What things do you self host (or know about) that are fun/interesting/useful to you? I’m thinking of setting up a home server and am looking for things that would be useful or fun for me to run on it. I want to host things that are useful/fun, but not a project itself (I’ve got enough projects), if that makes sense.
Most of the lists I see online are mostly lists of technical projects like docker, kubernetes, grafana, nginx, etc. I see these as infrastructure rather than the interesting project itself. ETA: the infra is important, but not “interesting” in this context as I deal with infra at my day job.
Examples of the type of service I’m looking at: a media server, photos app (to replace Google Photos), game servers, recipe management, home automation… What other things do you know about that are fun/interesting/useful?
Edit: thank you everyone for your awesome responses!
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An open tor exit node, a proxy to a pedopornographic website, a guide to mass shootings, a wiki on how to get untraced firearms, or a Minecraft server
spoiler
/s obviously
But on a more serious note, hosting things like StirlingPDF, Nextcloud, Lufi (for encrypted file uploads), or even a mailcow instance is nice
CalDAV calendar/tasks server s.a. Radicale (with Cfait as a tasks manager/client)
I don’t see any mention of games so far.
A minecraft server is always a good time with friends, and there are hundreds of other game servers you can self host.
I’m interested in which game servers you can host yourself…
Can you give me a few examples or a link to a list?
https://linuxgsm.com/ could interest you!
Here is a list of games they support. Could give you some ideas: https://linuxgsm.com/servers/
Personally:
Nextcloud (file backup and so much more, I use it to backup files from my computer. Might explore some of the other features soon)
Immich (image backup, I use it to back up photos from my camera + phone)
Radicale (CalDAV + CardDAV for calendar and contacts sync)
Forgejo (GitHub alternative, and the backend of Codeberg! I use this as a local backup to my git repos in addition with cloud backup with Codeberg. They work nice together, when you set two remotes per git repo)
Vikunja (to-do list syncing, don’t use this anymore as I mostly use Joplin for this now)
Joplin (Markdown editor, supports cloud sync with nextcloud, I use this for both notes and to-dos!)
I used to run ConvertX (to convert any file type, whether it’s document, image, video, etc. Think a self-hosted CloudConvert), but I somehow messed up the user permissions and couldn’t log in (100% user error on my part), so I didn’t bother.
Another thing, “Navidrome” is a self-hosted spotify alternative (I don’t use it, I just have the MP3s and OGGs stored locally for offline playback!)
Jellyfin is a self-hosted netflix alternative. Where you get the media is up to you…
What does Radicale do that Nextcloud doesn’t with CalDAV and CardDAV?
I set up Radicale first, and never bothered to switch. Also, something about putting all your eggs in one basket.
I run all of this on my old laptop with Debian installed, and it works quite well!
Home Assistant seems like a really good option if you want smart home stuff, but I personally have a “dumb” home and not planning on getting wifi light bulbs any time soon.
Home Assistant.
If you want smart devices but not the data collection that goes with it, then Home Assistant is your friend. Just be forewarned that it is a seriously deep rabbit hole.
Hello from the rabbit hole. I haven’t seen the light of day in years.
I barely know what food, water or sleep is anymore. But hey! I can turn my lights off and have them come on when sunset occurs. Or they track when I leave my apartment complex property with my cellphone so I don’t waste power and there’s no 3rd party corpo breathing down my shoulder.
I used them for Christmas lights with that sundown condition (+just a time trigger for off at night).
Also came in handy for a light switch that was unfortunately on the wrong side from a table, now its just uses a motion sensor when someone walks to the kitchen and tells a third reality smart switch (screws on top of regular switch, so it works with any light type (e.g. fluorescent)) and is renter friendly.
Bonus points for no lag at all compared to crappy cloud dependent garbage and no need for apps for each device manufacturer. Just look if it is home assistant compatible and no cloud before buying devices since it us a lot harder or impossible in some cases to de-cloud them later.
Edit: plus same motion sensor concept to link several lights on the living room (those are just dimmable smart lights on table and floor lamps). Makes the place look cozy and feel well illuminated vs the usual single light with a wall switch. Aquara Wireless clicker to toggle between dim percentages. Its awesome (third reality or other home assistant friendly brand would work, I just already had this one).
Here are some of the things I self host that I haven’t seen mentioned:
- Continuwuity is a chat server that talks Matrix, so you can join the chat rooms of a lot of open source projects or make end to end encrypted private chats
- Forgejo is a self-hosted code forge (github alternative) - very useful
- FreshRSS is a good one if you like to follow blogs, newsletters or pretty much anything ‘news’
- Grafana plus VictoriaMetrics and/or Quickwit is very useful for keeping track of the health of all your services
- Homepage is a… homepage for all your services
- Stalwart gives you a mail server. Set it up for any other projects that need to send mail, or as a backup for your emails, contacts or calendars - it’s the easiest way to set that up self hosted. Making it suitable as your main email may need more effort (delivery).
- Related to Continuwuity / matrix, you can set up the Mautrix collection of bridges, which let you bridge Discord, WhatsApp, IRC, telegram, and more into your matrix account or chats seamlessly.
- LMS (lightweight Media Server, not to be confused with Logitech Media Server) is an alternative to Navidrome that I find works better with my library tagging and ListenBrainz
- Speakr - audio transcription with diarisation. Very useful if you like to record meetings.
Speakr looks amazing! Thanks
Don’t know about stalwart but I can personally recommend mailcow
I used Mailcow for a while before switching to Stalwart out of curiosity. Stalwart was a bit easier to deploy and feels more polished than Mailcow, but they both get the job done.
Parties, dinners, other events.
Orgies.
key party
RSSHub. Being able to get all my updates in one place changed how I view the internet for the better.
Game servers are always fun! I set up a custom Minecraft modpack and have it set up on my domain. I also run an Arma 3 server, but it’s a hackjob of a self-host solution and I’m ashamed of how it works.
To address your examples directly:
Media server: Jellyfin, along with an *arr stack (Radarr, Sonarr, and qbittorrent and gluetun) to automate everything for you.
Photos app: Immich is your direct Google Photos replacement. Automated uploads, object detection, facial recognition, etc, all ran locally on your machine. Just remember: you still need a proper backup!
Recipe management: Mealie is the best I’ve used. It can import a recipe from almost any website. Very easy to cook with and follow along each step. It also lets you categorize meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner), rate your meals, and randomly pick meals for you.
Other things I have going:
Frigate NVR - A couple PoE and wifi cameras set up around the home record everything. Frigate records and timestamps things based on the settings - A person walks up, something loud happens, etc. My only gripe is that there isn’t a good Android app to go with it. I’d like to receive notifications on my phone, too.
MeTube - Rip videos from almost anything. Friend sent you an Instagram video, but you don’t have Instagram? Chuck it into this and it’ll give you the video. Here’s all the websites it supports.
My only gripe is that there isn’t a good Android app to go with it. I’d like to receive notifications on my phone, too.
Home Assistant can do notifications for Frigate that are very similar to Ring’s notifications.
IDK how Frigate handles alerts, but Blue Iris will write an alert to MQTT topic if it matches object recog, and I have an app MQTT Alert that watches that and goes nuts if it comes up. The BI android app is underwhelming in its alerts.
I’d have to figure Frigate has some sort of MQTT capability. I tried using Frigate but it was pretty basic for my needs, so I moved on.
Great list - saved!
Is there documentation and stuff for an Android app to be built? I might be interested in building one.
https://github.com/sfortis/frigate-viewer
This is the closest thing to an android app, but it just adds a check to see if you’re on your local network or not. Other than that, it’s just a web frontend.
The frigate documentation also has some info about installing it as an app, but either I’m doing it wrong or it’s the equivalent of a bookmark on my homescreen.
Yeah, that’s a progressive web app, not a native Android app. I’ll check it out, I have a few cameras I want to play with.
Frigate is the next big rock on my migration to lower power hardware. How are you running it? I’m trying to move to incus but I tested it on Docker. I need to get off my my W10 blueiris install.
Running it on Docker on my debian server. It runs great.
The config setup is a pain in the ass though.
I run it on Docker, works fine that way.
Headscale with headplane UI for access across servers
Openwebui for LLM stuff with tika for doc processing
Nextcloud for data and such
Immich(migrating away from photoprism) for better photo management and phone upload
Caddy for reverse proxy
Not used as much: Monica for contact management Mealie for its ease of importing recipes
Here is my list:
- Open WebUI to have browser access to ollama
- AUTOMATIC1111 Stable Diffusion Web UI to generate images
- HomeAssistant to automate my home
- Immich to backup pictures from family phones and computers and make them accessible like Google Photos
- PeerTube to store and make accessible family videos
- PieFed to access the threadyverse
- Mastodon to do microblogging
- Uptime Kuma to check that all my services are up and running
- Synapse Matrix Server for Text, Video and audio chats with family and friends
- Syncthing to share files
+1 for Home Assistant, though the Docker implementation doesn’t allow add-ons. That may be fine at first, but a lot of the more complicated setup requires add-ons. For me, it was worth it to just go ahead and grab an HA Green to run my HA stuff.
Yeah, I’m still running on my raspberry pi for that reason, and for my parents we also bought a HA green.
Off the top of my head:
- Paperless ( Digital filing cabinet, tagging is local LLM backed
- Immich (Google Photos replacement)
- Nextcloud (Replaces the rest of Google Cloud functionality)
- LubeLogger (Vehicle maintenance logger)
- Home Assistant (Home and other things automation)
- Jellyfin (Primary media server)
- Hoarder (Online bookmarking, tagging and summarizing service, Local LLM backed. I think this project has changed names)
- Audiobookshelf ( Does what it says on the tin. Audiobook server, kinda like audible but I can actually find the books I already own. )
- Navidrome (Not sure if I’m keeping this one. Like the features but it largely duplicates the music side of Jellyfin)
- Minecraft Server (Again, does what it says on the tin)
There are other services I run but those are the ones I use most often and can rattle off when I’m as tired as I am right now.
+1 for Audiobookshelf, has a great android app too
And iOS app as well, though, it is in test flight
FWIW, Plappa works really well on iOS. It’s not the official ABS app, but it was obviously designed around ABS. It has all of the features as the official app, without the whole “try every month to get into the TestFlight beta, because TestFlight hard caps the user count” BS.
Hoarder is now Karakeep
I much prefer navidrome for music over jellyfin. Better presentation and usage, tracks meaningful data and displays it by default, and won’t delete your music library data if a folder gets moved. In other words jellyfin just gets rid of that data but navidrome will track missing songs and make you explicitly confirm removing them from the database.
I use FinAmp client with Jellyfin for music.
I agree the Jellyfin interface is not well optimized for music, but FinAmp negates most of that and my phone is how I mostly listen to music anyway.
I like Navidrone, but it’s a duplicate service that doesn’t really have a big value add over Jellyfin beyond the ability to share tracks with friends. A major feature upgrade, but not something I use terribly often.
Fair enough, i mostly use symfonium so same thing since both jellyfin/navidrome support subsonic API. I do like using the navidrome web ui on PC though
Couple of things I have running on my home server no one has mentioned yet.
FoundryVTT is a self-hostable platform for playing tabletop RPGs online. It supports a vast selection of game systems and user/community developed mods making it extremely versatile.
Pihole is probably something you’ve heard of before and despite the name is hostable on a wide variety of systems. In case you haven’t it’s a network level ad blocker that works by taking over the role of DNS server on your LAN and blocking queries to domains used to serve ads or track telemetry.
Maybe not a service in the typical sense, but setting up your router+server to route your home network traffic through a VPN is a fun project.
My router (MikroTik) supports WireGuard, so I can use it with Mullvad for the whole house—but wg is demanding and it’s a slow router, so while it can NAT at ~1Gbps, it can’t do WireGuard at more than ~90Mbps. So, I set up WireGuard/Mullvad on a little SBC with a fast processor, and have my router use that instead. Using policy based routing and/or mangling, I can have different VLANs/subnets/individual hosts selectively routed through the VPN.
It’s a fun exercise, not sure I implemented it in a smart way, but it works :)
Searxng. Just use a private instance.
