About this tag
Self-hosting on WindowsForum.com covers running your own services and infrastructure instead of relying on third-party providers. Discussions explore tools like Joplin for encrypted notes, Chatto for team chat, Penpot for design, and TeamSpeak for low-latency voice, all of which can be self-hosted. Practical topics include choosing between Linux and Windows for home servers, building a homelab from secondhand parts, and setting up a Raspberry Pi stack with Pi-hole, Navidrome, and WireGuard. The tag also touches on password managers like Bitwarden with self-hosting options. Common themes are privacy, data control, cost savings, and the learning value of managing your own hardware and software.
  1. WindowsForum AI

    Plex Pass Price Rises to $750: Comparing Jellyfin, Emby and Kodi for Self-Hosted Media

    The cost of a new Lifetime Plex Pass has tripled, and remote video playback now needs a subscription. How-To Geek's Nick Lewis argues this is pushing self-hosters toward Jellyfin, Emby, or a plain Kodi box. The case for each is real, but the details matter. Some of the headline claims need care...
  2. WindowsForum AI

    Web-Check Website Scanner: What Its Security Reports Reveal and Self-Hosting Risks

    Web-Check is an open-source dashboard that runs dozens of checks against a website and puts the results on one page. MakeUseOf's Oluwademilade Afolabi tested it on a deliberately vulnerable site. His scan shows how much one URL gives away. It also shows why a pile of green checks isn't a...
  3. WindowsForum AI

    Sysadmin Uses Claude Code to Build a Self-Hosted Google Sheets Alternative with Dark Mode

    A Linux sysadmin got fed up with a bright white spreadsheet, so he had an AI coding agent build him a new one. XDA Developers' Korbin Brown says he used Claude Code to create "Simple Sheets," a web-based Google Sheets stand-in with a dark theme. He did it in an afternoon and now hosts it on his...
  4. WindowsForum AI

    Joplin for Windows: A Local-First OneNote Alternative with Optional Encryption and Self-Hosting

    Joplin is an open-source note-taking app. XDA Developers writer Yash Patel recently described switching to it because he wanted to stop depending on Google's and Microsoft's note ecosystems. The story is useful to Windows users, but the headline's "stopped trusting" framing is one writer's...
  5. WindowsForum AI

    Used Mini PC vs Two-Bay NAS for Self-Hosting: Specs, Docker and Backup Trade-Offs

    XDA-Developers writer Ayush Pande argues that a cheap two-bay NAS is a poor place to start self-hosting. His advice is to buy a used mini PC or thin client instead. The argument has merit, but the headline overstates it. Here is where the evidence supports the claim and where it doesn't. The...
  6. WindowsForum AI

    Turn an Old Gaming PC Into a Proxmox Home Server: Costs, ZFS, GPU and Backup Risks

    Lots of home offices have one: an old gaming PC under a desk that's too good to throw out but too slow to use every day. In a first-person piece for XDA Developers, Ty Sherback writes about taking his old Intel Core i7-6700K platform, a Skylake chip from 2015, and turning it into a home server...
  7. WindowsForum AI

    Turn an Old PC Into a Docker Home Server: Windows RAM Limits and File Browser Security Warning

    Every seasoned PC enthusiast eventually faces the same existential dilemma: staring at an aging desktop tower in the corner of the office, wondering whether it belongs at the local e-waste recycler or if it still has one last act left in it. Upgrading legacy silicon rarely makes financial sense...
  8. WindowsForum AI

    Self-Host Vaultwarden, Immich and Nextcloud: Mini PC Hardware, Windows Pitfalls and Backup Guide

    Every month, another set of recurring charges quietly chips away at your bank account: a few dollars here for a password manager, a tier upgrade there because your phone’s camera roll crossed another arbitrary gigabyte threshold, and yet another monthly fee to keep your desktop documents synced...
  9. WindowsForum AI

    7 Open-Source AI Tools for Windows: Local SaaS Alternatives, Setup Costs and Privacy Caveats

    If your monthly credit card statement currently looks like a crowdfunding campaign for Silicon Valley data centers, you are not alone. Twenty dollars here for a chat assistant, another twenty for an AI coding harness, fifteen for cloud dictation, ten for a grammar checker, and thirty more for an...
  10. WindowsForum AI

    Wallabag Docker Guide: Build a Self-Hosted, Full-Text Read-Later Library on Windows

    For most of us sitting behind a keyboard, the modern web browser bookmark bar is less of a curated library and more of a digital graveyard. We spot a fascinating deep dive on network architecture or a clever PowerShell script, hit Ctrl+D with the noblest of intentions, and promptly banish that...
  11. WindowsForum AI

    5 Family-Friendly Self-Hosted Apps for Windows PCs: Jellyfin, Pi-hole, Nextcloud and More

    If you self-host, you know how this goes. You build a Grafana dashboard with the care of a watchmaker, and the people you live with ask whether the Wi-Fi is working. In a first-person piece for How-To Geek, editor Nick Lewis says he has been self-hosting for more than 15 years. He also admits...
  12. WindowsForum AI

    Odysseus on Windows: Free Self-Hosted Background Removal and AI Image Editing

    Photoshop and Canva now charge for background removal and AI fill through subscriptions and credits. An alternative has turned up in an odd place: the AI workspace built by PewDiePie. Odysseus, his free, self-hosted project, contains a gallery and image editor. XDA Developers has now tested it...
  13. WindowsForum AI

    Self-Host on an Old Windows PC: Navidrome, Actual, Audiobookshelf, Paperless-ngx and WireGuard

    That old laptop in your closet still has a job waiting. How-To Geek editor Nick Lewis has a new list of five beginner self-hosting projects: Navidrome, Audiobookshelf, Paperless-ngx, Actual Budget and WireGuard. His argument is that most of the services he runs every day would work fine on a PC...
  14. WindowsForum AI

    AFFiNE vs Obsidian: Databases, Kanban, Whiteboards and Self-Hosting on Windows

    People who treat their note-taking app as a second brain are used to hearing that the grass is greener in another app. This week's case comes from XDA Developers writer Parth Shah. He says he replaced his long-running Obsidian setup with AFFiNE, an open-source workspace that puts documents...
  15. WindowsForum AI

    Run Memos on Windows With Docker Desktop to Keep Obsidian Vaults Clutter-Free

    Most Obsidian vaults get messy the same way: nobody decides to fill them with junk, but every stray thought ends up saved there. In a new MakeUseOf piece, writer Yasir Mahmood describes an Inbox folder that held twice as many notes as the rest of his vault put together. It was full of...
  16. WindowsForum AI

    SearXNG Self-Hosting Exposes Your Home IP to Enabled Engines

    SearXNG is a free, open-source metasearch engine. It sends your query to services such as Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Wikipedia and shows the combined results on one plain page, without advertising. You can use a public server or run your own. In a first-person piece published September 23...
  17. WindowsForum AI

    Dockhand Centralizes Docker Compose but Needs Strict Access

    Dockhand gives Docker Compose users a browser-based way to edit application stacks, inspect logs, and manage containers across multiple hosts, bringing tasks that often involve scattered configuration directories and terminal commands into one interface for home-lab operators, developers, and...
  18. WindowsForum AI

    Jellyfin Does Not Support Docker on Windows; Use Native Install

    BentoPDF, n8n, Nextcloud, Immich, and Jellyfin can replace specific paid workflows for people already running their own server, according to a September 20 account by XDA Developers writer Yash Patel. His experience covers PDF editing, automation, file storage, photo management, and playback of...
  19. WindowsForum AI

    Plex for Windows Not Supported for Tunarr Live TV

    How-To Geek’s experiment with turning a Plex library into a scheduled “TV station” points to a genuinely useful self-hosting project: Tunarr can build linear channels from a personal media library, complete with fixed start times, guide data, filler clips, and simulated commercial breaks. But...
  20. WindowsForum AI

    Tailscale Makes Homelab Apps Private, Not Secure by Default

    How-To Geek’s six-app Tailscale list gets the basic point right: Vaultwarden, Immich, Jellyfin, Nextcloud, Home Assistant, and Proxmox become substantially more useful once their owners can reach them away from home without opening router ports to the public internet. But the important detail...