I’m trying to better understand hosting a Lemmy Instance. Lurking discussions it seems like some people are hosting from the Cloud or VPS. My understanding is that it’s better to futureproof by running your own home server so that you have the data and the top most control of hardware, software etc. My understanding is that by hosting an instance via Cloud or VPS you are offloading the data / information to a 3rd party.

Are people actually running their own actual self-hosted servers from home? Do you have any recommended guides on running a Lemmy Instance?

  • capy_bara@lemmy.world
    English
    37·
    10 months ago

    I’d say there are levels to selfhosting. Hosting your stuff on the cloud is selfhosting, but hosting it on your own hardware is a more “pure” way of doing it imo. Not that it’s better, both have their advantages, but it’s certainly a more committed to the idelal

    • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
      128·
      10 months ago

      I don’t know what hosting on the VPS should be called but it is definitely not self hosting. Since you are hosting your services on someone else’s servers. Didn’t it used to be called colo or something like that.

      • Buckshot@programming.devEnglish
        122·
        10 months ago

        I thought colo was your hardware in someone else’s data center.

        For me though a VPS is still self hosting because you own your applications data and have control over it.

        You’re less beholden to the whims of a company to change the software or cut you off. With appropriate backups you should be able to move to a new cloud provider fairly easily.

      • PlexSheep@feddit.deEnglish
        6·
        10 months ago

        I disagree. Selfhosting is not specific to hardware location for me. My own git server is definitely selfhosted, VPN, and so on.

        I agree that having your own hardware at home is a more pure way of doing it, but I’d just call that a Homelab. I personally just combine both.

      • lemcat@lemmy.worldEnglish
        62·
        10 months ago

        Of course it’s self hosting. The term “self hosting” just means being in control of the service or host yourself, as opposed to that being controlled by a third party.

        It doesn’t mean the hardware has to be in your house. It just so happens that that is the majority preference, because people value privacy, and are often hosting private data.

      • deur@feddit.nlEnglish
        41·
        10 months ago

        I’d like to pose the fact that VPSes and Hosted solutions are different as a rebuttle to what you’re saying. It’s pretty unreasonable to gate keep self hosting behind having the hardware running on a device you control.