For quite some time now, many software developers have shifted their projects into managed clouds. There was certainly a very logical explanation behind this move. It was not necessary to manage the server itself, the hardware, and the complex infrastructure in order to get an app up and running. This approach appealed to many.
But something truly odd is happening within the development community these days. More and more developers are interested in self-hosting. They simply need to learn everything about the inner workings of their apps.
This is not a matter of disregarding cloud computing. This is about being more wise in the choices of infrastructural solutions. For instance, software developers who require dependable European infrastructural solutions could opt for an affordable dedicated server in Poland for hosting applications, databases, or business processes.
In case of a managed platform, you will have someone else making all of the infrastructure-related decisions for you. While it can be useful in terms of saving time, it can also be quite restrictive.
Your version of software might be restricted, or the configuration of your server will not provide you with a possibility to use specific storage and deployment techniques. Moreover, there are some vendors who do not facilitate the process of transferring workloads elsewhere in case you grow too reliant on them.
Self-hosting, on the other hand, gives you the ability to have a completely different degree of flexibility. It allows you to install any operating system and any service. It lets you configure your own database, network and servers' resources.
It becomes essential if your application has some specific requirements. In other words, your application needs a specific database plugin, or you wish to use several open source applications. Maybe you just want to customize the deployment process.
The pricing of cloud solutions may seem favorable during the development of your startup. You get billed based on the resources that you use, and you can scale up when you see that traffic is growing.
Still, infrastructure expenses may be harder to estimate as your solution evolves. Your expenses will include storage, bandwidth, computing power, database requests, backup costs, and any other services you use. The successful release of your solution may bring unexpected traffic growth, and you'll need to adjust your budget accordingly. Self-hosting is another option.
In most cases, a dedicated or a virtual private server has a well-defined monthly cost that includes a specific amount of computing power, storage, and other resources. You know what resources you get and can calculate the infrastructure costs based on that amount.
Self-hosting is not automatically cheaper. You will still have to deal with administrative costs, backup, monitoring, electricity, service upgrades, etc. But you have a much better idea about the costs that you'll incur and can calculate them accurately in advance.
The 2025 State of FinOps report highlights why this matters. The FinOps Foundation identified workload optimization and waste reduction as leading priorities for organizations managing cloud spending. Developers increasingly need to understand how their applications perform and what their infrastructure actually costs.
This may include any customer data, business information, statistics, or even any documents stored within the system. Obviously, you would like to know where this information is located and to whom it is accessible. Managed hosting makes it easy to control your infrastructure; however, it brings one more company into the picture.
With self-hosting, you have greater flexibility regarding controlling your storage, access, servers, and backups. The choice of the location of the hosting is made according to your business needs, either legal or technological. This aspect becomes particularly important for companies located in Europe.
The General Data Protection Regulation regulates the processing of personal data and imposes certain provisions in regard to personal data transfer outside the EEA.
The use of infrastructure in Europe allows your business to handle data location and hosting. Nevertheless, be aware of the fact that the European hosting site doesn't automatically mean your compliance with GDPR.
We believe this is one of the strongest reasons to evaluate self-hosting. You gain a clearer understanding of your infrastructure and can make more informed decisions about your data.
Developers love tools that solve real problems. Many of those tools are open-source projects that offer powerful alternatives to commercial platforms.
Consider applications such as:
- Nextcloud: A platform for file storage, sharing, and collaboration.
- Gitea: A lightweight option for hosting Git repositories. Vaultwarden: A self-hosted alternative which is compatible with Bitwarden clients. Jellyfin: Media server for organization and streaming of personal media content. Grafana: Platform for monitoring and visualization of infrastructure metrics.
This is a way for developers to have more options to create their environment based on their real needs. You may use various services, configure them, and connect applications without relying solely on one business solution.
Open source software allows experimenting too. You may try some new service, analyze its configuration, and study how all its elements function. It may be particularly gratifying for developers who like to understand technology they use.
Vendor lock-in is an issue that tends to come up in situations where applications rely on specific cloud solutions from vendors.
For instance, think of the case where your application requires a database, storage, authentication, and deployment services that are all tied specifically to one cloud provider. Everything goes well until you start thinking about switching.
Suddenly, the switch has become a huge effort in terms of software engineering because you will have to do things such as rewriting integrations, moving databases, changing the APIs, and refactoring the architecture.
However, self-hosting reduces the lock-in problem by allowing the use of more generic technologies such as Linux, PostgreSQL, Docker, and other open-source monitoring tools. Yet, vendor lock-in doesn't simply go away with self-hosting.
Our recommendation is simple: think about portability before your infrastructure becomes difficult to change.
Yet there is another benefit which should not be ignored - running your own systems helps to learn how to be a good infrastructure engineer. Managing your own systems gives you practical experience of working with Linux, networks, DNS, firewalls, SSL-certs, databases, backups and system monitoring.
Also, you learn what would happen in case of some problems. Failed deployment, filled disk space or a random problem with some system can teach you a lot of stuff which cannot be found in any manual.
This knowledge is useful even if you return to using cloud services in the future. Understanding infrastructure gives you an ability to design better architecture and to troubleshoot performance problems.
Running your own systems helps you to stop thinking only about writing code and think about the entire process of creating applications.
The use of self-hosting used to be extremely complicated for the user. All that had to be done manually and required hours for each service. Nowadays the situation has changed completely.
There is a solution which makes packaging and delivery of applications much simpler - Docker. Docker Compose allows you to manage multiple containers using configuration files. There are some reverse proxies like Nginx or Traefik which make traffic routing easier. There are some monitoring solutions which allow us to monitor the system and its performance.
These tools don't remove the need for technical skills, but they greatly simplify lots of routine tasks. It is also possible to find plenty of documentation and an active community of open-source projects which deal with lots of self-hosted applications. It becomes much easier to play with that stuff even when you have created your very first home lab.
Self-hosting is not necessarily the way to go for every single application. You will need to evaluate your needs in terms of workload, budget, technical knowledge, and business needs. Self-hosting will work best in cases where:
- You run applications that require consistent resource consumption。
- You require more control over your business critical data.
- You rely heavily on open-source software for your projects.
- You require custom server setups.
- You need to minimize dependency on proprietary solutions.
- You have sufficient technical capacity for maintaining the infrastructure.
Alternatively, managed cloud services might suit you better in case you need quick global scalability, managed databases, advanced high availability features, or minimal infrastructure management.
At the same time, you might consider a hybrid solution. For instance, you could host your application on your own server and utilize managed cloud services for email delivery, object storage, or specific monitoring.
Final Thoughts
Self-hosting is a more developed approach to the software development process. It does not have to make any decisions about the infrastructure just because they are fashionable or handy. Cost calculation, security needs analysis, data ownership and long-term technology selection would become very important.
There are lots of advantages of self-hosting regarding control, customizability, portability and transparency of the infrastructure. There is no doubt that self-hosting requires commitment. Every member of the team is accountable for updates, monitoring, backup and security of the infrastructure.
We don't see self-hosting as an alternative to cloud services but rather as another useful resource for developers. At the same time, the best infrastructure is not always the one with the most features or with a fancy brand.
Comments
Loading comments…