(This is a repost of this reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1fbv41n/what_are_the_things_that_makes_a_selfhostable/, I wanna ask this here just in case folks in this community also have some thoughts about it)

What are the things that makes a selfhostable app/project project good? Maybe another way to phrase this question is, what are the things that makes a project easier to self-host?

I have been developing an application that focuses on being easy to selfhost. I have been looking around for existing and already good project such as paperless-ngx, Immich, etc.

From what I gather the most important thing are:

  • Good docs, this is probably the most important. The developer must document how to self-host
  • Less runtime dependency–I’m not sure about this one, but the less it depends on other services the better
  • Optional OIDC–I’m even less sure about this one, and I’m also not sure about implementing this feature on my own app as it’s difficult to develop. It seems that after reading this subreddit/community, I concluded that lots of people here prefer to separate identity/user pool and app service. This means running a separate service for authentication and authorization.

What do you think? Another question is, are there any more good project that can be used as a good example of selfhostable app?

Thank you

Some redditors responded on the post:

  • easy to install, try, and configure with sane defaults
  • availabiity of image on dockerhub
  • screenshots
  • good GUI

I also came across this comment from Hacker News lately, and I think about it a lot

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40523806

This is what self-hosted software should be. An app, self-contained, (essentially) a single file with minimal dependencies.

Not something so complex that it requires docker. Not something that requires you to install a separate database. Not something that depends on redis and other external services.

I’ve turned down many self-hosted options due to the complexity of the setup and maintenance.

Do you agree with this?

  • @[email protected]English
    13•23 hours ago

    Not something so complex that it requires docker.

    I disagree. Docker makes things a lot easier and I’m going to use it regardless.

    My rule is pretty simple: not PHP. PHP requires configuring a web server, so either that’s embedded in the docker image, (violates the “do one thing” rule of docker) or it’s pushed onto the user. This falls under the dependencies part, but I uniquely hate dealing with standalone web servers and I don’t mind configuring databases, so I called it out.

    I actually tried switching to OCIS from Nextcloud specifically to avoid PHP, but OCIS is even more complex so I bailed.

    Give me an example configuration that works out of the box and detailed documentation about options and I’ll be happy. Don’t make me configure a web server any particular way, and do let me handle TLS myself. If you do that, I’ll probably check it out.