Self-Hosting

Google Analytics is powerful, but it comes with a cost: your visitors’ privacy. Umami is a self-hosted analytics platform that gives you the insights you need without cookies, fingerprinting, or sending data to third parties. It’s lightweight, GDPR-compliant out of the box, and looks great doing it. What is Umami? Umami is an open-source, privacy-focused web analytics tool built with Next.js and PostgreSQL (or MySQL). It tracks page views, referrers, devices, and more — all without cookies or personal data collection. The dashboard is clean, fast, and does exactly what you need without the bloat of Google Analytics. ...

Excalidraw is one of those tools that looks deceptively simple — a hand-drawn style whiteboard in your browser — but once you start using it, you realize it’s replaced half your diagramming stack. Architecture diagrams, flowcharts, wireframes, quick sketches during meetings — it handles all of it with a clean, intuitive interface. The hosted version at excalidraw.com works great, but self-hosting gives you full control over your data, private collaboration without third-party servers, and the ability to embed it into your own workflows. ...

Every developer has a collection of bookmarked websites for encoding Base64, generating UUIDs, converting timestamps, or formatting JSON. What if all of those lived on your own server in a single, clean interface? That’s IT-Tools — a Swiss Army knife of developer utilities packed into one Docker container. What is IT-Tools? IT-Tools is a self-hosted web application built with Vue.js that bundles over 80 useful utilities for developers, sysadmins, and power users. Everything runs client-side in your browser — the server just serves the static files. No data leaves your machine. ...

If Trello’s pricing changes and data policies have you looking for alternatives, Planka is one of the best self-hosted Kanban boards available. It’s clean, fast, supports real-time collaboration, and runs beautifully in Docker. What is Planka? Planka is an open-source, self-hosted project management tool built around Kanban boards. Think Trello, but running on your own hardware with no account limits, no feature gates, and no subscription fees. Why Self-Host Your Project Management? Privacy: Your project data stays on your server No user limits: Add your entire team without per-seat pricing No feature restrictions: All features available out of the box Real-time sync: Changes appear instantly across all connected users Markdown support: Rich card descriptions with full markdown editing 100+ notification providers: Slack, Discord, email, and more SSO support: OpenID Connect integration for enterprise environments Prerequisites Before starting, you’ll need: ...

Push notifications are the backbone of modern alerting. Server went down? Backup failed? Someone logged into your machine? You want to know now, not when you check your email three hours later. Ntfy (pronounced “notify”) lets you send push notifications to your phone or desktop using simple HTTP requests. No app registration, no Firebase setup, no Google Cloud accounts. Just curl and done. What is Ntfy? Ntfy is a self-hosted, HTTP-based pub-sub notification service. You publish messages to “topics” (think of them as channels), and any device subscribed to that topic gets the notification instantly. It works over HTTP, WebSockets, and has native apps for Android and iOS. ...

If you’ve ever wanted a private file hosting service that works seamlessly with ShareX, Flameshot, or any screenshot tool — Zipline is exactly what you need. It’s fast, modern, and packed with features that make Imgur uploads feel prehistoric. What is Zipline? Zipline is a self-hosted file hosting server built with Next.js. It handles image uploads, file sharing, URL shortening, and text pastes — all through a clean web dashboard or API. The killer feature? Native ShareX and Flameshot integration, so your screenshots go straight to your own server instead of some third-party service. ...

Every self-hosted setup eventually needs notifications. Watchtower updated a container? You want to know. Backup failed? Alert me. Server disk at 90%? Send a push notification to my phone. Most people use Pushover ($5 one-time), ntfy (hosted service), or Discord webhooks. But if you’re self-hosting everything else, why not self-host your notifications too? Gotify is a simple, self-hosted push notification server with a clean web UI, Android app, and dead-simple REST API. One curl command sends a notification to your phone. ...

Tracking investments usually means handing your financial data to apps like Mint, Robinhood, or Yahoo Finance. They know every stock you own, every trade you make, and every dollar in your portfolio. Then they monetize that data. Ghostfolio is an open-source, self-hosted wealth management app that tracks stocks, ETFs, crypto, and other assets — all on your own server. Beautiful dashboards, real-time quotes, and zero data sharing. Why Ghostfolio? Privacy — your portfolio data never leaves your server Multi-asset — stocks, ETFs, bonds, crypto, commodities, real estate Real-time quotes — automatic price updates via multiple data providers Portfolio analytics — allocation charts, performance over time, dividends Multi-currency — supports any currency, auto-converts Import/export — CSV import from brokers, full data export Multi-account — track multiple brokerage accounts separately Mobile-friendly — responsive PWA works great on phones Active development — regular releases with new features Prerequisites Docker and Docker Compose A server with at least 1GB RAM Optional: API key for premium data (free tier works fine for most users) Installation Step 1: Create the project directory mkdir -p ~/ghostfolio && cd ~/ghostfolio Step 2: Create docker-compose.yml services: ghostfolio: image: ghostfolio/ghostfolio:latest container_name: ghostfolio ports: - "127.0.0.1:3333:3333" environment: DATABASE_URL: postgresql://ghostfolio:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/ghostfolio REDIS_HOST: redis REDIS_PORT: 6379 ACCESS_TOKEN_SALT: ${ACCESS_TOKEN_SALT} JWT_SECRET_KEY: ${JWT_SECRET_KEY} depends_on: postgres: condition: service_healthy redis: condition: service_started restart: unless-stopped postgres: image: postgres:16-alpine container_name: ghostfolio-db environment: POSTGRES_DB: ghostfolio POSTGRES_USER: ghostfolio POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD} volumes: - postgres-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data healthcheck: test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U ghostfolio"] interval: 10s timeout: 5s retries: 5 restart: unless-stopped redis: image: redis:7-alpine container_name: ghostfolio-redis restart: unless-stopped volumes: postgres-data: Step 3: Create the .env file # Generate secrets cat > .env << EOF POSTGRES_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -hex 16) ACCESS_TOKEN_SALT=$(openssl rand -hex 32) JWT_SECRET_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32) EOF Step 4: Start it up docker compose up -d Step 5: Access the UI Open http://your-server-ip:3333 in your browser. ...

Ansible is the gold standard for server automation. But writing YAML playbooks and running them from the terminal gets old fast — especially when you manage multiple machines in your homelab. Semaphore is a modern web UI for Ansible. It lets you manage playbooks, track run history, schedule tasks, and share automation with your team — all from a clean browser interface. Think of it as “Ansible meets GitHub Actions” for your home server. ...

Google Photos changed everything when it launched with free unlimited storage. Then they killed it. Now every photo you take counts against your 15GB free tier, and upgrading to Google One means paying $3-10/month while Google trains AI on your family photos. Immich is the answer. It’s a free, open-source, self-hosted photo and video management platform that looks and feels like Google Photos — but runs on your hardware, with your data staying yours. ...