Hi all, I’ve been noticing a pattern in self-hosting communities, and I’m curious if others see it too.
Whenever someone asks for a more beginner-friendly solution, something with a UI, automated setup, or fewer manual configs, there’s often a response like:
“If you can’t configure Docker, reverse proxies, and Yaml files, you shouldn’t be self-hosting.”
Sometimes it feels like a portion of the community views complexity as a badge of honour. Don’t get me wrong, I love the technical side of self-hosting. I enjoy tinkering, breaking things, fixing them, learning along the way. That’s how most of us got into it.
But here’s the question: Is gatekeeping slowing down the adoption of self-hosting?
If we want more people to own their data, escape Big Tech, and embrace open-source alternatives, shouldn’t we welcome solutions that lower the entry barrier?
There’s room for everyone:
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people who want full control and custom setups,
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people who want semi-manual but guided,
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and people who want it to work with minimal friction.
Just like not every Linux user compiles from source, but they’re still Linux users.
Where do you stand? Should self-hosting stay DIY-only or is there value in easier, more accessible ways to self-host?
My project focuses on building a tool that makes self-hosting more accessible without sacrificing data ownership, so I genuinely want your honest take before releasing it more widely.
I do not agree
Yes, it sometimes can be difficult and frustrating, but so long as someone, anyone, is willing to try and learn and fail and retry, they can get my help
Have you forgotten that you too started at 0?
Not at all. In fact I remember the day my server was hacked because I’d left a service running that had a vulnerability in it. I remember changing passwords, calling my bank to ensure there had been no fraudulent charges, etc. I remember “war driving” to find vulnerable WiFi networks. I remember changing default passwords on a service setup by a client of mine.
As I said - it’s not gate-keeping it’s experience.
Teaching is “gate-keeping” apparently. You can’t tell somebody that they need to learn something! You just need to give them a link to a url and say “run this thing as root and your stuff will work - totally not a scam tho”.
Was this server on an internal network?