# Self-Hosted

30k stars, Apache-2.0, no per-seat fee. Jitsi Meet is the strongest self-hosted Zoom alternative — but it is a six-component SFU stack, self-hosting does not inherit 8x8's SOC 2, and without a TURN server some people simply cannot connect.

56k stars, AGPL-3.0, offline-first, end-to-end encrypted. Joplin is the strongest self-hosted Evernote replacement — but its encryption master password is unrecoverable, and losing it means your notes are gone permanently.

Most 'open-source Slack alternatives' put SAML, LDAP, and guest access behind a paywall. Zulip is Apache-2.0 with all of it free — but self-hosted mobile push notifications stop at ten users unless you build your own app.

Tableau charges per creator, per month, forever. Metabase is a 48k-star self-hosted BI platform with unlimited users — but it ships four license files, gates SSO behind a paywall, and its default database will lose every dashboard you own.

Browser extensions only protect the browser. AdGuard Home moves filtering down to DNS, where every device on your network is covered — a 36k-star GPL-3.0 Go binary with encrypted DNS and DHCP built in. Here is what it blocks, what it cannot block, and the one setting that quietly sends your data to AdGuard.

Substack takes a cut and owns the relationship. WordPress gives you everything and the maintenance to match. Ghost is a 55k-star MIT-licensed middle path — but production self-hosting has real requirements nobody lists.

You do not own your Audible library — you hold a revocable licence to it. Audiobookshelf is a GPL-3.0 server that streams the files you actually control, with progress sync that works across every device.

Every push notification you receive went through a company's servers before it reached your phone. ntfy is a 33k-star, Apache-2.0 pub-sub server you can run yourself — but the iOS story has a catch nobody mentions.

NocoDB is the 64,000-star open-source Airtable alternative that turns any SQL database into a smart spreadsheet. Here's the setup, the bring-your-own-database advantage, and the January 2026 license change from AGPL to Sustainable Use that most lists still miss.