Hi all, I’ve been noticing a pattern in self-hosting communities, and I’m curious if others see it too.

Whenever someone asks for a more beginner-friendly solution, something with a UI, automated setup, or fewer manual configs, there’s often a response like:

“If you can’t configure Docker, reverse proxies, and Yaml files, you shouldn’t be self-hosting.”

Sometimes it feels like a portion of the community views complexity as a badge of honour. Don’t get me wrong, I love the technical side of self-hosting. I enjoy tinkering, breaking things, fixing them, learning along the way. That’s how most of us got into it.

But here’s the question: Is gatekeeping slowing down the adoption of self-hosting?

If we want more people to own their data, escape Big Tech, and embrace open-source alternatives, shouldn’t we welcome solutions that lower the entry barrier?

There’s room for everyone:

  • people who want full control and custom setups,

  • people who want semi-manual but guided,

  • and people who want it to work with minimal friction.

Just like not every Linux user compiles from source, but they’re still Linux users.

Where do you stand? Should self-hosting stay DIY-only or is there value in easier, more accessible ways to self-host?

My project focuses on building a tool that makes self-hosting more accessible without sacrificing data ownership, so I genuinely want your honest take before releasing it more widely.

  • confusedpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    25 days ago

    I’ve experienced gatekeeping issues long before I got into self-hosting specifically. Years ago I wanted to learn C++ for Arduino and I was constantly talked down for asking questions.

    “Why don’t you just do …” in response to a question feels very rude as a newcomer because it feels like I am being talked down to for not knowing what others already know. Even when I made an effort to show I was making an effort to learn on my own, I was still belittled.

    I’m all for hearing different ways of approaching my issue but from the replies, it often feels like other people insist there is only one true specific way to handle an issue.

    When I first got into self-hosting, people kept pushing Cloudflare on me. When I expressed concern over a large centralized corporation having that much control and how they might have service issues, I was mocked really hard. Half a year later and there was a significant outage and suddenly there’s all this talk about how centralized the internet is and how that is bad.

    After that I took it upon myself to find alternative ways to protect myself without Cloudflare’s services but every step of the way has been an isolating experience. Every step of the way has been full of people saying that my efforts are pointless and that the bots will win anyways so I shouldn’t bother.

    I decided to try to secure myself through multiple layers of obscurity and every question in that direction has been full of people saying that obscurity is not security, the bots will find you anyways!

    I’ve stopped myself from asking too many questions now. I still keep learning in my direction. I feel like I’ve managed to find multiple solutions that both obscure and protect myself. I’ve constantly check my logs for months now and the bot is less than I expected in places I expect them to be and completely zero in other places I thought there would be some activity.

    I want to share what I have learned and my experiences but I know I will receive backlash for deviating from the norm.

    I’ve spent a lot of my self-hosting efforts trying to find ways to protect myself with minimal use of third party services, documenting as much as I could only feel afraid to share what I have learned.

    This comment may not be about learning self-hosting as a beginner specifically but the vibe has been pretty damn consistent throughout me learning C++, self-hosting, linux and shell scripting. All things I enjoy but all so full of people ready to talk down to someone who wants to learn.