r/SelfHosting

Most ideal vps for beginners

If someone is new to vps hosting, is hostinger vps really the most ideal one to begin with?? i mean hostinger has been known for the most beginner friendly with most of the products they offer. for those who tested it, what kind of projects would you recommend running on it first??

reddit.com
u/Amazing_Character50 — 7 hours ago

Pyams - Self hosted media server (Linux & Windows)

Hey r/selfhosted,

I wanted to share a project I’ve been working on called PYAMS (Python Yet Another Media Server). If you’ve ever used YAMS, you know how great a simple script can be for getting a stack up and running. PYAMS takes that philosophy but with a modern Python CLI, full Podman support (rootless!), and cross-platform compatibility for both Linux and Windows.

🚀 What makes it different?

Most media server scripts just dump a docker-compose.yml and walk away. PYAMS is a full lifecycle manager that handles the "annoying" parts of the setup automatically.

* Zero-Config Automation: It doesn't just start Jellyfin; it uses scripts to automatically create the admin user, set up your "Movies" and "TV" libraries, and complete the startup wizard for you.

* Smart VPN Routing: It uses Gluetun for VPN support but goes a step further by automatically binding qBittorrent to the tun0 interface so you never leak traffic if the VPN drops.

* Rootless Podman: Designed from the ground up for rootless Podman. It handles PUID/PGID and Podman socket paths automatically.

* Cross-Platform: Works natively on Windows and Linux.

* Beautiful CLI: Built with Typer and Rich, so you get clean status tables, progress bars, and full shell tab-completion for service names.

🛠 The Stack

One command (pyams install) gets you:

* Streaming: Jellyfin

* Downloads: qBittorrent (pre-configured with junk file blocklists)

* Automation: Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, Bazarr

* Privacy: Gluetun (VPN) + FlareSolverr (Captcha bypass)

* Maintenance: Watchtower (auto-updates)

GitHub: https://github.com/a-hendo/pyams

Would love to hear what you guys think or what features you’d want to see added!

u/Leap90 — 8 hours ago

What's the most democratically priced VPS for Hermes

I never believed the Mac Mini hype, so I was always searching for VPS options. Hetzner or Hostinger are fine, but they weren’t ideal at the beginning when you struggle to open ports and do a bunch of configurations. I would rather trust someone who has already done the security configurations for me.

So what is everyone using from here ?

This post is just to save newbies from buying overpriced products that are only trying to capitalize on the hype.

reddit.com
u/FunThen4634 — 1 day ago

VibeNVR v1.27.x – self-hosted open-source NVR: ONVIF Edge Motion, Live Audio, advanced PTZ, no cloud

Hey r/selfhosting,

I'm the developer of VibeNVR, an open-source, self-hosted NVR I've been building for the past year. The whole point of the project is simple: your cameras, your data, your server — no cloud account required, no subscription, no telemetry.

🏠 https://vibenvr.org | 🐈 MIT License | 🔗 https://github.com/spupuz/VibeNVR

Just released v1.27.0 and v1.27.1, which I think are the most significant releases so far. Here's a summary.


What is VibeNVR?

A lightweight NVR stack (backend + frontend + engine) that you can run via Docker Compose, bare metal + docker, or a Proxmox LXC+docker. It supports:

  • RTSP/ONVIF cameras (Tapo, Reolink, Hikvision, Dahua, UniFi, etc.)
  • Motion-triggered and continuous recording
  • Live streaming with low-latency WebRTC/HLS
  • PTZ control, privacy masks, multi-user RBAC
  • Local storage, no external dependencies

v1.27.0 – Hardware-First Revolution

The big theme: stop doing in software what the camera hardware already does better.

ONVIF Edge Motion (Zero-CPU Detection) VibeNVR now subscribes to the camera's native ONVIF PullPoint event stream. The camera's own AI/chipset handles motion detection — the NVR just listens for state changes (Rising-Edge logic). This cuts NVR CPU usage for motion to near-zero and reduces motion-event network traffic by ~90%.

Auto-Rebind Lost ONVIF subscriptions are automatically repaired every 4 minutes. Crucial for budget hardware that drops subscriptions silently.

High-Fidelity Live Audio via WebCodecs Direct PCM (ALAW/ULAW) decoding in the browser. Audio and video pipelines are fully independent — a glitch in audio no longer affects the video stream.

Deep Camera Asset Management VibeNVR now reads and persists: manufacturer, model, firmware version, serial number, hardware ID. Handy for managing a mixed fleet.

Advanced PTZ & Intelligent Home Smart 3-stage Home fallback (native command → existing preset → on-the-fly preset creation). Mobile touch controls via PointerEvents (joystick feel). UI auto-hides controls your camera doesn't support.

Security hardening Credentials redacted from all logs. Privacy masks enforce transcoding. Full RBAC Viewer/Admin audit (26/26 tests passed).


v1.27.1 – Self-Healing Stability

Focused on hardening the upgrade path from v1.26.x.

Self-Healing Motion Engine Automatic DB migration on startup: promotes any legacy Off motion state to Always. Fixes a silent bug where cameras were configured for motion recording but ignored all events after upgrading.

ONVIF Session Hardening 5-second async cooldown on subscription re-binding. Eliminates the "Subscription Limit Full" error common on Tapo and Reolink firmware when VibeNVR reconnects too fast.

Fail-Safe Recording Sync Engine now safely ignores malformed motion states rather than halting, ensuring recording continuity even with transient DB inconsistencies.


A lot of effort went into this — especially the low-level ONVIF protocol work, the DB migration strategy and real-world testing across a dozen different camera models. If you self-host your cameras and want full control, give it a try.

🔗 Website & docs: https://vibenvr.org 🔗 Latest release: https://github.com/spupuz/VibeNVR/releases/tag/v1.27.1

Feedback, issues and PRs are very welcome!

reddit.com
u/spupuz — 3 days ago

Which is better, Raspberry pi 4 or an old Laptop?

Hey guys I'm a beginner and I haven't started yet, and I'm Confused between "buying a raspberry pi 4" or using my old Toshiba satalite, or just buy a mini PC? And can you tell me the pros and cons of each choise please! Put in mind: 1 I will not play on the server

2 I don't need more than 512 GB

3 the uses are mainly DNS, VPN, cloud storage

The laptop has: intel core i5 7thg - 4 GB ram - 512GB HDD

I have an external SSD to connect it to the raspberry pi

u/SeasonGrouchy8799 — 4 days ago

May have exposed my server to the open internet. Could have I been hacked?

So, while I was setting up remote access for my home server with Debian running CasaOS, I tried to use easy-wg (WireGuard) to enable that, and I temporarily edited the config file to not use a reverse proxy, possibly accidentally exposing my server to the public internet. After a few minutes, I removed the package and used Tailscale to connect.

When I attempted to reconnect to my server, I couldn’t connect to it, neither with Tailscale enabled or disabled.

Since I don’t really feel like turning the server on again to check if I was hacked, I’m just gonna assume that I was, so I’ll boot the computer from Tails and format everything, then reinstall Debian. I want to know if it was technically possible that I’ve been hacked, if WireGuard exposes the computer to the public internet right after setup and if I should take extra actions with the other devices connected to the network (I had Home Assistant set up btw).

reddit.com
u/Significant_Elk1030 — 3 days ago

Self-hosting a game private server for access both in and out of the house

I am currently working on a project that is resurrecting a dead online game and we got it to work by localhosting on 10.0.2.2 and it works great. It's a lightweight server client, so I am wanting to use an extra PC I have so I can play the game both at home and away from home with my own server.

I was looking into tailscale, but I am not sure if that will work. The "server" PC will only be used for the game server and nothing else, I just want to make sure no one else has access to my network should they grab the IP.

What solutions will work to give me an IP that will direct to my server outside of the house?

reddit.com
u/Yorha_nines — 4 days ago

I self host... A lot. Here's what I have on my Pi 5.

So I've been quietly building out my home lab on my Pi 5 16GB. Here's what I have at a high level:

Public facing:

- Personal website (FastAPI backend, mostly static HTML/CSS but also there is an old school chat page)

- Caddy as a reverse proxy and Cloudflare (free tier) for bringing traffic in

Private:

- Vaultwarden (Self-hosted Bitwarden)

- Custom Twitch overlay

- Personal AI 'pet' (He joins in the chat page. He's Intentionally wrong. So don't hold it against him when he says "2 + 2 = 5")

- Tailscale for private access wherever I go

All of it is containerised with Docker containers, Caddy is handling TLS automatically.

It was a bit of an exploration to be able to get Docker working within the Pi to begin with, but after I got that working, everything was a lot easier.

If anyone wants to check the website, it's https://pdgeorge.com.au but I honestly get the most use out of Vaultwarden.

Currently in the process of setting up a media server. Somehow that has been the last on my list of things to set up...

reddit.com
u/pdgeorge — 5 days ago
▲ 2 r/SelfHosting+1 crossposts

Help secure my docker setup

Hello all. Currently I've docker installed on a VPS. On that VPS I have containers running with caddy to expose a website to the public, in this instance Searxng. For that I've added my user to the docker group to not have to put sudo in the command everytime I do anything.

Let's assume there's an exploit which gains access over my Searxng to my VPS. I think gaining root is easy because the user can run every container as root right? I wonder what best practice is to secure it in this scenario. Do you have any ideas? Would removing the user out of the docker group do the trick?

reddit.com
u/ThatrandomGuyxoxo — 6 days ago

Cloud flare launched a free WordPress alternative called EmDash - built in 60 days by AI

Everyone thought it was an April Fool's joke on April 1st. It wasn't.

Cloudflare open-sourced a brand new CMS called EmDash - free, no traditional hosting bill, and built completely differently from WordPress.

What's actually new:

  • Plugins run in isolated sandboxes - one bad plugin can't crash your site (WordPress's biggest problem)
  • Scales to zero - you pay only when people actually visit, not a flat monthly fee
  • Runs on Cloudflare's free infrastructure - no hosting bill for most sites
  • Built-in AI tools to manage content directly

Should you switch right now? No

WordPress has 60,000+ plugins. EmDash has almost none yet. No eCommerce, no page builders, no mature SEO tools. It's v0.1.0 - very early beta. Even the WordPress founder called it "created to sell more Cloudflare services."

Why it still matters for you:

The "pay $15/month whether anyone visits or not" hosting model is slowly dying. EmDash is a loud signal of where things are heading - pay only for what you actually use.

Traditional hosting isn't dead. But the next 5 years look different.

Bottom line: If you're on WordPress running a real site - stay. If you're a developer starting fresh - worth a look.

Have you tried it? Do you think you're still on WordPress? What's your setup right now?

reddit.com
u/Miserable_Stress_246 — 6 days ago

server

So I've got a bare metal server sitting at home with a pretty large RAM pool (~1TB) and I figured instead of letting it collect dust I'd offer some VPS/VDS instances to people who need them.

This isn't some big hosting company, it's just me. Which honestly means you get way better communication and flexibility than any corporate provider.

Resources I can offer:

RAM anywhere from 2GB to 64GB+ depending on what you need

CPU is flexible, just tell me your workload

SSD storage

Full root access, bring your own ISO or I'll set up whatever distro you want

Honestly good for anything — Nextcloud, game servers, dev environments, running your homelab stuff remotely, whatever. I don't care what you host as long as it's legal.

Pricing is not fixed, I'd rather just talk to you and give a fair quote based on what you actually need instead of forcing you into some preset plan you half-fit into.

If interested just DM me or drop a comment with what you're looking for. I'll reply fast.

reddit.com
u/sid-sid-sidddharth — 6 days ago

where do you host long-running node.js processes?

need hosting for node.js apps with persistent/long-running processes and background workers.serverless doesn’t really fit for this use case.i’ve looked at vps and also hostinger node js hosting, but curious what others are using for this

reddit.com
u/Healthy_Income2545 — 8 days ago

MusicSeerr — self-hosted music request app. Search, download, Navidrome integration, playlist auto-sync. Built with FastAPI + React.

After cancelling Spotify I wanted a proper replacement that the whole family could use — something where my wife and kids could search for music and have it just appear in our library without any faff.

So I built MusicSeerr.

**What it does:**

- Search Spotify, YouTube Music and SoundCloud from one interface

- Click download — yt-dlp grabs it with correct Spotify metadata and album art embedded

- Auto-triggers a Navidrome scan so it appears in your library immediately

- Import entire Spotify or YouTube playlists in one paste — creates Navidrome M3U playlists automatically

- **Playlist monitoring** — save your Spotify playlists and it checks for new tracks every 6 hours, auto-downloads them

- Last.fm integration for personalised recommendations on the Discover page

- Multi-user with invite codes, per-user daily limits, blacklist, admin panel

- No duplicates across users — shared library awareness

- Mobile-first PWA — works great on phone

- Homepage dashboard widget included

**Stack:** FastAPI + SQLite backend, React + Vite frontend, yt-dlp for downloads, Docker Compose

**GitHub:** https://github.com/ipillyx/musicseerr

Happy to answer any questions. Still actively developing it — next up is better playlist sync handling.

---

u/ipillyx — 6 days ago
▲ 1 r/SelfHosting+1 crossposts

Alternatives to kanidm (identity provider/management)?

I currently am using kanidm to manage user accounts, but find the management a bit fickle. I would like to manage users using an idP via Ansible. With kanidm it's very clunky, and while I could write things to make it easier, I am at a point where I am able to migrate rather easily. But idP is a necessity for me.

I have looked at Authelina, but that's a web-only focus (no Linux PAM support without hacks). I am hoping for something lightweight like kanidm (e.g., can be managed via CLI so scripting is easy), but I'm not opposed to a web-based config if needed.

Needs:

  • Linux PAM support
  • Be central authority of server access
  • Allows support for SSH auth (e.g., kanidm can act as a pubkey store for users)
reddit.com
u/ehansen — 9 days ago

Can i/how would i go about converting an old pc into a NAS alternative for self hosted photos?

to give more context, i've been on a ''degoogling'' journey, got rid of most services, the only main link i still have with google is a google photos cloud plan for all my photos/media.

that said, i started looking into non-self hosted alternatives such as ente photos, but is absurdly expensive in my currency.
then started looking at self hosting, but first, i have some personal reservations about it and NAS units are pretty dam expensive were i live due to import laws, yey.

So, with those issues, together with my wish to ''start slowly testing self hosting alternatives'' and the fact that i have an ''office pc'' laying around made me wonder how much of project would be to convert that pc into a NAS alternative thingy, or even if its worth it due to the specs, etc.

talking about specs, the pc has the following:
-intel h61 motherboard
-intel core i5-2500 3.3ghz cpu
-8gb ddr3 ram (2 4gb sticks)
-120gb ssd and a 750gb hd
-400w power supply (also have a 300w slim one)
-besides the pc's storage i have a bunch of 1tb hd's and 2 480gb ssd's

So, is it worth it? if so, how reliable would it be? any cheap ''upgrades'' you folks suggest to make it better? and most important, how would i even begin to do that?

reddit.com
u/kroosnova76 — 5 days ago

Is there a way I can use my ionos domain for a website without having to use the templates or the AI

The layout of this is very new to me and I’m lost on where to start my own website without needing the help of IONOS’ templates or AI

reddit.com
u/Admirable_Pin275 — 6 days ago