Table of Contents
In a previous post made last year, I spoke about how I self host, and the applications I have chosen. Since then, changes have been made, and I thought it would be interesting to do a quick update to see what has stayed, what has been replaced, and what has been removed, following briefly up on my most recent post where I have set up a VPS to dabble with, as well as touching on a new Now page I have recently added to this website.
Overview
| Raspberry Pi | Synology DiskStation | VPS |
|---|---|---|
| AdGuard Home | Navidrome | Umami |
| Baïkal | Plex | PrivateBin |
| Syncthing | Synology Photos | |
| Mealie | ||
| FreshRSS | ||
| Calibre-Web | ||
| Libreddit | ||
| Whoogle | ||
| Uptime Kuma | ||
| Gotify | ||
| Flatnotes | ||
| Paperless-ngx | ||
| Homebox | ||
| linkding | ||
| tasks.md | ||
| Flame | ||
| Tandoor |
Over the past year, I have replaced Dashy with Flame, Wallabag with Omnivore, and Airsonic with Navidrome, as well as replacing my Link Garden with linkding. I’ve also removed Home Assistant and Nextcloud entirely, and expanded the functionality of Syncthing.
I like Home Assistant, but as I am currently in between living arrangements, almost all my smart home tech has been packed away, and it seemed pointless to keep in installed when almost nothing worked. Furthermore, I’d prefer running the Operating System over the Container method, so hoping for a cheap way to do that on a dedicated device later down the road.
As for Nextcloud, I broke apart its functions as to why I used it, and got separate apps to serve those purposes instead. As such, its calendar services were replaced with Baïkal, my favourite recipes are now housed within Tandoor, and its image manager with Synology Photos (I’ll write a post about image management later). I was pushed to do this as while I was thinking around elsewhere (I’ll write about this too), I essentially broke Nextcloud and then came to realise I’ve probably outgrown it now.
As I touched on recently in my post about dashboards, I now map my Docker volumes outside for easy access to the data within, and use Syncthing to sync the data to a remote device, which then in turn is backed up with file versioning onto my Synology DiskStation.
New and Shiny
I have plans to make more in depth posts of the new stuff I am self hosting, but a quick fire summary is that:
| Application | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Uptime Kuma | My Plex installation likes going offline, and this was a good way to monitor when that happens. Furthermore, my Synology DiskStation has been switched off accidentally by others before, and this lets me know when it happens. |
| Gotify | No point in having Uptime Kuma if I can’t then be alerted to downtimes. Notify pushes notifications about Uptime Kuma, and I’m also using it as a replacement for Pushbullet in sending stuff between my mobile device and my desktop. |
| Flatnotes | Still not 100% satisfied with my notes set up as Syncthing complains of my notes within Obsidian being out of sync all the time. Not really sure about this though either, as I do miss seeing folder structures, but we’ll see. |
| Paperless-ngx | Inspired by getting a receipt for a product I needed to not lose, I finally setup a digital way to store all my paperwork! |
| Homebox | And if I’m storing data on the product’s paperwork, I should also store information on the product itself! I intend to catalogue all my possessions once my living arrangements have settled down, and use Homebox to do it. |
| Media Tracker | I’ve long enjoyed the Hobi app, but this self-hosted alternative with much more media to track looks interesting. I wish it had an Android app though for easy access. |
| Umami | Since switching all my websites to static site generators, I’ve been in the dark about how many visitors they actually get. I do love this GDPR compliant, no cookie consent banner, and privacy respecting anonymous analytics piece of software, though as it is on a VPS as it connects outside of my LAN, we’ll see if I keep it after using my free credits. |
| PrivateBin | I’m very tempted to write quite a strange and meandering post about a recent website I discovered which sparked a lot of inspiration within me, but for now I’ll just say I encountered the website using a paste bin, and I thought about it for myself. Not used it yet, but if I ever need to share anything text-based, I know what I can use! |
Of those, Uptime Kuma, Notify, Paperless-ngx and Homebox are likely to stay, with Flatnotes and Media Tracker being tested, and Umami and PrivateBin a bit up in the air due to (eventual) ongoing costs.
Now
Adjacently, (and again inspired by the website I just mentioned), I also have created a Now page, showcasing what I am currently interested in, enjoying, and working on, and wonder if I should also create a “Now Self-Hosting” page, listing the applications and services currently being self-hosted, much like this post is doing. Then again, I do like the idea of regular update posts, as well as those more in depth like with dashboards, bookmarks and music organisation. Regardless, this post could be considered as a Now update for what I self-host!
Tags: Applications Setup Self Hosting Website