Hi! Im new to self hosting. Currently i am running a Jellyfin server on an old laptop. I am very curious to host other things in the future like immich or other services. I see a lot of mention of a program called docker.
search this on The internet I am still Not very clear what it does.
Could someone explain this to me like im stupid? What does it do and why would I need it?
Also what are other services that might be interesting to self host in The future?
Many thanks!
EDIT: Wow! thanks for all the detailed and super quick replies! I've been reading all the comments here and am concluding that (even though I am currently running only one service) it might be interesting to start using Docker to run all (future) services seperately on the server!
I've never posted on Lemmy before. I tried to ask this question of the greater community but I had to pick a community and didn't know which one. This shows up as lemmy.world but that wasn't an option.
Anyway, what I wanted to know is why do people self host? What is the advantage/cost. Sorry if I'm hijacking. Maybe someone could just post a link or something.
People are talking about privacy but the big reason is that it gives you, the owner, control over everything quickly without ads or other uneeded stuff. We are so used to apps being optomized for revenue and not being interoperable with other services that it's easy to forget the single biggest advantage of computers which is that programs and apps can work together quickly and quietly and in the background. Companies provide products, self-hosting provides tools.
For the warm and fuzzy feeling I get when I know all my documents, notes, calendars, contacts, passwords, movies/shows/music, videos, pictures and much more are stored safely in my basement and belong to me.
Nobody is training their AI on it, nobody is trying to use them for targetted ads, nobody is selling them. Just for me.
It usually comes down to privacy and independence from big tech, but there are a ton of other reasons you might want to do it. Here are some more:
For me, it's a mix of several of reasons.
Wow. That's a whole separate thread on it's on. I selfhost a lot of my services because I am a staunch privacy advocate, and I really have a problem with corporations using my data to further bolster their profit margins without giving me due compensation. I also self host because I love to tinker and learn. The learning aspect is something I really get in to. At my age it is good to keep the brain active and so I self host, create bonsai, garden, etc. I've always been into technology from the early days of thumbing through Pop Sci and Pop Mech magazines, which evolved into thumbing through Byte mags.
We should probably make a poll thread here, it could be pretty interesting to see everyone's primary and secondary motivations.
Yeah, 100% a whole separate post on its own. If you ask the same question in a new post, you'll get more visibility and more answers