I believe self hosting saves me money in the short term
i believe self hosting saves me money in the long run

I can add to the voices here that have this as one big consideration. With some second-hand hardware, it’s very cheap to set up almost unlimited cloud space for personal use.

Not to mention that a lot of self-hosting can be done on hardware you already had laying around.

My only quibble would be to swap “pay” for “invest” which captures both the dynamic of up front expense and expected savings from ending recurring subscription fees. That’s how I look at it. Every penny I put into my own digital sovereignty is an investment that will yield returns both financial and otherwise.

And I self-host precisely because of the money I save using surplussed hardware. I have a symmetrical 1Gb SOHO fibre connection from my ISP, so I can host whatever the hell I want, I just need to stand it up. And a beefy older system with oodles of RAM is perfect for spinning up VMs of various platforms for various tasks. This saves me craploads of money over even a single VM on cloud platforms like Vultr. Plus, even if I were to support a “heavy” service sufficiently in demand to warrant its own iron, it still costs me less than a year’s worth of hosting to obtain a decent platform for that service to run on all by it’s lonesome.

My only cloud costs end up being those services which are distributed for redundancy and geographical distance, such as DNS and caching CDNs.

I saved money by stea- I mean borrowing - work equipment

Second this - so far it has cost me money, but as I am able to cancel more subscription services, the savings will add up.

Thanks for the comment — that’s a valid observation, and I understand how the wording might feel a bit awkward.

Just to clarify: the statement comes from a standardized construct called Subjective Norms, and follows the phrasing from the paper “A Theoretical Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model” by Venkatesh & Davis (2000).

For all independent variables in the survey, we relied on validated scales and established practices from prior scientific research, to ensure consistency and reliability. That said, I really appreciate your feedback. :)

That’s a very valid concern, and you’re absolutely right to bring it up.

One existing study that surveyed the general population found that about 8.4% of respondents were self-hosting users, which means that in order to get enough self-hosters from the general population for meaningful analysis, we’d need a very large sample.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the funding or resources to conduct such large-scale research through a representative panel or agency. That’s why this study is focusing on communities where self-hosting is already discussed, like this one.

That said, we’re definitely aware of this limitation, and we’re also sharing the survey in broader, more general-interest online communities where we expect non-self-hosters (or people unfamiliar with the concept) to be more present. This will allow us to include comparisons between the two groups in the analysis.

Really appreciate your thoughtful comment — thanks!

Thanks for the comment: that’s a really good point to raise.

Just to clarify: the statement “I use self-hosted services in the following categories as much as possible” is meant to reflect how fully you make use of self-hosted solutions in each area. A response like “Strongly agree” would indicate that you actively use and take full advantage of self-hosting in that category.

If you don’t use solutions in a particular category at all — whether that’s because you don’t need them, aren’t interested, or use only external services — then it’s completely appropriate to select a disagreeing option (e.g. “Disagree” or “Strongly disagree”). In this context, lower agreement simply indicates low or no use, regardless of the reason.

From a methodological standpoint, the data will be analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). This approach requires a complete set of responses across the measured constructs. If we included a “not applicable” option, it would create missing values in the dataset and potentially lead to excluding the entire response for that part of the analysis — which would significantly reduce the usable sample size.

That said, I really appreciate your feedback! :)

This is actually a technique to capture an honest answer from a respondent. Ask the same question a few different ways here and there, then take the average of the answers. (It could have been executed better in this survey, though.)

Uploaded your mind to the cloud

Thanks so much – I definitely will! The results will be published in my PhD dissertation, and since publication in a scientific journal is a requirement for completing the degree, they’ll be shared there as well. I’ll make sure to post a link here once everything is available! :)

Thank you so much – I really appreciate it!

Questions in surveys like this are sometimes repeated with slight variations to get more accurate results.

They are different enough in intention though.

I intend - I plan to try, but I might not.

I will - I am definitely going to, but maybe not very often or for limited uses

I will frequently - I am definitely going to, and it will be a common/important part of my work/life-flow

Thanks a lot for your input and kind wishes, really appreciate it!

Thank you for your feedback! You’re right, self-employment could be listed more clearly, but choosing “Other” was absolutely fine and your response is fully valid. Thanks again!

It’s true! :) Starting with TLD: si - Slovenia; um - University of Maribor; feri - Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; lpt - Laboratory for Data technologies; and survey for LimeSurvey.

Thanks a lot!

Thanks, really appreciate it!