sudo: self-hosting for non-techies
One where you decide who to trust, instead of leaving it to an algorithm. I've been self-hosting my own tools on a rented server for a few weeks now, and I was surprised how simple, and how satisfying, it's become. This page explains why the modern internet feels broken, and how you can take back control, piece by piece, with open software and AI as your copilot.
Why
There's a word now for the feeling that every app eventually gets worse: enshittification. It was coined by author and activist Cory Doctorow, describing how platforms decay in three phases. First, they're good to their users. Then users get exploited to benefit advertisers and business customers. Eventually, those get exploited too, to benefit shareholders.
The term is long past niche slang. The American Dialect Society named it their 2023 Word of the Year, and Australia's Macquarie Dictionary jury followed a year later. It clearly struck a nerve.
What bothers me more than the decline itself: an entire generation has never known anything else. Ads everywhere, a feed that decides what you see, "free" services quietly paid for with your own data. For many, that's simply what the internet is.
There used to be a different version of it. Smaller, more personal corners of the web that belonged to you instead of a company. For a long time, that was a topic for nerds: deep technical knowledge, terminals, configuration. But thanks to AI, it has become remarkably accessible. This page shows how much of that you can reclaim, without a computer science degree.
The gradual decline of a service or product, driven by profit-driven prioritization, at the expense of the people it's supposed to serve.
Coined by Cory Doctorow, 2022 · American Dialect Society Word of the Year 2023 · More on Wikipedia ↗
What
Self-hosting means running software on a server that you own, instead of trusting a company to run it for you and change the rules whenever it wants.
The difference is rarely noticeable on a technical level. You still use an app on your phone. The difference is who, on the other end, decides what happens to your data, what the service costs tomorrow, and whether it will even exist next year.
That's the trade, in full: more control, but also more responsibility. Nobody else is patching this server, backing up your data, or on call if something breaks, until you set that up yourself. None of that is a reason to skip self-hosting. It's the honest cost behind the upside above, and Get Started is written with that in mind.
Tools
No need to switch everything at once. Here are six open alternatives to services you probably already use every day. Each one is worth trying on its own. If you're picking a first project, start with something low-stakes like a task list or a read-it-later app, before trusting a password manager or your only photo library to a setup you're still learning.
Your own cloud for files, calendars, and contacts, with apps for every device.
nextcloud.com ↗A password manager compatible with the official Bitwarden apps for phone and browser.
⚠ The community is genuinely split on this one. Great once you trust your setup, but risky as a single point of failure if it's the only way you get into your accounts. Not the best first project.
Project page ↗Automatic photo backup from your phone, with face recognition and a timeline.
⚠ Immich's own docs are blunt about this: don't make it your only copy of your photos. Back up the database too, or you'll keep the photos but lose every album, face tag, and share link.
immich.app ↗Task lists and projects, with native apps for iPhone and Android.
vikunja.io ↗A personal wiki for notes, guides, and anything you want to remember.
bookstackapp.com ↗Saves articles ad-free and permanently for later reading, even if the original goes offline.
readeck.org ↗Get Started
Self-hosting isn't all-or-nothing. Three honest entry points, depending on how hands-on you want to be.
Services like PikaPods run open-source software for you, starting at a few euros a month. No terminal, no server. You click "Install" and get a ready-made address.
Your own hardware at home: a small mini PC or NAS. The most involved but most independent path, for anyone who really wants to go deep.
How: Deep Dives
Short, understandable explainers on the concepts behind every self-hosted service. This series keeps growing.
The basics: what a server is, what a terminal does, and why "root access" isn't black magic.
How containers work, and why they make self-hosting so much more relaxed than it used to be.
Domains, HTTPS, and deploys: how a server in a data center becomes your own, reachable app.
The unglamorous part that actually matters: firewalls, automatic updates, and a backup routine you can trust.
Sources
This page keeps growing. Let me know what's missing, or what worked for you.
escher.konstantin@gmail.com