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:

  • people who want full control and custom setups,

  • people who want semi-manual but guided,

  • 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.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.caEnglish
    151·
    2 days ago

    I think much of the gatekeeping is over concern that if you mess up, you could unknowingly be allowing a sophisticated hacker to access all the data on your network, without any obvious signs. And maybe some people don’t want to field noob questions like “I clicked something and now the GUI gives a 😕 and doesn’t work anymore, what do I do?”.

    There is a skill floor, I would say similarly that you wouldn’t be ready to install Linux yourself if you don’t get suspicious when a .iso download gives you a .exe file instead.

    I think Yunohost is a decent solution for beginners that avoids as much of the nitty-gritty as possible. Louis Rossman has made a massive guide that’s about as close as an IKEA step-by-step as you can get with this stuff. We should be encouraging people to learn, but there is a sense of reticence to have people get too in over their heads due to cybersecurity reasons.

    Edit: linked the guide