# selfhosted

A deep, honest look at PhotoPrism — the open-source, privacy-first photo manager that puts Google Photos-class AI search on hardware you own, with real cost numbers and a hard look at where your memories actually go.

A no-fluff deep dive into PocketBase - the single-binary Go backend that bundles SQLite, realtime, auth, file storage, and an admin UI into one executable you fully own. What it costs, where your data actually lives, the single-writer ceiling, and an honest exit strategy.

A deep dive into Pi-hole, the self-hosted DNS sinkhole that blocks ads and trackers for every device on your network with zero client software, and what it really costs and can't do.

"A no-fluff deep dive into running your own Mastodon instance — federation mechanics, the real monthly cost, where your posts and DMs actually go, honest limitations, and a 20-plus section build guide."

A no-fluff deep dive into running Discourse on your own hardware — architecture, the email gotcha, real monthly costs, data sovereignty, honest limitations, and a 30-day rollout plan.

"A 57k-star, BSD-3-Clause backend platform that bundles auth, databases, storage, functions, messaging, and realtime into one Docker stack you own. A deep dive into what it costs, where your data lands, and where it quietly falls short."

A 80k-star, GPL-3.0 monitoring agent that collects every metric every second, runs machine learning on your own hardware, and keeps your telemetry on your infrastructure. Here is the honest deep-dive: architecture, real self-hosting cost, data sovereignty, and where it falls short.

HedgeDoc is a 7.4k-star, AGPL-3.0 real-time collaborative Markdown editor descended from HackMD's open-source edition. This deep dive covers its CodiMD lineage, the operational-transform engine, what HedgeDoc 2's stalled rewrite means for you, the real cost of running it, and where your notes actually go.

"Firefly III is a self-hosted, AGPL-3.0 personal finance manager built on double-entry bookkeeping. This deep dive covers what that actually buys you, where the rough edges are, and the one thing most reviews skip: what your financial data looks like when it never leaves your server."