2025 self-hosting wrapped

Let’s review which self-hosting service really worked for me in 2025.

I rarely talk about the one that just work. That’s the problem with good work … if something just works, and doesn’t bother you… you tend to forget about it even exists because using it is more a habit than an effort.

Paperless NGX

My almost daily work horse is Paperless NGX. It’s my default for all documents. My local printer-scanner has the Paperless Inbox set as default scanning target. All incoming snail mail that is worth archiving get’s scanned and sent to Paperless.

Paperless does the tagging automatically (with local machine learning models). Sometimes I have to correct a correspondent or a tag. But mostly it get’s it right.

Immich

This is my Google Photos replacement. A client on my iPhone constantly backs up my photos to my self-hosted Immich instance. It archives and indexes the photos (also with local machine learning models) so that I can search for faces and other objects.

NextCloud

My document sync backend. Mostly using it share files between devices and host contacts. Not using any fancy features or plugins. Really just for file sharing.

Occasionally sharing files with 3rd parties via temporary links.

My Joplin notes and OmniFocus files are synced via the NextCloud WebDAV interface.

Mastodon

Of course… one of the most widespread Fediverse software out there.

LinkDing

Hosting my own Bookmark service for years. Using the robust Links software for this.

BookWyrm

Another Fediverse service. This one around sharing books one has read or wants to read including reviews and quotes. Very lovely developer with great support for his community.

Wallabag

Wanna read an article later in a distraction free interface? Use Wallabag!

FreshRSS

This is my default RSS-Reader. Rock solid, self-hosted RSS fetcher.

Forgejo

Quitely serving all my public & private git repos. Simple, elegant, robust. Don’t need more

Peertube

being able to host your own video streaming to embed videos in various websites … awesome. And it’s also able to fetch and archive videos from various sources (online mediatheks, YouTube etc.)

WordPress

Of course WordPress … this is what you’re currently reading. And with the ActivityPub Plugin it’s even part of the fediverse.

Pixelfed

The Instagram alternative in the Fediverse. There is a bit of a love/hate relationship with this. It works. But there is not really much development going on for the self-hosted version… despite the buzz around it.