this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2026
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Hi,

The last google product that is use is gmail, and while searching for a solid alternative, many threads mentionned self hosting, which has been on my mind for a little while but here is what's stopping me so far: 1/ it sounds like a single point vulnerability 2/ I lack the skills.

As for #2, I've been down the privacy rabbithole for a couple years now, I know there are a lot of resources out there and I'm not afraid to learn, I just don't know where to start.

But I don't see the point in learning if in the end, I just build a server that could die in a domestic accident, resulting in me loosing a lot of important data.

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated,

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[โ€“] BladeFederation@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)
  1. Yes it is. As of now, this is why I don't use it for anything I can't have a redundancy for, or anything I care about very much. Meaning no email (self hosted email gets blocked anyway), password manager, etc. Maybe could get away with cloud sync for an authenticator app, since the data will still be on device in most cases. But also think about it: how often has your house been flooded or destroyed by a tornado? Also it can be more a hobby to build a skill set if you work in IT or want to.

  2. Self hosting takes some doing, but I wouldn't underestimate yourself either. If you want to figure it out you will probably be able to. Learn on something you don't care about. I'm still using a 10 year old laptop as my server because hardware prices are stupid. You start by doing one thing at a time. Learn to do one thing specifically. Example: learn how to set up Jellyfin on Linux. Test accessing some files from your real computer or phone. Yay it works. Now learn how to SSH into the old laptop. Cool, got it. Then install a headless server in the laptop which you can SSH into. Nice. Deploy Jellyfin with docker this time and have fun with a home media server for a while. Then learn how to reverse proxy so you can access from vacation or whatever. Then learn the -arrr suite to have stuff auto download totally legal "Linux isos". Then if this works for you have fun upgrading thr hardware maybe. Oh but then maybe you want all those huge hard drives in a RAID format. OK now I want to self host other stuff besides media. You'll find plenty of stuff you'll like doing, just start small.

Another smaller starting point is hosting your own Matrix or Mastodon instance, which is universal so you'd essentially be hosting your own account profile and nothing else, with no risk of server admits being nosey.

[โ€“] Dop@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago

Thank you for taking the time to write such a long reply, I appreciate the advice and encouragement very much!