I used to self-host because I liked tinkering. I worked tech support for a municipal fiber network, I ran Arch, I enjoyed the control. The privacy stuff was a nice bonus but honestly it was mostly about having my own playground. That changed this week when I watched ICE murder a woman sitting in her car. Before you roll your eyes about this getting political - stay with me, because this is directly about the infrastructure we’re all running in our homelabs. Here’s what happened: A woman was reduced to a data point in a database - threat assessment score, deportation priority level, case number - and then she was killed. Not by some rogue actor, but by a system functioning exactly as designed. And that system? Built on infrastructure provided by the same tech companies most of us used to rely on before we started self-hosting. Every service you don’t self-host is a data point feeding the machine. Google knows your location history, your contacts, your communications. Microsoft has your documents and your calendar. Apple has your photos and your biometrics. And when the government comes knocking - and they are knocking, right now, today - these companies will hand it over. They have to. It’s baked into the infrastructure. Individual privacy is a losing game. You can’t opt-out of surveillance when participation in society requires using their platforms. But here’s what you can do: build parallel infrastructure that doesn’t feed their systems at all. When you run Nextcloud, you’re not just protecting your files from Google - you’re creating a node in a network they can’t access. When you run Vaultwarden, your passwords aren’t sitting in a database that can be subpoenaed. When you run Jellyfin, your viewing habits aren’t being sold to data brokers who sell to ICE. I watched my local municipal fiber network get acquired by TELUS. I watched a piece of community infrastructure get absorbed into the corporate extraction machine. That’s when I realized: we can’t rely on existing institutions to protect us. We have to build our own. This isn’t about being a prepper or going off-grid. This is about building infrastructure that operates on fundamentally different principles:
Communication that can’t be shut down: Matrix, Mastodon, email servers you control
File storage that can’t be subpoenaed: Nextcloud, Syncthing
Passwords that aren’t in corporate databases: Vaultwarden, KeePass
Media that doesn’t feed recommendation algorithms: Jellyfin, Navidrome
Code repositories not owned by Microsoft: Forgejo, Gitea
Every service you self-host is one less data point they have. But more importantly: every service you self-host is infrastructure that can be shared, that can support others, that makes the parallel network stronger. Where to start if you’re new:
Passwords first - Vaultwarden. This is your foundation. Files second - Nextcloud. Get your documents out of Google/Microsoft. Communication third - Matrix server, or join an existing instance you trust. Media fourth - Jellyfin for your music/movies, Navidrome for music.
If you’re already self-hosting:
Document your setup. Write guides. Make it easier for the next person. Run services for friends and family, not just yourself. Contribute to projects that build this infrastructure. Support municipal and community network alternatives.
The goal isn’t purity. You’re probably still going to use some corporate services. That’s fine. The goal is building enough parallel infrastructure that people have actual choices, and that there’s a network that can’t be dismantled by a single executive order. I’m working on consulting services to help small businesses and community organizations migrate to self-hosted alternatives. Not because I think it’ll be profitable, but because I’ve realized this is the actual material work of resistance in 2025. Infrastructure is how you fight infrastructure. We’re not just hobbyists anymore. Whether we wanted to be or not, we’re building the resistance network. Every Raspberry Pi running services, every old laptop turned into a home server, every person who learns to self-host and teaches someone else - that’s a node in a system they can’t control. They want us to be data points. Let’s refuse.
What are you running? What do you wish more people would self-host? What’s stopping people you know from taking this step?
EDIT: Appreciate the massive response here. To the folks in the comments debating whether I’m an AI: I’m flattered by the grammar check, but I’m just a guy in his moms basement with too much coffee and a background in municipal networking. If you think “rule of three” sentences are exclusive to LLMs, wait until you hear a tech support vet explain why your DNS is broken for the fourth time today.
More importantly, a few people asked about a “0 to 100” guide - or even just “0 to 50” for those who don’t want to become full time sysadmins. After reading the suggestions, I want to update my “Where to start” list. If you want the absolute fastest, most user-friendly path to getting your data off the cloud this weekend, do this:
The Core: Install CasaOS, or the newly released (to me) ZimaOS. It gives you a smartphone style dashboard for your server. It’s the single best tool I’ve found for bridging the technical gap. It’s appstore ecosystem is lovely to use and you can import docker compose files really easily.
The Photos: Use Immich. Syncthing is great for raw sync, but Immich is the first thing I’ve seen that actually feels like a near 1:1 replacement for Google Photos (AI tagging, map view, etc.) without the privacy nightmare.
The Connection: Use Tailscale. It’s a zero-config VPN that lets you access your stuff on the go without poking holes in your firewall.
I’m working on a Privacy Stack type repo that curates these one click style tools specifically to help people move fast. Infrastructure is only useful if people can actually use it. Stay safe out there.
It’s not often I hear meet others on the same page, but I too see self-hosting as a form of resistance against corporate control and surveillance capitalism. Rather than trying to bring self-hosting to individuals, I’ve steered my efforts towards affecting technological change in groups and organizations instead. While this narrows the pool of those who can set up sovereign infrastructure, it gets more people using the open-source alternatives as part of their collaborative work.
To support that, I’m building out such an IT reference architecture for nonprofits, activist groups, and communities. The networking model is such that services can be hosted on cheap hardware and accessed through Wireguard tunnels managed by Netbird (and experimenting with Pangolin now). This keeps the servers under positive control of the data owners and uses only one or two VPS instances to handle proxying and accesses. Now, every organization’s requirements are different, but this baseline is meant to be a flexible proof-of-concept that can be adapted to their unique threat model. For example, an org can opt for just using a cloud-hosted service for certain components if the self-hosting burden is too great and their threat model determines it to acceptable.
The docs are here at https://sts.libretechnica.org/ and the source for the docs and all the Ansible playbooks are at https://gitlab.com/libretechnica/SovereignTechStack/. I invite anyone to contribute, analyze, pick-apart, improve this model. In fact, I’m specifically seeking thoughts on whether this reference model can adequately address the risks and threats that self-hosters face.
This is the first time I’m sharing this publicly; I was inspired by this post to finally spread awareness of the project and get more like-minded people involved.
P.S. @h333d Sorry about the people who think your post is gen-AI. I used to proofread stuff all day long before the advent of LLMs, so I quickly recognize artificial text and yours reads nothing like it. I appreciate the time you took to write your post and it was a refreshing read.
Dude like even 6 months ago Id read your post and would think alright man c’mon…
But now you are 100% right it’s getting tough and people will only realize when it’s too late. Imagine a far right government with palantir in Europe. That’s pretty much where we are heading and I try my best to get any of my data away from this sphere of influence
Thank you!
This is almost exactly my motivation when I recently started my homelab journey. A bit of privacy, but what pushed me over the edge is that I was supporting these anti-social corporations with my money or data, when they went fully mask-off.
Thank you for this post!
For me, getting into self hosting was nice because of the privacy and tinkering yes, but a huge part of it was just having my stuff work reliably and without enshittification.
I just set up my Home Assistant server and new Zigbee network in the past few weeks and it’s pretty awesome. Was already using Jellyfin despite having a lifetime Plex pass. Feels good man.
On the one hand I do support the existence of open-source self-hostable alternatives to surveillance-capitalist offerings. But at the same time it has been driving me crazy how many things are being shifted toward this server-based architecture. For one example, I want an open-source app that will allow me to import recipes from any text or website automatically. But I want those recipes to save in files, be offline, and I do not want to maintain a whole damn server just to manage my fucking recipes.
Not everything needs to be web connected by default, and most people have no interest in running any kind of server.
If your recipes are formatted like markdown, then there are offline notes apps like Obsidian. The new issue becomes keeping your files backed up in case of whatever, and that’s when the self hosted server comes into play. This is a really good usecase for synching which can keep your small recipes files duplicated on your phone and your computer without ever leaving your network.
Synthing does not use a server based architecture.
If you have a Wi-Fi router in your home you are technically already running a server. With OpenWRT even quite practically, although sadly most routers are slighly too underpowered to do much with them.
Those same routers that still have problems with security updates, and are frequently the targets of cyber attacks? So how is it in any way a good idea to run entire server stacks, and databases (which throw a wrench in data portability compared to standard file formats), creating so much bloat and unnecessary attack surface, and then making all of these apps network-facing - opening them up to attacks?
How about instead I just use a standard text editor to save my recipe as a markdown file, and if I need to move it I can either get a usb cord or use Syncthing? Sorry but this whole self host movement is pretty insane.
I agree with most of what you’re saying, I disagree with the last part of what you’re saying.
The self-host movement is about taking control away from companies, and running web services locally instead of having to rely on companies for them and pay for them. Most things you can run locally without needing a server, but there are absolutely good use cases for server-based services. Some great examples of this are cloud storage, code repositories, and chat servers. You could run each of those things locally, but they are each improved by running them on a dedicated server designed for 24/7 uptime and centralized access.
My problem isn’t with open-source online services existing. Of course some things are inherently net-based. My problem is with the way everything is being done as a server even when it’s completely unnecessary. Syncthing alone - which is not server-based btw - is more than enough to take care of cloud needs for everything from calendars, to photos, recipes, text files, password databases, and more.
Hell, it’d actually be pretty interesting if someone did come up with a way to make a e2e chat client that works through Syncthing.
My point is I just want to download an app, have that app convert a recipe webpage into its own standard format, and then save that file on my own device. I do not want to deal with the hassle of getting Docker installed and working, nor to have it gobble up tons of computer resources just to do that one simple thing.
Don’t use tailscale, a few years back they moved their server storage from Canada to the USA. Use headscle or wireguard if you are tech savvy
While true, only partially.
- United States Ashburn, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle
- Australia Sydney
- Brazil São Paulo
- Canada Toronto
- Finland Helsinki
- France Paris
- Germany Frankfurt, Nuremberg
- India Bangalore
- Japan Tokyo
- South Africa Johannesburg
- United Kingdom London
- Others Various locations in other regions, including Asia and Europe
Are these relays? I think their announcement was data server, which means USA govt would have all your tailscale keys if they decide to keep going on the fascism.
data server
Here is the way I understand Tailscale to work. Feel free to correct any misinformation.
Tailscale doesn’t operate ‘data‑center’ servers that store or forward your traffic.
-
Control plane: Holds device metadata, public keys, ACL policies, and the DERP map. It is a small, highly available service that all clients contact only when they start up or need a policy update. Tailscale runs this service on a handful of cloud providers (primarily AWS and GCP) in the United States. TThe service carries no user data. Only control information.
-
Data plane: Carries the actual packets between your devices. After the control plane tells two devices how to reach each other, they open a direct WireGuard tunnel that is end to end encrypted. There are no dedicated ‘data servers’. Traffic travels directly between the peers. If a direct path can’t be established because of strict NATs or firewalls, the connection falls back to a DERP relay. The DERP relays are the only servers that ever carry user payload.
However, to keep with your fear of the US having all your Tailscale keys, what makes you think that Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, or the UK wouldn’t/couldn’t do the same? I’m no shill for Tailscale. AFAIC, you can either use the service or not. Your choice, no skin off my back. I’m just curious how far the paranoia rabbit hole goes.
Based on current USA actions, I have more faith in my own country and allies. The account info and control plane is what I mean, it could get compromised being under US control where they don’t seem to Ned warrants anymore
Understandable. I don’t know what your threat model is. I don’t trust any of them except to do what is in their best interest, globally. However, there is nothing stopping Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, UK, or even your country, from doing the very same thing. Governments make laws for citizens, not themselves. Everything can be compromised at any time a government decides to. That is the reality of it all. If I am going to have to hide my online activities from a government in 2026, then game over, and there’s not a damn thing I could/can do about it. I’ll just unplug, and live out the rest of my life in the seclusion of my farm/compound.
Well it is a post about online privacy and keeping the prying eyes out.
I wish you the best with you efforts.
-
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters AP WiFi Access Point DNS Domain Name Service/System IP Internet Protocol LXC Linux Containers NAS Network-Attached Storage NAT Network Address Translation NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers PiHole Network-wide ad-blocker (DNS sinkhole) Plex Brand of media server package PoE Power over Ethernet SMB Server Message Block protocol for file and printer sharing; Windows-native SSD Solid State Drive mass storage Unifi Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand VPN Virtual Private Network VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting) Zigbee Wireless mesh network for low-power devices
16 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 11 acronyms.
[Thread #989 for this comm, first seen 10th Jan 2026, 03:15] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Been wondering for a while if it was worth sticking around on this plane of existence. Feeling like nothing was going to get any easier or better, wondering if my life would just be watching horror rafter horror until the tech I loved stop working and the world went dark as they came for me and mine.
Then I saw Benn Jordan’s Anarchist Gift Guide video and realized the same thing as you: I may not have a lot of skills to offer the world, but I’m neurodivergent, a sysadmin for higher ed, and (used to, at least) like to tinker. I realized my disdain for the humanitarian and moral failings of the system we currently reside in could be married to my hobbies and feel like I was doing something more than just protesting, donating, and waiting to die.
My goals are to fix up my home environment, get my 3D printers working, set up an exercise area, set up a Meshtastic relay and other support networks for my local area, update a media server for friends and family to enjoy, including a request system, and do anything else along the way the provide a system of communication and sanity that removes as much reliance on the government and corporations as I can.
It finally got me to fix some bugs in existing services I already manage and this weekend my wife and I are starting the work on the exercise room, for the benefit of our bodies. Not saying Benn’s video saved my life, but it gave me a purpose, again, in a world that feels increasingly aimed at reducing me to a sad data point on some graph. I hate what this world has become and avoid social media at all costs, but now I can do something locally that will feel like I’m doing something to help.
I have a particular set of skills that make me a nightmare for groups like ICE. I just need coffee, my ADHD meth, and some weed gummies to see it through. Thanks for posting this! I will save it and refer to it as I go.
Prescription meth does wonders for focus. Lol
I’m riding the same struggle bus and there are a lot of us. More like a struggle cruisliner, or struggle ark. Keep up the fight. I know it’s exhausting, but don’t let the bastards drag you down.
Hell yeah dude(ette)! We got this!!
TLDR: Protesting or resisting privately inside your house does not lead to social change and is not the most rational way of protecting yourself if you feel threatened by your government.
Self-hosting is not “resistance”: at most, it’s prepping for nerds, with computers instead of guns.
Self-hosting is not even a rational/efficient way of making a statement. If that’s what you want, it’s far more efficient to follow the established tradition of declaring you are moving to Canada and not following up with actual actions.
Don’t get me wrong: I can relate to the nerdy way of coping with the ugliness around us (I say “us”, but thankfully I don’t live in the US), but - the way I see it - it’s that your society that needs change, and self hosting won’t help with that.
Frankly, the shit you US people are putting up with is unreal.
It has always been (
US police forces kill far more people than the overall homicide rate in Europe - read that again and pause a second to think about itthis isn’t true - see comments below), and it’s just getting worse.If you feel threatened you can essentially respond by fighting, fleeing, or cowering.
If you wanna FIGHT (this is what “resistance” is about), try to use whatever power you have and apply your energies to bring actual change. If you don’t feel comfortable acting outdoors, this could include lending your nerd skills to protesters or (nonviolent) resistance groups. Heck, even being a keyboard warrior is more useful to changing society than being a hobbyist sysadmin.
If you wanna FLEE, just leave the country. Honestly, there are better places to live than the US, and (if you have or plan to have any) better places to raise your children.
If you wanna COWER, then be a prepper or a self-hoster or whatever, but be aware that, while misrepresenting your reaction as “resistance” may make you feel more heroic than you are, spreading the misrepresentation can also lead others to cower instead of fighting. Is that what you want?
I think we should have a system to find and join self-hosted instances from other people. Most of us probably dont mind a few more users since our servers are idling most of the time. And this would not require grandma From Facebook to docker compose….
Deleted by author
Just FYI unless you self-host headscale, tailscale is centralised and not private. They claim it is end to end encrypted but their proprietary centralised control server distributes the keys, so they could very easily MITM you.
Tailscale is good tech and good crypto, but Applied cryptography cannot solve a security problem. It can only convert a security problem into a key-management problem, and tailscale does not do decentralised key management.
Are you serious? I had no idea Tailscale was a “trust me bro” kind of operation. I’ve always heard “serious” people boosting it.
Great points, and there’s some amazing discussions going on here!
One thing I’d like to add is EVERYONE needs to start setting up some meshtastic nodes. It’s really easy to setup (just hook up a USB cable from your computer to a esp32 board, visit a website to get the configuration, and that’s pretty much it), it’s cheap (as little as $30) and it is secure. Build 2 nodes (one to leave at home, and another for your backpack). This way you’ll be able to communicate should the Internet become unavailable or unsafe. You can also use this at a protest so that you still have a means of communication without needing to bring your phone that the Feds will be able to track.
Can you elaborate a bit? I checked their website but I’m a noob. I’m in Europe, I don’t know if this network is in use here. Also I’m not sure I can see the use case for me now but I don’t mind paying 30€ if it can be useful to others, and maybe to me later. To add a bit of context : I think we are quickly following the american trend at least in my country
It works in Europe too. It uses LoRa (A Long Range radio protocol) to be able to send messages out to other nodes, which can bounce them out to further nodes. A node can be configured to relay through the Internet to reach people in other areas.
I ordered the radio shown below from a kit on Amazon (it’s a Heltec v4 and came with a battery that isn’t pictured) and it took about 5 minutes to setup. Attaching the antenna to the board was the hardest part.
What’s stopping people you know from taking this step?
I’m a noob when it comes to IT. (Even though in my family I’m the one people ask when they have computer issues lol.) I would really like to get into self-hosting and all that, and I think if I found some good guides I would probably be able to make things work, but it still sounds very daunting to me. Like, I imagine days if not weeks of sifting through online resources to fix a thousand little errors and issues that would come up. (Maybe I’m mistaken, maybe it’s all really easy even for noobs. Just trying to explain my feelings on the matter.)
Edit: Woke up to 10 replies lol. Thanks for everybody’s input and helpful links. I think this might become a future project for me, but not before winter 26/27 (for life reasons).
Hi! I am also slowly getting the hang of it (just set up my first NAS with truenas last weekend) but there are dozens of youtube channels focused on it. I like Serversathome and the accompanying Wiki helped me a lot. This mainly focuses on an arr stack but there is also wiki pages for immich and nextcloud. Right now I’m using cloudflare tunnels to access services (i know feeding the machine etc.). If anyone knows an alternative to cloudflare tunnels (without putting everything into the same tailscale network) I would be happy to hear about it!
@Deckname @Bonifratz
Pangolin is an alternative to cloudflare tunnels, TrueNAS supports the Newt client for Pangolin as a community app. You can either host yourself with a VPS, or Pangolin offers a management dash they host. Under the hood is Wireguard.Nice! Thank you for the info! I will look into it :)
I used this guide to setup the Immich side. I’m sure I diverged from it, but I would not have figured out proxy headers without it.
