(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?
Ease of installation/use, I think, is the main big one, and one of the biggest obstacles.
People who want to give self-hosting a try aren't going to be particularly fond of having to jump through a whole bunch of different configs, and manually set everything up.
They want something that they can just set up and go, without having to deal with server hosting, services, and all of that. Something you can just run on your computer, leave it be, and use it with relatively little fuss.
Second to that, would definitely be a case of better documentation/screenshots. A lot of self-hosted things, like Lemmy, didn't provide much documentation of what the actual user side of it does, only what you need to do to set it up, which isn't going to make me want to use the software, if I have no idea what it's supposed to do, and how it compares to other things that do the same.