of services I want and how I want to use them without some company telling me what features I need or don't need. There are tons of different applications I can use for various purposes, all I have to do is find the one I like and get it running.
Isn't it hard?
Not really. If you are computer literate at all you can easily follow guides and tutorials that are scattered around the internet to help you get everything up and running. When I started I knew absolutely nothing about self-hosting and only wanted something to control my smart home devices. A few years later I'm hosting my own media player, document and file storage and much more.
Don't I need some expensive hardware?
Not at all. I used to run a Raspberry Pi to host everything I needed. Now I run an Intel NUC, which is overkill for what I run, but it was a really good deal. You can even find cheaper mini PCs around the web for reasonable prices. When it comes to pricing on mini PCs, just remember the money you're going to be saving. If I pay $10/mo for a single streaming service that adds up to $120/year. That's the same price that I'd pay to start my own little server. Now think about the total that we added up earlier for all of our services.
What about power usage?
For small devices like the Pi and Mini PCs the power consumption is barely noticeable. Now, if you upgrade down the line to bigger and more powerful servers you will definitely take a hit on your electric bill.
Is it safe?
As long as you are not opening your server up to public, like hosting your own website, you should be fine. Of course I recommend having an extra hard drive to make routine backups of your server and data just in case. There are ways to add more security to your server if you decide to open it up to the public, such as Cloudflare, fail2ban, CrowdSec.
I've got a device. Now what?
Start small. Do some research on what other people are using for their Operating System on the device you have. Read and watch tutorials. There are guides out there for almost everything I couldn't figure out. You can also check out r/selfhosted, a subreddit specifically for self-hosting. Noted is also a good resource with reviews of self-hosted apps.
