What to Know Before You Start Self-Hosting: Risks, Rewards, and First Steps

The cloud turns invisible labor into convenience, but self-hosting forces you to see exactly what it costs to own your digital life.

Christina Maas

Silicon Valley has spent years convincing us that our digital lives are too complicated for mortal hands. Passwords? Backups? Updates? Leave it to the grown-ups at Google, Dropbox, or Spotify. Just sign here, agree to a privacy policy you’ll never read, and we’ll handle the rest.

Then comes the counterculture: self-hosting. It’s the rebellious cousin at the tech family reunion, the one who decides they’d rather run their own email server than hand it over to a trillion-dollar ad company.

Become a Member and Keep Reading…

Reclaim your digital freedom. Get the latest on censorship, cancel culture, and surveillance, and learn how to fight back.

Already a supporter? Sign In.

(If you’re already logged in but still seeing this, refresh this page to show the post.)

Having trouble logging in? Get help here.

Read Next

US Formally Confirms Shut Down of Counter-Disinformation Frameworks After Censorship Accusations

Read the story →

More you should know:

Glossy purple circular power icon with a pink-violet power symbol centered on a dark purple gradient background.

The Kill Switch You Forgot to Plan For

Black silhouette of a person in a coat walking to the right while looking at a smartphone and carrying a shoulder bag, set against a large flat red wall above a tiled sidewalk.

A Death, A Lawsuit, and Infinite Surveillance

Large red hand-painted circle with an X over a blurred grid of colorful app icons, conveying apps being blocked or rejected.

Use The Website. Ditch The App.

Stylized circular 'G' formed from red, yellow, teal and green segments with a black center, centered on a cream grid background filled with textured multicolored circles and two gavel-like silhouettes.

Monopoly Confirmed, Monopoly Preserved

A halftone black-and-white hand holds a smartphone aloft beneath stylized concentric wireless-signal arcs on a bright orange background.

How To: Ditching Your Phone Number Might Be the Smartest Privacy Move You Make

Glossy purple circular power icon with a pink-violet power symbol centered on a dark purple gradient background.

The Kill Switch You Forgot to Plan For

Black silhouette of a person in a coat walking to the right while looking at a smartphone and carrying a shoulder bag, set against a large flat red wall above a tiled sidewalk.

A Death, A Lawsuit, and Infinite Surveillance

Large red hand-painted circle with an X over a blurred grid of colorful app icons, conveying apps being blocked or rejected.

Use The Website. Ditch The App.

Stylized circular 'G' formed from red, yellow, teal and green segments with a black center, centered on a cream grid background filled with textured multicolored circles and two gavel-like silhouettes.

Monopoly Confirmed, Monopoly Preserved

A halftone black-and-white hand holds a smartphone aloft beneath stylized concentric wireless-signal arcs on a bright orange background.

How To: Ditching Your Phone Number Might Be the Smartest Privacy Move You Make

Streaming service homepage showing a dark grid of movie thumbnails and category headings like "Audience and critic approved: 7.0+ on IMDb" and "New release movies," with visible posters for films including Superman, Guns Up, Jurassic World, Ballerina, How to Train Your Dragon, The Life of Chuck, Sinners, The Ruse, The Spinal Tap, The Meg, The Phoenician Scheme, and The Last Journey.

The “Buy” Button Is a Lie