Infrastructure
23 guides about self-hosted infrastructure solutions
Infrastructure is the backbone of any self-hosted setup. These guides cover everything from reverse proxies and DNS to backup strategies and monitoring — the foundational services that keep your other applications running reliably. Whether you're setting up your first home server or hardening a production environment, you'll find practical, tested configurations here.
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Apache Guacamole: Self-Hosted Remote Desktop Gateway Without a Client
Set up Apache Guacamole for clientless remote desktop access to your servers via SSH, VNC, and RDP — all through a web browser.
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Building a Bulletproof Backup Strategy for Your Self-Hosted Services
A comprehensive guide to backing up self-hosted services. Covers the 3-2-1 rule, tool comparison (Restic, BorgBackup, Duplicati, Kopia), automation with cron and systemd, restore testing, and off-site options.
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Mailu vs Mailcow: Choosing the Right Self-Hosted Email Stack
A practical comparison of Mailu and Mailcow for self-hosted email. Covers resource usage, features, spam filtering, ease of setup, and clear guidance on when to choose each solution.
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Self-Hosted vs SaaS: An Honest Cost and Complexity Comparison
A realistic cost and complexity comparison between self-hosted services and SaaS alternatives. Includes real dollar amounts, time investment, and service-by-service breakdowns to help you decide what to self-host and what to pay for.
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Self-Hosted Database Management: PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB in Docker
A practical guide to running PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB in Docker for self-hosted services. Covers choosing the right database, production-ready Docker Compose configs, automated backups, connection pooling, and monitoring.
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Glances: Lightweight System Monitoring for Your Self-Hosted Server
Set up Glances, a cross-platform system monitoring tool that gives you a real-time overview of CPU, memory, disk, network, and Docker containers. Includes Docker Compose deployment, web UI, API usage, and integration with Grafana.
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Self-Hosting a Time Server with Chrony: Accurate NTP for Your Network
Set up a self-hosted NTP time server using chrony. Covers configuration, Docker deployment, security hardening, and network-wide time synchronization.
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Disaster Recovery for Self-Hosted Services: Planning, Testing, and Recovery
A comprehensive guide to disaster recovery planning for self-hosted infrastructure. Covers RTO/RPO concepts, the 3-2-1 backup rule, building a recovery kit, testing procedures, and monitoring backup health.
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Kopia: Fast, Encrypted Backups With a Modern Web UI
Complete guide to Kopia for self-hosted backup and restore. Covers installation, repository setup, snapshot policies, and comparison with Restic, BorgBackup, and Duplicati.
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Self-Hosted Backups with BorgBackup and Restic: A Practical Comparison
A hands-on guide to self-hosted backup solutions using BorgBackup and Restic. Covers deduplication, encryption, remote storage, and how to build a reliable 3-2-1 backup strategy for your homelab.
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Homarr: A Modern, Feature-Rich Self-Hosted Dashboard
How to set up Homarr as your self-hosted dashboard. Covers installation, widget configuration, service integrations, and comparison with Homepage and Heimdall.
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Docker Compose for Self-Hosting: The Complete Guide
Master Docker Compose for self-hosting — from first container to a full stack of services with networking, volumes, and automatic updates.
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Yacht: Simple Docker Container Management for Small Homelabs
A guide to self-hosting Yacht for Docker container management. Covers installation, template system, container management, and comparison with Portainer and Dockge for small homelab use cases.
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Self-Hosted Dashboards: Homepage, Homarr, and Dashy Compared
A practical guide to self-hosted server dashboards. Compare Homepage, Homarr, and Dashy for organizing your services, monitoring your infrastructure, and building a personal start page.
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Dashy: The Most Customizable Self-Hosted Dashboard
A guide to self-hosting Dashy, a highly customizable dashboard for organizing your services. Covers YAML configuration, widgets, themes, status checking, and comparison with Homepage and Homarr.
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Dockge: The Simplest Docker Compose Manager
Guide to self-hosting Dockge for managing Docker Compose stacks through a clean web UI. Covers installation, stack management, and comparison with Portainer and Yacht.
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Self-Hosting Duplicati: Automated Encrypted Backups with a Web UI
A practical guide to self-hosting Duplicati for automated backups. Covers Docker deployment, backup configuration, cloud storage backends, encryption, scheduling, and comparison with BorgBackup and Restic.
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Self-Hosting AI with Ollama and Open WebUI: Run LLMs Locally
A practical guide to running large language models locally with Ollama and Open WebUI. Covers Docker setup, GPU vs CPU considerations, model recommendations, and hardware requirements.
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K3s: Lightweight Kubernetes for Self-Hosters
A practical guide to running K3s for self-hosted applications. Covers single-node and multi-node setup, deploying apps, Helm charts, persistent storage, Traefik ingress, cert-manager, and comparison with Docker Compose and Nomad.
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Portainer: The Docker Management UI That Makes Self-Hosting Easier
A practical guide to Portainer for managing Docker containers through a web interface. Covers installation, container management, stacks, templates, and comparison with other Docker UIs.
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Self-Hosting MinIO: S3-Compatible Object Storage on Your Own Hardware
A guide to self-hosting MinIO for S3-compatible object storage. Covers setup, use cases, backup integration, performance tuning, and comparison with cloud S3.
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Caddy: The Easiest Self-Hosted Web Server with Automatic HTTPS
A practical guide to self-hosting Caddy as your web server and reverse proxy. Covers automatic HTTPS, Caddyfile configuration, reverse proxy setup, and comparison with Nginx and Traefik.
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Self-Hosting Traefik: The Modern Reverse Proxy for Your Home Lab
A practical guide to setting up Traefik as a reverse proxy for your self-hosted services. Covers automatic HTTPS, Docker integration, middleware, and comparison with Nginx Proxy Manager and Caddy.