5 Apps You Should Self-Host Right Now (And How)

Not every app is worth self-hosting. Some are too complex, some aren’t meaningfully better than their cloud counterparts, and some are just pain for pain’s sake.

But these five? These are the apps that make self-hosting click. They’re easy to deploy, immediately useful, and save you real money or give you real privacy gains. Each one replaces a paid service you’re probably using right now.

Let’s dive in.

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1. Vaultwarden — Your Password Manager

Replaces: Bitwarden ($10/year), 1Password ($36/year), LastPass ($36/year) RAM usage: ~50 MB Difficulty: ⭐ Easy

If you self-host only one thing, make it your password manager. Vaultwarden is a lightweight, Rust-based implementation of the Bitwarden server API. It’s fully compatible with all official Bitwarden apps (desktop, mobile, browser extensions) but uses a fraction of the resources.

Why Self-Host Your Password Manager?

Your passwords are the keys to your digital life. Do you really want them on someone else’s server? With Vaultwarden:

• Your vault data stays on your server — no third-party breach can expose it
• No subscription fees — forever free
• Full control over your encryption and backup strategy
• Works with all Bitwarden clients — seamless experience

Deploy Vaultwarden

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  vaultwarden:
    image: vaultwarden/server:latest
    container_name: vaultwarden
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data
    environment:
      - DOMAIN=https://vault.yourdomain.com
      - SIGNUPS_ALLOWED=true  # Set to false after creating your account!
      - WEBSOCKET_ENABLED=true
    ports:
      - "8080:80"

If you’re using a reverse proxy like Traefik or Coolify, configure the labels accordingly and remove the ports section.

Post-Deploy Setup

1. Open https://vault.yourdomain.com and create your account
2. Immediately set SIGNUPS_ALLOWED=false in your compose file and redeploy
3. Install Bitwarden apps on your devices and point them to your server (Settings → Self-hosted → Server URL)
4. Import your existing passwords from your current manager
5. Set up regular backups of the ./data directory

Backup tip: Vaultwarden stores everything in a SQLite database. A simple cp of the data folder is a complete backup.

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2. Immich — Your Photo Library

Replaces: Google Photos ($30/year for 100GB), iCloud ($12/year for 50GB), Amazon Photos RAM usage: ~500 MB (with ML features), ~200 MB (without) Difficulty: ⭐⭐ Moderate

Immich is the breakout star of self-hosted software. It’s a Google Photos replacement that’s so good, it actually makes you want to leave Google Photos. The mobile app is beautiful, upload is fast, and the AI-powered search and face recognition work surprisingly well.

Why Self-Host Your Photos?

Photos are personal. They’re memories of your kids, your travels, your life. Having them on Google’s servers means:

• Google scans every photo (for “features” and ad targeting)
• You’re locked into their ecosystem
• Storage costs add up over the years
• If your account gets banned, your photos disappear

With Immich, your photos stay on your hardware.

Deploy Immich

Immich uses Docker Compose with multiple services. Download their official compose file:

mkdir -p ~/apps/immich && cd ~/apps/immich

# Download the official compose and env files
wget https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
wget -O .env https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/example.env

Edit .env to set your preferences:

# .env
UPLOAD_LOCATION=./library
DB_PASSWORD=your-secure-password-here
IMMICH_VERSION=release

docker compose up -d

Post-Deploy Setup

1. Access Immich at http://your-server:2283
2. Create your admin account
3. Install the Immich app on iOS/Android
4. Configure automatic backup from your phone’s camera roll
5. Import existing photos via the web UI or CLI tool

Storage Considerations

Photos eat disk space. Plan for:

• Moderate user: 50-100 GB per year
• Heavy photographer: 200+ GB per year
• Solution: Use a VPS with attached block storage, or mount an NFS share

Pro tip: Immich supports external libraries — you can point it at existing photo directories without importing/copying.

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3. Uptime Kuma — Your Monitoring Dashboard

Replaces: UptimeRobot (free tier limited, Pro $7/month), Pingdom ($15/month), Better Stack RAM usage: ~100 MB Difficulty: ⭐ Easy

Every self-hoster needs a monitoring tool. Uptime Kuma is a beautiful, self-hosted monitoring solution that checks your services and alerts you when something goes down.

Why You Need Monitoring

When you self-host, you are the sysadmin. If your Vaultwarden goes down at 2 AM, nobody else is going to fix it. Uptime Kuma:

• Monitors HTTP, TCP, DNS, Docker containers, and more
• Sends alerts via email, Discord, Telegram, Slack, and 90+ notification services
• Shows status pages you can share publicly
• Tracks response time history with beautiful charts

Deploy Uptime Kuma

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  uptime-kuma:
    image: louislam/uptime-kuma:1
    container_name: uptime-kuma
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./data:/app/data
    ports:
      - "3001:3001"

docker compose up -d

Post-Deploy Setup

1. Access at http://your-server:3001
2. Create your admin account
3. Add monitors for each of your self-hosted services
4. Configure notification channels (Discord webhook is the easiest)
5. Create a public status page at status.yourdomain.com

What to Monitor

At minimum, monitor:

• All your self-hosted apps (HTTP checks)
• Your VPS itself (ping check)
• SSL certificate expiry (built-in check)
• DNS resolution (DNS check)
• Disk space (via Uptime Kuma’s Docker integration)

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4. Plausible Analytics — Your Website Analytics

Replaces: Google Analytics (free but privacy-nightmare), Fathom ($14/month), Simple Analytics ($9/month) RAM usage: ~200 MB Difficulty: ⭐⭐ Moderate

If you run any website — a blog, a SaaS, a portfolio — you probably want analytics. Google Analytics is the default choice, but it’s a privacy disaster that requires cookie banners and slows down your site.

Plausible is a lightweight, privacy-friendly alternative. The script is under 1KB (vs Google Analytics’ 45KB+), requires no cookie banner (it’s GDPR-compliant by design), and gives you all the metrics that actually matter.

Why Self-Host Analytics?

• No cookie banners needed — Plausible doesn’t use cookies
• Privacy-first — No personal data collection
• Fast — 1KB script vs 45KB+ for Google Analytics
• You own the data — No sending visitor data to Google
• Simple dashboard — See what matters at a glance

Deploy Plausible

Plausible provides an official self-hosting guide. The basic setup:

mkdir -p ~/apps/plausible && cd ~/apps/plausible

# Clone the hosting repo
git clone -b v2.1.4 --single-branch https://github.com/plausible/community-edition plausible-ce
cd plausible-ce

Configure the environment:

# Generate a secret key
openssl rand -base64 48

# Edit plausible-conf.env
BASE_URL=https://analytics.yourdomain.com
SECRET_KEY_BASE=your-generated-key
TOTP_VAULT_KEY=another-generated-key

docker compose up -d

Post-Deploy Setup

1. Access at https://analytics.yourdomain.com
2. Create your account and add your site
3. Add the tracking script to your website:

<script defer data-domain="yourdomain.com" src="https://analytics.yourdomain.com/js/script.js"></script>

4. Set up email reports and custom goals
5. Import your existing Google Analytics data (Plausible supports this!)

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5. Gitea/Forgejo — Your Code Hosting

Replaces: GitHub (free tier limited, Team $4/user/month), GitLab SaaS, Bitbucket RAM usage: ~150 MB Difficulty: ⭐ Easy

GitHub is great, but do you really need Microsoft hosting your private repositories? Gitea (or its community fork, Forgejo) gives you a full-featured Git hosting platform that looks and feels like GitHub — on your own server.

Why Self-Host Your Code?

• Private repos without limits — GitHub’s free tier has restrictions on CI minutes and features
• No vendor lock-in — Your code, your server
• CI/CD included — Gitea Actions are GitHub Actions-compatible
• Package registry — Host your own npm/Docker/Maven packages
• Issue tracking and project boards built in

Deploy Forgejo

We recommend Forgejo (the community fork) for its commitment to staying open-source:

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  forgejo:
    image: codeberg/forgejo:10
    container_name: forgejo
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data
      - /etc/timezone:/etc/timezone:ro
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    environment:
      - USER_UID=1000
      - USER_GID=1000
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
      - "2222:22"  # SSH for git operations

docker compose up -d

Post-Deploy Setup

1. Access at http://your-server:3000 — the installer wizard will guide you
2. Create your admin account
3. Set up SSH keys for git push access
4. Mirror your GitHub repos (Forgejo supports automatic mirroring)
5. Set up Forgejo Actions for CI/CD (optional)

Migration from GitHub

Forgejo includes a migration tool that imports:

• Repositories (with full history)
• Issues and pull requests
• Labels, milestones, and releases
• Wiki content

Go to “New Migration” in the web UI and paste your GitHub repo URL.

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Bonus: The Complete Stack

Here’s what your self-hosted stack looks like with all five apps:

App	Domain	Port	Purpose
Vaultwarden	vault.yourdomain.com	8080	Passwords
Immich	photos.yourdomain.com	2283	Photos
Uptime Kuma	status.yourdomain.com	3001	Monitoring
Plausible	analytics.yourdomain.com	8000	Web analytics
Forgejo	git.yourdomain.com	3000	Code hosting

Total RAM usage: ~1 GB (fits on a $6/month 4 GB VPS with plenty of room to spare)

Monthly cost: ~$6 for the VPS + ~$1 for the domain = $7/month

Services replaced: $100+/month in SaaS subscriptions

That’s a 93% savings, and you get privacy, control, and independence as a bonus.

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Getting Started

If you’re new to self-hosting, start with our How to Self-Host Everything: A 2026 Beginner’s Guide for the full VPS and Docker setup walkthrough.

For platform recommendations, check out our Coolify vs CapRover vs Dokku comparison — these tools can make deploying all five apps a one-click affair.

Pick one app from this list and deploy it this weekend. Once you see how easy it is, you’ll be hooked.

Welcome to the self-hosted life. 🏠