My self-hosted setup

2 years ago I started to get more and more into self-hosted and I tried a few setups before I found the current one that works pretty well.

When deciding if I am satisfied with that I use the following criteria:

  • Is it (easily) repeatable?
  • Is it simple to use?
  • Do I have enough skills to operate it? If not, would it be too difficult (or too long) to learn that I’d give up?

With those in mind I’ve ended up:

  • using DigitalOcean as a provider and using their cheapest droplet that costs me ~5/6€ per month and gives me enough power to run the few services I have at the moment. The main benefit of using DigitalOcean is that is just too simple and does not require any additional services to have a simple server up and running (firewalls, ingress, load balancer…).
  • using CapRover as a PaaS so that I don’t have to manage docker-compose (actually, swarm) and the ngnix in front of it. Also, it comes with many one-click apps that you can install with exactly one click. And, last but not least, it integrates with let’s encrypt and with the click of a button you get free HTTPS. I might write something more on CapRover because I just love it so much.
  • buying the domain on namecheap.com (it costs me ~10€ per year) but I don’t use their DNS (I used this guide to link it).

You can try to replicate it just by buying a cheap domain and creating a new droplet in DigitalOcean. When creating it you can choose one that has already CapRover installed and configured. In a matter of a few minutes you’ll be able to deploy your first service.