Pages Tagged “Self-Hosting”
Reviews
- Agate (Gemini Server) ★★★★★ A simple Gemini Protocol server for static files. Fast, stable, easy, and running the Gemini version of this site.
- ClassicPress ★★★★☆ More than just WordPress Minus Gutenberg! Familiar, super-easy to migrate, and can work with most of the WP plugin/theme ecosystem.
- DAVx⁵ ★★★★★ Background app that syncs your non-Google cloud accounts with your Android system calendars and contacts.
- DreamHost ★★★★☆ Rock solid web hosting with managed VPS and good support. Hosting this page right now. Cloud computing has been less stable in my experience.
- Elk (Mastodon App) ★★★★☆ Alternate web front-end for Mastodon and compatible servers. Slightly more user-friendly, if a bit buggy, especially on non-Mastodon servers like GoToSocial.
- Enafore ★★★★☆ Minimalist web front-end for Mastodon and compatible servers. Not as capable as Elk, but more stable.
- Floccus Bookmarks Sync ★★★★★ Very flexible, syncs across many different desktop browsers and mobile devices, and for privacy it can run on your own server or encrypted on another cloud service.
- GoToSocial ★★★★☆ A lightweight Fediverse server, with a clean web interface for viewing public posts. Compatible with Mastodon apps and interacts with other ActivityPub platforms.
- Jellyfin ★★★★★ Great for playing music across my local network, doesn’t phone home to a cloud or try to upsell subscriptions.
- KeePass Password Managers ★★★★★ KeePassXC, its browser extension, and KeePass2Android are a nice, clean set of apps to manage your passwords on your OWN desktop and mobile devices, auto-fill websites and apps, and sync over your own server or cloud provider.
- Linode ★★★★★ Flexible, inexpensive cloud hosting with a variety of Linux options. Rock solid so far!
- Nextcloud Bookmarks ★★★★☆ Online web app for managing bookmarks using your own Nextcloud server. I usually use it indirectly as the storage for syncing via Floccus.
- Nextcloud Calendar ★★★★★ Self-hosted, web-based calendar that syncs easily with other apps and has completely replaced Google Calendar for me.
- Nextcloud News ★★★★★ Simple web-based news reader for Nextcloud, easy to install and syncs with multiple desktop and mobile clients.
- Nextcloud Notes ★★★★★ Simpler than Google Keep, more private, with human-readable data that syncs quickly and cleanly with your devices.
- OpenTasks ★★★★☆ Simple to-do list that works great with a Nextcloud server or local storage on your phone.
- Phanpy (Mastodon App) ★★★★★ An app for Mastodon (and other Fediverse sites) that cuts through the clutter. Runs anywhere in a web browser, or can be installed to your device’s home page as a PWA.
- Plex ★★★☆☆ It does let you stream your local media library, but it insists on connecting to a cloud account and pushes you to buy a subscription, even if you’re not using its remote services.
- Postmarks ★★★★☆ A self-hosted public bookmarks/linkblogging server (think Delicious or Pinboard) that can interact with Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse.
- Snac ★★★★☆ Extremely bare-bones social networking server that runs on low-resource machines, works on the web without cookies or JavaScript, and still interacts through ActivityPub with Mastodon, GoToSocial and other Fediverse software.
- Wallabag ★★★★☆ A read-it-later type service built on open-source software that you can run yourself if you want (but don’t have to). Not as polished as Pocket, but it’s sticking around, and you know it’s not using your saved bookmarks to train a recommendation engine.
- WordPress Block Editor ★☆☆☆☆ This is not distraction-free writing. Every time I try to use it I get frustrated and switch back to the classic editor…because I can USE it.
- WordPress Plugins (and ClassicPress too!) Some WordPress and ClassicPress plugins I’ve used and which ones I recommend.
Tech Tips
- Database Upgrade Problems! MySQL 5 → 8 with WordPress My webhost upgraded their database server from MySQL 5 to 8. The upgrade itself went smoothly, but I did find some after-effects on my WordPress sites
- Getting Logged Out of ClassicPress ClassicPress uses a strict mode for admin cookies, so following a link to your dashboard from another site requires you to log in again.
- Jetpack Related Posts Missing on an SSL WordPress Site? (Obsolete) If you can’t get Jetpack’s related posts to load on self-hosted WordPress running HTTPS, check your SSL settings to see if you need to disable RC4.
- Moving WordPress: Finding and Updating Old Paths How to find every last reference to the old path in the entire site and config because WordPress stores absolute paths all over the place and some configurations will break if you don’t update it.
- Nextcloud Tasks: Mobile, Recurring, and Compatibility Gotchas Which desktop, web and mobile applications have and haven’t worked well for me since switching my personal to-do lists to Nextcloud Tasks.
- PHP5 and WP Cache 2 (Obsolete) Finding and fixing errors with WordPress’ WP Cache plugin and PHP5.
- Slow or Broken Sync with Nextcloud: Token does not exist Some applications have trouble syncing unless you assign them an app-specific password.
- WordPress + ActivityPub in a Subdirectory This rewrite rule lets other Fediverse sites find your blog through the ActivityPub plugin, without breaking Let’s Encrypt renewals.
- WordPress 5.7 Upgrade Breaks Posts with Emoji in the Title? Posts with emoji in the title mysteriously stopped displaying anywhere on the blog except the edit form, possibly due to mismatched character sets.
- WordPress Broken on PHP 5.2 Again (Obsolete) WordPress 2.1.1 should have fixed the PHP 5.2 problems, but not if you’re also using the internal cache.
- WordPress Name+Number Login/Registration Attacks I was seeing a lot of brute force login attacks with odd usernames, and found that they were actually trying to register and kept trying the wrong form.
Blog Posts
- Online Permanence: Host Your Own or Use a Service?
What you put on Facebook or Twitter will die when they do (or sooner, at their whim). What you host yourself will stay…as long as YOU can keep it up.
- Random Thoughts on Self-Hosting
I’ve been thinking about what it means to self-host a service, and that there are degrees even within that. I have a self-hosted WordPress blog in the sense that I manage an installation of WordPress, but I run it on a VPS at a web host. It’s not as self-hosted as someone running a server […]
- The Google+ Rescue Mission
In advance of Google shuttering their third(?) attempt at a social network, Google+, I’ve retrieved a full archive, and I’ve trawled through it looking for anything that I want to keep online after the shutdown. Most of them were cross-posts of one sort or another, or (early on, especially) the kind of random social media […]
- Why am I still blogging? (And why about this stuff?)
This blog has been around 15 years. Social media has mostly moved on, to silos like Facebook and Twitter. People don’t follow random personal blogs. Topic-focused sites are what people actually read, and even that mainly following links from silos. Meanwhile there are so many major things going on that make the things I post […]
- Photobucket Lockdown: Another Chunk of Internet History Dies
Back in the old days, before you could upload photos straight to Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr, if you wanted to share pictures online you had to host them yourself. Or if you used something like LiveJournal, you could use their limited image galleries. But with space and bandwidth at a premium in those days, […]
- HTTPS is a lot easier than it used to be.
The cost of implementing HTTPS on your own site is a lot lower now than it used to be. For instance: Let’s Encrypt offers free certificates for any site, and some web hosts have software integration that make ordering, verifying and installing a certificate as simple as checking a box and clicking a button. (I’m […]
- What makes online posts feel “permanent?”
Facebook is testing a feature to make their posts less permanent, but they already feel ephemeral (even though they aren’t). My thoughts on why that is.
- Saving Ideas from the Contracting Blogosphere
Special-purpose online communities have given way to spots on major hubs like Facebook. I’ve moved a lot of old content from those networks to this site.
- Who Owns Your Online Profile? Thoughts on Instagram, Facebook, and Blogging
When you live your online life through a social network, you give up control. If Facebook is no longer around 10 years from now, what happens to all your photos?