The Boom of Self-Hosting with Ethan Sholly
As we head into 2025, self-hosting has grown from a niche hobby to a thriving movement. Driven by concerns over privacy, rising cloud costs, and the increasing power of compact hardware, enthusiasts and professionals alike are running services—from media streaming to AI inference—on their own networks. We spoke with Ethan Sholly, founder of selfh.st, to understand why self-hosting is having its moment and what the future holds.
Defining Self-Hosting vs. Home Labs
While both involve on-premises infrastructure, self-hosting focuses on deploying specific services—file sync, media servers, web apps—often in containers or lightweight VMs. Home labs, by contrast, emphasize the broader topology: enterprise-grade switches, VLAN segmentation, multiple ESXi hosts or Proxmox clusters. As Sholly explains, “You could run Nextcloud on a Raspberry Pi in your closet—that’s self-hosting. But if you’re building a full PKI, multiple VLANs, and BGP peering at home, that’s a true home lab.”
The Rise of Self-Hosting Drivers
Privacy and Data Sovereignty
With GDPR, CCPA, and frequent data breaches making headlines, controlling sensitive data locally is paramount. Self-hosted solutions like Nextcloud, Seafile, and Immich offer end-to-end encryption, zero-knowledge setups, and peripheral integrations via WebDAV or S3-compatible APIs. Local inference of AI models (GPT4All, LLaMA forks) keeps personal data off third-party servers.
Cost Efficiency and Open-Source Alternatives
Paying for 10 TB on AWS S3 at $23/mo vs. the one-time cost of a 10 TB HDD (≈$200) shows clear savings. Projects like MinIO or Ceph deliver S3-compatible object storage on commodity hardware. Dockerized pipelines with docker-compose or Podman slash onboarding time, reducing DevOps overhead.
Containerization and Platform Simplification
Docker shook up the ecosystem, but lightweight orchestrators like k3s and Rancher bring Kubernetes to the home lab. Unraid’s plugin ecosystem, combined with built-in Docker support, has democratized service deployment. Sholly calls Docker “a game-changer,” enabling one-click installs and centralized updates.
Hardware Democratization: From Raspberry Pi to Intel NUC
Single-board computers (SBCs) like the Raspberry Pi 5 (8 GB LPDDR5, PCIe x1 via M.2 slot) or Odroid N2+ power lightweight web servers. On the higher end, Intel NUC 12 with Core i7, 32 GB DDR4, NVMe boot, and 2.5GbE ports handle virtualization and AI inference. HPE MicroServer Gen10 Plus with Ryzen embedded CPUs offers ECC memory support for more robust setups.
Insights from the 2024 Self-Hosting Survey
In 2024, over 7,000 respondents shared their infrastructure choices and motivations:
- Storage media: 45% HDD, 40% SSD, 15% NVMe
- Primary uses: media streaming (60%), file sync (55%), web hosting (30%), CI/CD (20%), AI inference (10%)
- Popular reverse proxies: Nginx (70%), Caddy (25%), Traefik (20%)
“60% of people said they haven’t donated to any self-hosted projects in the last year, despite 75% using more than three open-source apps,” Sholly noted.
Technical Deep Dive: Optimizing Self-Hosted Environments
Performance Tuning and Networking
Leveraging Link Aggregation (802.3ad), VLAN tagging, and Quality of Service (QoS) ensures media streams and backups don’t contend. Dynamic DNS providers or scripts using acme.sh automate SSL renewals. IPv6, WireGuard tunnels, and npm-based dashboards like Dashy bring enterprise networking to the home.
Security and Hardening Best Practices
Applying OS hardening with AppArmor or SELinux, configuring firewalls with iptables or nftables, and deploying fail2ban shields SSH and web interfaces. TPM modules, UEFI Secure Boot, and BIOS passwords add hardware-level protection. Multi-factor authentication via TOTP or YubiKeys is now standard on most self-hosted UIs.
Emerging Trends: AI’s Role in Self-Hosting
Local LLM inference, vector embeddings with Chroma or Weaviate, and self-hosted notebooks like JupyterLab are fueling AI experimentation. Enthusiasts can fine-tune models on personal GPUs (RTX 30-series or AMD Radeon) or use CPU-based inference with Intel OpenVINO for edge deployments.
Community, Ecosystem, and Sustainability
The self-hosting community thrives on platforms like r/selfhosted, the Awesome Self-Hosted GitHub repo, and Ethan’s selfh.st. Funding remains a challenge: Open Collective, Patreon, and GitHub Sponsors help, but Sholly urges users to contribute financially or via code to ensure long-term viability.
Expert Opinion
“As edge computing grows, personal clouds will be integral to hybrid architectures,” says Jane Liu, Cloud Architect at CNCF. “Self-hosting is the ultimate testbed for scalable best practices.”
Conclusion: The Future of Personal Infrastructure
With 5G, fiber rollouts, and AI accelerators becoming ubiquitous, self-hosting will only accelerate. Privacy, control, and cost savings remain key drivers. As Sholly puts it, “Convenience shouldn’t be an add-on; privacy shouldn’t be a value-add.” Whether you’re streaming movie night or deploying your own LLM, the era of personal infrastructure is here to stay.