I’m not affiliated with this in any way but saw it posted at the other place & thought fellow Lemmyzens might like to take a look.
I always find it quite hard to answer “favorite” apps as some infrastructure critical self hosted apps aren’t as sexy as others which sit front & centre so I feel they often don’t seem to get as much credit or attention (such as NGinX/DuckDNS compared to Immich/Jellyfin etc)
Hi everyone,
Like in previous years, I’m running a survey about self-hosting. The focus is on your favorite self-hosted apps, but there are plenty of other (optional) questions too. The top five app lists are free response fields, you don’t have to select the suggestions.
Link to take the survey:
https://survey.deployn.de/s/self-host-2026
More info:
The survey is anonymous. Like last year, results will be published in aggregated form. I’m currently planning to publish them in December.
It takes about 10-25 minutes.
Some of you asked for more questions in the comments. I added a lot at first, then realized it took 45 minutes to fill out properly. So I threw some out again, but there are still quite a few. The survey now has a core section that mainly covers the MVPs (your 5 favorite apps), and you can switch on other modules if you want. Almost every question is optional and can be skipped. If you answer everything at a reasonable pace, it takes around 20 minutes.
The proprietary survey tool caused new problems every year, so last year I switched to HeyForm while the survey was already running. That wasn’t ideal for my purposes either, so this year the survey runs on a new app. It should also make entering your apps faster.
It’s still easier to fill out on a desktop computer.
Thank you in advance for participating.
I can’t self host I’m not smart enough :-(
A lot of it is doing what other people tell you to do. This may be encouraging or not, but I consider myself fairly versed in tech and there is still troubleshooting where it feels like trying things at random rather than any skilled insight to a solution. The take-away is it’s okay to skip an app that has terrible documentation and you can’t figure out. Start with something that has good tutorials and if that doesn’t work, try something else. If you can get that up and running those skills will carry over.
Don’t be so down on yourself mate, start with the Linux upskill challenge then look at some Docker YouTube tutorials. You will be there in no time.
Whether you think you are or aren’t smart enough, you’re right!
If you want to do it, read up and just try it. Throw a Linux install on an old desktop or laptop and try to follow a guide and make it work. It seems daunting, but most anyone can follow a guide and get to a usable product.
Legitimate feedback for the survey.
I’m not either but I still do it.
I didn’t know anything about self-hosting when I started either. There is a learning curve but it’s not difficult, just takes some time and is totally worth it to own your data, have a little more privacy and to stop shelling out money for subscriptions, etc. Totally worth it. I’ve been self hosting for almost 2 years now and have learned alot but still learning every day. Theres alot I still don’t know and still encounter issues at times but it doesn’t keep me from figuring it out and to keep self-hosting. Go for it, you won’t regret it.
I’m a year or so longer on my self-hosting journey than you, but also get humbled like a noob on a regular basis. I was a Linux user for over a decade when I first started self-hosting but I knew nothing about networking because I always lived places where someone else managed the internet. I’ve learned a lot since then, but I have a lot left to learn. It really does take time to get a comprehensive understanding of what you are doing and why, but the good news is you can learn a lot through osmosis and we are already doing it just by being here.
We are all learning and we all make mistakes. It’s part of the journey.
yunohost + ebay or old office desktop (or literally any computer you can get your hands on for cheap). There’s a lot of people with very strong opinions but you really don’t need much.