Do you have any advice or suggestions about it?
- Hardware (what should be enough for a local PC, or VPS…)
- Software (OS [Debian, Yunohost, other…], “containerization” (Docker, virtual machines?), dashboard, management, backups, VPN tunneling…)
- “Utilities” to host (Lemmy, Peertube, Matrix, Mastodon, Actual Budget, Jellyfin, Forgejo, Invidious/Piped, local Pi-Hole, email, dedicated videogame servers like for Minecraft, SearXNG, personal file storage like Drive, AI [in the future, when I can afford a rig that can run a local model decently]…)
I’m aware it’s a lot of stuff to take on, so, do you have any advice on where to start? (how to find a cheap PC to experiment with, if not get a VPS, what to test on it, what “utilities” to try self-hosting first…)


Everything, self-host everything, even toilet paper. Wait, hold on, don’t self-host email, that’s a fucking pain.
Sooo… do I just do with known email providers (proton, tuta, the webmail my domain provider allows me to have)?
Seems like email is the biggest issue to self host lol
I personally don’t really like Proton and Tuta due to their lack of support for IMAP (and with Proton’s paid plan, you need their Proton Bridge app to do so)
There’s a bunch of providers out there. As for paid providers, posteo and mailbox (both based in Germany, so GDPR) seem quite good, but haven’t used either myself. You also have Fastmail, which is based in Australia (no GDPR)
For providers that have a free plan, I have used Disroot before, and they also offer other services along with it like cloud storage. Autistici is another option and is the one I currently use. There are plenty of others, but just know that, for most free email providers, you are the product and your data will likely be sold to third-parties.
Proton will so smtp if you’re on one of the paying plans. You can get your own domain setup to use with it. This is what I do. I just had to contact them to get it setup, they ask a few questions about usage, which I just said was self hosting stuff and sending occasional emails.
@talentedkiwi @TotallyWorthLife
Why not selfhost your mail ? Spin up https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver, add roundcube webmail, and relay your outbound through something like https://www.smtp2go.com/ to avoid delivery headaches.
Maybe some day, don’t break what isn’t broken (for now).