So, I am soon going to finally set up my first home server. Exams are not that far away, I am motivated as shit, my first own domain is bought and I want to level up my sysadmin skills.

Currently my plans look like this:

  • Host Jellyfin
  • Host my own NAS
  • Some form of hosted musicstreaming integration with my local music
  • Automate Backups and push them on my server
  • make all of the above things available where ever I want using my own self hosted domain.
  • run my own dns

In the long term I also want to be able to host my own webapps, since I will soon start to develop one for someone.

Now I want to know what suggestions do you have, for stuff thats really cool and that I can selfhost.

Edit: thanks for all the replies. Definitely going to look into this.

    • irmadlad@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      3 months ago

      Very good resource. Well written. I know nothing about him but does seem to have a great rapport with Lemmy SH.

      ETA: I’m reluctant, but keen to know so, is there some ancient lore that prevents me from asking ‘Is there a reason why noted.lol doesn’t live here too?’ I searched and I did find a handful of references, but nothing like selfh.st.

      • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        3 months ago

        You’re referencing the deep lore.

        Noted.lol was around awhile before selfh.st and was actually pretty beloved on the SelfHosted subreddit. Then the guys behind selfh.st showed up and some of the people who were contributing to noted.lol started giving them a hard time for “copying” them or some nonsense like that. Lots of drama. Now you never really hear about noted anymore.

        • irmadlad@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          3 months ago

          I kinda figured. Usually long standing comms/chans/subredits have ancient tomes that guide them. I actually find them both valuable resources.

  • shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lolEnglish
    22·
    3 months ago
    1. You want to go from the bottom of that list up. Do the boring before the fun or you’ll have to redo the fun to make it work right with the boring.
    2. PiHole. (After backups, before media apps)
    • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      6·
      3 months ago

      Second this.

      And I’ll add DietPi is great, easy to run wherever you want. I run it in its own VM on my ESXi box.

    • dieTasse@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      I would look into PiHole vs AdGuard home. Lots of people are locked in on PiHole, but they never tried the other and AdGuard is currently more user friendly and easier to use than PiHole. Not starting a flame war here, everyone will have different view, just look at PiHole vs Adguard home and make your own decision (or try both).

  • cecilkorik@lemmy.caEnglish
    19·
    3 months ago

    Before you even start, consider adopting an ‘infrastructure as code’ approach. It will make your life a lot easier in the future.

    Start with any actual code: If you have any existing source code, get it under git version control immediately, then prioritize getting it into a git hub like forgejo to make your life easier in the future. Make a git repository for your infrastructure documentation, and record (and comment/document too if you’re feeling ambitious) every command you run in a txt file or an md file or a script, and do that as religiously as you can while you’re setting up all this self-hosted stuff. You may want to dig it up later to try and remember exactly what you did or in case stuff goes wrong and you need to back off and try again. It might seem pointless now, but a year from now, you’ll thank me.

    Especially prioritize getting your git stuff moved into a self-hosted forgejo if any of your stuff is hosted on the microsoft technoplague called github.

  • dantheclamman@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    3 months ago

    Syncthing so you never have to mail files to yourself again.

    FreshRSS for RSS reading

    Readeck for saving articles for later (or wallabag, many alternatives)

    HomeAssistant

    Calibre-web for ebooks

    PiHole

    Joplin for self hosted notes

    Searxng is fun for self hosted metasearch but has sadly been having trouble with Google lately

    • French75@slrpnk.netEnglish
      12·
      3 months ago

      I remember reading a thread like this a while back and saw Home Assistant. I thought I don’t need that.

      It’s probably the most used self hosted app we have.

  • dimjim@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    15·
    3 months ago

    The comments give some great advice on what to self host, but my advice to you before you start spinning up a million services is to DOCUMENT EVERYTHING.

    Seriously, document as you go and you will thank yourself later. Document niche commands you found online that worked, docker compose files, IP addresses/hostnames, where you put that random config file.

    There are some great self hosted wiki and documentation products out there, start with that, then build the fun stuff!

  • Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyzBEnglish
    10·
    3 months ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, automates assignment of IPs when connecting to a network
    DNS Domain Name Service/System
    ESXi VMWare virtual machine hypervisor
    Git Popular version control system, primarily for code
    IP Internet Protocol
    LTS Long Term Support software version
    NAS Network-Attached Storage
    PiHole Network-wide ad-blocker (DNS sinkhole)
    Plex Brand of media server package
    RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage
    SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access
    SSO Single Sign-On
    VPN Virtual Private Network
    VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)

    14 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.

    [Thread #54 for this comm, first seen 2nd Feb 2026, 02:10] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

  • Synapse@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    3 months ago
    • pihole: DNS ad-blocker abd also a DNS (and optionally DHCP) server for your home
    • Wireguard: VPN very simple to setup, for remote access to your services from outside your home. What I do: wireguard is running (as a server) on a VPS, with all the security measures in place (ssh password login turn off, firewall bocks everything but wireguard and ssh connection changed to another port, failban) then my NAS at home connects to this VPS, as well as my phone, laptop, etc.
    • Caddy: reverse proxy to address your service using your domain, it’s easy to setup, actually it’s the only reverse proxy I managed to setup successfully 😅. You can use the Nameservers from your domain provider to point to your NAS via the wireguard IP address for connection from the outside, and Pihole DNS to point to local IP address when at home.
      • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        I’m wondering if Android has something nicer looking. Plex has PlexAmp which looks great, Emby’s built in music player in their main app looks terrific, FinAmp is like aestheticslly like the stock standard JellyFin app which is awful.

        Discrete in iOS at least is just an attempt at looking like a carbon copy of Apple Music. There must be some good looking g Jellyfin music player on Android.

        Maybe https://www.symfonium.app/

      • 7U5K3N@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        3·
        3 months ago

        Plexamp - Nah they made it free for everyone a while back… the sonic analysis aspect is gare kept behind the pass. Iirc But I’m a lifetime pass holder for like a bazillion years … I think my annual average cost is like $4 at this point lol

        Wg-easy - truth be told I just started it up this week. I formatted my phone and wanted to try something else for wire guard. But you are correct wire guard is pretty darn easy.

  • starshipwinepineapple@programming.devEnglish
    4·
    3 months ago

    Host Jellyfin

    Some form of hosted musicstreaming integration with my local music

    For the music, jellyfin can do this and it uses subsonic api which means you can connect to the music server with some mobile and desktop apps. Alternatively i like navidrome for more specialized music service that still uses subsonic api. Some people prefer not having a second service if jellyfin is good enough for their needs.

    Automate Backups and push them on my server

    For backups look into borg if your NAS doesn’t have anything native.

    make all of the above things available where ever I want using my own self hosted domain.

    Look into doing let’s encrypt DNS-01challenges via something like acme.sh if your domain registrar has an api. this will let you get your own certs for local use without exposing the subdomains on the domains dns. If you’re going to make them public then that is less important but it’s still a good way to automate renewals and deploying regardless.

    run my own dns

    Pihole unbound can offer a recursive dns server. Very easy set up.

    In the long term I also want to be able to host my own webapps, since I will soon start to develop one for someone.

    Now I want to know what suggestions do you have, for stuff thats really cool and that I can selfhost.

    Outside of the obvious segmenting public zones and firewall, you could self host an SSO service. This would allow you to easily put forward auth on a dev build if you were needing to keep it selectively private until/if you made it public.

    In general though, i just wait until i come across a problem or need and then i see if a service exists to solve that. Occasionally looking through the awesome selfhosted list or similar helps find blind spots i didn’t know i had.

  • slazer2au@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    3 months ago

    Bentopdf if you deal with PDFs

    Omni-tools if you need to convert between 2 formats or units

    It-tools for the fun of it.