I'm not affiliated with this in any way but saw it posted at the other place & thought fellow Lemmyzens might like to take a look.

I always find it quite hard to answer "favorite" apps as some infrastructure critical self hosted apps aren't as sexy as others which sit front & centre so I feel they often don't seem to get as much credit or attention (such as NGinX/DuckDNS compared to Immich/Jellyfin etc)

Hi everyone,

Like in previous years, I'm running a survey about self-hosting. The focus is on your favorite self-hosted apps, but there are plenty of other (optional) questions too. The top five app lists are free response fields, you don't have to select the suggestions.

Link to take the survey:

https://survey.deployn.de/s/self-host-2026

Last year's results

More info:

• The survey is anonymous. Like last year, results will be published in aggregated form. I'm currently planning to publish them in December.

• It takes about 10-25 minutes.

• Some of you asked for more questions in the comments. I added a lot at first, then realized it took 45 minutes to fill out properly. So I threw some out again, but there are still quite a few. The survey now has a core section that mainly covers the MVPs (your 5 favorite apps), and you can switch on other modules if you want. Almost every question is optional and can be skipped. If you answer everything at a reasonable pace, it takes around 20 minutes.

• The proprietary survey tool caused new problems every year, so last year I switched to HeyForm while the survey was already running. That wasn't ideal for my purposes either, so this year the survey runs on a new app. It should also make entering your apps faster.

• It's still easier to fill out on a desktop computer.

Thank you in advance for participating.

I can't self host I'm not smart enough :-(

It's a nice survey, but often forgets that you can also self-host in the cloud, and doesn't even consider that rented root-servers exist.

Don't be so down on yourself mate, start with the Linux upskill challenge then look at some Docker YouTube tutorials. You will be there in no time.

Legitimate feedback for the survey.

We are all learning and we all make mistakes. It's part of the journey.

Eternal Tinkerer 🔧

• Fleet: 2–3 devices · 21–50 TB
• Motivation: Cost savings, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Privacy & data ownership
• My MVPs: FreshRSS, Home Assistant, Radarr, Sonarr, Nginx Proxy Manager

yunohost + ebay or old office desktop (or literally any computer you can get your hands on for cheap). There's a lot of people with very strong opinions but you really don't need much.

Top Motivation: Cost

The several hundred dollars a year and hours spend is definitely worth saving that $14-30/month in subscriptions right? right?

Data Hoarder 💾

• Fleet: More than 10 devices · More than 50 TB

• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Learning & experimenting

• My MVPs: Audiobookshelf, Arr stack broadly, Actual Budget, Self built utilities and custom code, Homedex

Right, $14-30/m actually adds up to hundreds and is less reliable.

I know, I know super duper clouds, six nines of availability for cloud services etc., yet github (for example) fails more often then my media/git/file/print server on 10 y.o. laptop with tens of terabytes of media and data, that is less maintened and exists in a far worse conditions (comparison is incorrect but the fact stays).

I'm not either but I still do it.

Homelab Veteran ⚡

• Fleet: 1 device · 5–10 TB
• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions
• My MVPs: Active Directory, Windows DNS (I'm sorry), Hyper-V, IIS 10, Home Assistant

I haven’t used an RSS in years, might have to look at that and start reading web comics again.

Fleet Commander 🚀

• Fleet: More than 10 devices · 21–50 TB
• Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself, Customization & full control
• My MVPs: Homepage, homelable.net, healthchecks.io, ntfy.sh, WireGuard

My fleet sounds bigger than it is since theyre all small or older and also small underpowered devices (repurposed laptops, low end chromebox, various pis).

I didn't know anything about self-hosting when I started either. There is a learning curve but it's not difficult, just takes some time and is totally worth it to own your data, have a little more privacy and to stop shelling out money for subscriptions, etc. Totally worth it. I've been self hosting for almost 2 years now and have learned alot but still learning every day. Theres alot I still don't know and still encounter issues at times but it doesn't keep me from figuring it out and to keep self-hosting. Go for it, you won't regret it.

It pains me that new achewood is behind a paywall. I understand it, I can't justify affording it.

Windows DNS (I'm sorry)

Lmao. Hey what works for you is what works for you, don't let naysayers steer you wrong.

Somehow veteran isn't the right word. Veteran kind of implies you have learned along the way, yet I keep making the same mistakes

Homelab Veteran ⚡

• Fleet: 2–3 devices · 5–10 TB
• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Cost savings
• My MVPs: Immich, Jellyfin, Radarr, Sonarr

Fleet Commander 🚀

• Fleet: More than 10 devices · 21–50 TB
• Motivation: Learning & experimenting, Cost savings, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions
• My MVPs: Home Assistant, Audiobookshelf, Jellyfin, Pangolin, Portainer

$14-30/month in subscriptions is $168-360/year.

You likely spend more than that a year on what you host (I know my power alone is going to run higher than that), but the monetary cost doesn't cover the joys of the hobby, the knowledge aquired, and the fact that your shit still works even after the Internet goes out

Whether you think you are or aren't smart enough, you're right!

If you want to do it, read up and just try it. Throw a Linux install on an old desktop or laptop and try to follow a guide and make it work. It seems daunting, but most anyone can follow a guide and get to a usable product.

Initial cost may be high. But I have calculated that my system. Would cost me 9 euros a month at 12tb of cloud storage. Something that I can't achieve if I pay for cloud storage to a big man.

What brings me from clouds back to earth is current hard drives prices. Fuck AI.

AI Pioneer 🤖

• Fleet: 2–3 devices · More than 50 TB
• Motivation: Fun / the hobby itself, Privacy & data ownership, Learning & experimenting
• My MVPs: Netbird, Open WebUI, Forgejo, Traefik, Authentik

Homelab Veteran ⚡

• Fleet: 2–3 devices · 21–50 TB
• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions
• My MVPs: Jellyfin, Caddy, Pi-hole, Syncthing, Rsync

What is a physical device? I am a bit unsure in relation to this question.

I mean. A server is a physical device.
A router is a physical device
A switch is a physical device
Even my zigbee lightbulbs is a physical device

Where should i draw the line?

Self-Hoster 🏡

• Fleet: 2–3 devices · 5–10 TB
• Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Privacy & data ownership, Customization & full control
• My MVPs: Jellyfin, Sonarr, Pi-hole, Navidrome, Home Assistant

This survey is going to become our version of Spotify Wrapped isn't it?

AI Pioneer 🤖

• Fleet: More than 10 devices · 21–50 TB
• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself

Homelab Veteran ⚡

• Fleet: 2–3 devices · 5–10 TB
• Motivation: Learning & experimenting, Customization & full control, Privacy & data ownership
• My MVPs: Immich, Jellyfin, Home Assistant, Syncthing, Gramps Web

A lot of it is doing what other people tell you to do. This may be encouraging or not, but I consider myself fairly versed in tech and there is still troubleshooting where it feels like trying things at random rather than any skilled insight to a solution. The take-away is it's okay to skip an app that has terrible documentation and you can't figure out. Start with something that has good tutorials and if that doesn't work, try something else. If you can get that up and running those skills will carry over.

This survey definitely looks vibe-coded as heck lol but I hope the results will be good.

My results :)

Data Hoarder 💾

• Fleet: 2–3 devices · More than 50 TB
• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Customization & full control
• My MVPs: Immich, Baikal, Forgejo, qBitTorrent, Home Assistant

God knows I wasn't going to put cost as a motivation... I am actively losing money running double the storage I am using and 100+ GB of RAM on a Xeon chip, but having the headroom is certainly nice and has allowed me to expand as much as I want. Getting a good deal a couple of years back before the price explosion was a huge stroke of luck. If this server ever failed I could figure out a smaller operation with more confidence.

Self-Hoster 🏡

• Fleet: 1 device · Less than 1 TB
• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself
• My MVPs: Nextcloud, Searxng, BentoPDF, PocketID, kutt

Self-Hoster 🏡

• Fleet: 2–3 devices · 11–20 TB
• Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself
• My MVPs: Immich, Navidrome, Dockhand, Proxmox VE, Caddy

Homelab Veteran ⚡

• Fleet: 4–5 devices · 21–50 TB
• Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Learning & experimenting, Cost savings

Homelab Veteran ⚡

• Fleet: 4–5 devices · 21–50 TB
• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Cost savings, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions
• My MVPs: Pi-hole, Plex, Radarr, Linkwarden

Homelab Veteran ⚡

• Fleet: 4–5 devices · 5–10 TB
• Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself, Privacy & data ownership
• My MVPs: Outline, Home Assistant, Plex, Audiobookshelf, Caddy

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

[Thread #116 for this comm, first seen 27th Sep 2026, 22:40]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

Homelab Veteran ⚡

• Fleet: 4–5 devices · 11–20 TB
• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Cost savings, Customization & full control
• My MVPs: Proxmox VE, Paperless-ngx, Immich, Jellyfin

Self-Hoster 🏡

• Fleet: 1 device · Less than 1 TB

• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Learning & experimenting, Customization & full control

Self-Hoster 🏡

• Fleet: 2–3 devices · 5–10 TB
• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself
• My MVPs: Mythtv, PocketID, Plex, Immich, Home Assistant

Eternal Tinkerer 🔧

• Fleet: 4–5 devices · 21–50 TB
• Motivation: Fun / the hobby itself, Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions
• My MVPs: Proxmox VE, Nginx Proxy Manager, WireGuard, iptables, Bind9

Fleet Commander 🚀

• Fleet: 6–10 devices · 21–50 TB
• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself
• My MVPs: Home Assistant, Immich, Jellyfin, Mailcow, Navidrome

Cost was one of my motivations, but it wasn't cost to me. Most of the people using my server definitely can't afford to subscribe to all those streaming services.

Glad you mentioned that. A lot of folks are saying costs isn't a good reason (for valid reasons), but I don't think the other users costs are typically thought of. I don't host to a lot of people, but they are active and use a few different services I host. That easily multiplies the cost savings imo.

Fleet Commander 🚀

• Fleet: More than 10 devices · 21–50 TB
• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself, Learning & experimenting
• My MVPs: BookStack, Plex, Home Assistant, music Assistant, Grafana

Self-Hoster 🏡

• Fleet: 1 device · 1–4 TB
• Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions
• My MVPs: Navidrome, Jellyfin, Pi-hole, Linkwarden, Paperless-ngx

My wife spent about $130 for a year subscription to a service that she figured would always have her favorite show on it, because they own that show. Then like 10 seasons of it left for an exclusivity deal on another service. This was a contributing factor to pushing me into self hosting. Some of it is saving money, but some of it is also making sure you actually got what you paid for.

I’m surprised we don’t have something like this for this community. Curious what everyone uses through out the Fediverse

Data Hoarder 💾

• Fleet: 2–3 devices · More than 50 TB
• Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself, Privacy & data ownership
• My MVPs: Jellyfin, Plex, Foundry, Immich, Pangolin

AI Pioneer 🤖

• Fleet: 1 device · 11–20 TB
• Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself
• My MVPs: Plex, Radarr, Immich, RomM, BookOrbit

That's $14 to $30 a month per subscription per user. I've got close to a dozen people using mine, most of which can very much not afford those kind of subscriptions.