I’m asking cause my previous post regarding my server that isn’t at home got moderated for violating rule 3. I don’t get it 🤔
Your post was removed because it wasn’t about any self-hosted applications, services, or infrastructure. Instead, you were complaining about the customer support of a VPS provider.
A case could be made that Rule 7 should have been cited, instead of Rule 3.
i donno i think you’re self hosting if you’re the admin
Your hosting but not self hosting.
No, Hosting has a technical definition. When you rent a server or in this case VPS, the company is hosting you. You can maintain or administer the services but you are never hosting yourself on someone else’s computer.
Alright, I guess I should have rather made a post like PSA: beware of Netcup, they shut you down on suspicion of doing stuff against their ToS whether it’s actually the case or not and without giving you a warning tp respond.
If OP was self-hosting they wouldn’t have had a problem with their hosting provider.
As someone runnings things out of my basement computers, i have a lot of problems with my hosting provider
I hear ya. My hosting provider is crap too.
Technically no, because it’s cloud-hosted infrastructure. Businesses usually call this IaaS, Infrastructure as a Service.
But it’s still a good way to build your own services that you can possibly trust more than public cloud services. IMO posts about setting up your own trusted services could be valuable content for the community even if you set it up on the cloud.
“The cloud” is somebody else’s computer. Somebody else leases you the space and compute, somebody else can turn the physical machine off or terminate your access to their service. Self-hosting is about removing as many somebody-elses as possible (you’re still on the hook for stuff like power and an ISP, though a lot of self-hosted stuff is also designed to function purely offline so it’s just power for that stuff).
though a lot of self-hosted stuff is also designed to function purely offline so it’s just power for that stuff
Taken to an extreme: Something about those websites and services running off-grid on renewable energy just makes me giddy.
To me personally self hosted means the only way the service / files can be taken from me, is to physically enter my house and take the HD
Anything shy of that I don’t fully consider self hosting.
Not because I’m gate keeping, it’s just that I don’t trust any corporation, and the minute they are involved, enschitification is inevitable
Yet they’re already in your home.
In my opinion, it’s (the service) self-hosted and not home-hosted. Hardware is just a platform.
I can agree with this. My internet is trash, and I refuse to go with the faster provider in the area on principle (they took municipal funds to bring faster internet in the mid 2000s and didn’t do a thing until over a decade later), so I can’t feasibly share anything outside of my household users. I’m seriously considering setting up some hosted services if I can’t get fiber when I’ve nailed down my setup. I’d rather host everything at home, but I’d much rather offer my relatives access to something that isn’t selling their info to anyone with a checkbook. If I’m maintaining it and I’m the one who can accidentally lose everyone’s stuff with a bad command, I’m self-hosting it.
Well, yes, but its physical location does make a difference. Having the bits that make up the backup of your life’s memories in the other room vs in some company’s datacenter who knows where is not the same thing. Same goes for any kind of data/information really. It’s nice to contain everything within your LAN.
(Not saying that running your own services on rented “cloud” hardware is inferior, I also do that)
Yes Physical Locations matter a lot. But in both ways. I habe Backups in at Home and in the Cloud. Both Locations can get destroyed but ITS unliklry that both get destroy. Another Faktor ist Internet Connection. If your Internet Connection ist Dual Stack lite, you cant Access your Home Network via ipv4 or hast a very low bandwith. And with ssh its irrelevant If the Server ist 2 Meters from me or 20km.
Right. Then if this would have been a locally hosted scenario, it’s like making a post to complain about the service of their electricity company or ISP. Could similarly be reasonably considered on- or offtopic. But I think this sub is more in the spirit of “there is no cloud, just someone elses computer”. I’m with mod on this one.
Thank you. I was thinking the same thing. Some things it makes sense to host in your home. Things like large media, home automation, etc. Some things it doesn’t. Like DNS, service that require large amounts of egress (most home internet is very asymmetric), anything with a more public face.
Generally it boils down to privacy and reliability. If it’s private, keep it home. If it needs more reliability, put it on a VPS.
My home hardware is just not reliable enough to host something critical. I have redundant systems but it might take a bit to get stuff back.
This idea of it not being self hosted because it’s on somebody else’s computer is just weird.
This idea of it not being self hosted because it’s on somebody else’s computer is just weird.
I am running the software. I set it up. I maintain it. I can change it to whatever I want. It is therefore self-hosted.
I agree, but Is it your hardware? Does an outside company own your hardware? Did you set up your own hardware that you control as your own (self) place of hosting? Do you maintain all of that hardware or does an outside company maintain that? Can a company arbitrarily shut down your host like what happened in OPs case?
Self-hosting is my choice to use my own hardware to (self) host. I am wanting to slowly move other stuff from hosting providers and self-host it on my own hardware.
I agree with all your statements except for the last sentence, because I use those same arguments to judge whether or not to host at home (self) or host externally.
I mean I get what you’re saying. And certain things I really do want in my house. But at this point I feel like we disagree on a definition which is just kind of silly. As someone else said that used the distinction of home-hosted and self-hosted. I like being in control of my stuff and I think we both agree on that.
Hey, I’m glad you said that! You’re right, we are just arguing semantics. We both agree that this hobby/job is something important
I put my uptime kuma on the VPS to monitor my home infrastructure from the outside. Let’s me know when things go down much more reliably.
This is a great way to say it. I feel the same. You put the same effort in regardless where it comes from.
I’m not a mod but, to me I see self hosting as maintaining your own setup. If it’s hosted in a cloud you still are maintaining the setup you are just offloading hardware responsibilities to someone else.
It’s not like you are signing up for google photos and then saying “yo guys I have my own photos self hosted”, you still are putting the pain and suffering into making it work, you just aren’t worrying about the hardware or network requirements (outside of security)
Being said, some people firmly see "“self-hosting” as you buy the parts, install and configure everything and it’s coming out of your house.
It’s a sticky situation, imo that type of ideology also throws any type of using a DNS/DDOS host out the window as well., but again YMMV depending on who you ask.
I definitly think if you are installing -> configuring -> maintaining and then -> using. you meet the definition of self hosting.
edit: Being said, looking at the log, your deleted post was the one about your current external host provider dropping you due to heavy load(they were eco friendly) right? I can kind of see why they felt this didn’t meet the environment of the community. But i see both sides of the argument.
Host can take your data and shut you down. Not SELF hosted. Same as business not calling it on PREM hosting when they do the same.
Stop giving the purists cred here.
If it works for you, use it. Christ.
it’s not really a question of working or not, is it? it’s a question of what words mean. if somebody says why isn’t an orange considered an apple, it’s perfectly normal to say it’s because they’re two different things. you wouldn’t say, “do what works for you, make an apple pie with oranges”, would you?
So why don’t we just rename the group to “Puritan Self-Hostinf Only”? Where is your line?
I know you’re feeling very self-righteous right now, but I hope at some point you can calm down enough to step back and realize this is such a silly thing to be getting so dramatic over.
I’d say it isn’t self hosted. Same as companies doing the same not calling it on prem. No should discussions be allowed here yes as long as it isn’t about the hosting provider.
LOVELY COMMENT.
What are you getting at?
It is selfhosting when YOU set it up and CONTROL it.
Doesn’t matter what machine it runs on. Not everyone has the option of running a machine at home.
If you can’t run a machine at home then you can’t self-host. You’re welcome to cloud-host though.
I think it considered self-hosting as in self-hosting services/software but not the hardware.
I’m currently using a VPS for multiple reasons. Hardware is kinda expensive where I’m currently living. And due to CGNAT I would need to setup a tailscale node or VPN etc somewhere else anyway. Also home internet isn’t reliable at all here and I may need to access my stuff when outside and regardless if my internet is acting up or there’s a blackout.
Although in the future I’m planning on migrating to a dual setup where my core server lives at home and the public front (along with some smaller services and apps) is on a VPS.
i think that would be called remote hosting or cloud hosting? self-hosting is where you host the services your self, without third party hardware or systems.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters CGNAT Carrier-Grade NAT DNS Domain Name Service/System NAT Network Address Translation VPN Virtual Private Network VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.
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No
I can see it both ways.
Is it self hosting? No.
Does it matter? Idk.
By definition, the cloud provider is hosting you. It’s not about being good or bad it just is. If the mod deemed your question to be irrelevant to the community then idk maybe it does matter in this context.
I’d argue that it’s self managed but not self hosted, it’s still running on somone elses computer and they ultimately control what you can and cant do with it. The distinction is murky though because a lot of the discussion here is about managing services rather than the hosting infrastructure (though of course there is some of that too).









