I’m not affiliated with this in any way but saw it posted at the other place & thought fellow Lemmyzens might like to take a look.
I always find it quite hard to answer “favorite” apps as some infrastructure critical self hosted apps aren’t as sexy as others which sit front & centre so I feel they often don’t seem to get as much credit or attention (such as NGinX/DuckDNS compared to Immich/Jellyfin etc)
Hi everyone,
Like in previous years, I’m running a survey about self-hosting. The focus is on your favorite self-hosted apps, but there are plenty of other (optional) questions too. The top five app lists are free response fields, you don’t have to select the suggestions.
Link to take the survey:
https://survey.deployn.de/s/self-host-2026
More info:
The survey is anonymous. Like last year, results will be published in aggregated form. I’m currently planning to publish them in December.
It takes about 10-25 minutes.
Some of you asked for more questions in the comments. I added a lot at first, then realized it took 45 minutes to fill out properly. So I threw some out again, but there are still quite a few. The survey now has a core section that mainly covers the MVPs (your 5 favorite apps), and you can switch on other modules if you want. Almost every question is optional and can be skipped. If you answer everything at a reasonable pace, it takes around 20 minutes.
The proprietary survey tool caused new problems every year, so last year I switched to HeyForm while the survey was already running. That wasn’t ideal for my purposes either, so this year the survey runs on a new app. It should also make entering your apps faster.
It’s still easier to fill out on a desktop computer.
Thank you in advance for participating.
Homelab Veteran ⚡
- Fleet: 4–5 devices · 11–20 TB
- Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Cost savings, Customization & full control
- My MVPs: Proxmox VE, Paperless-ngx, Immich, Jellyfin
Homelab Veteran ⚡
- Fleet: 4–5 devices · 5–10 TB
- Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself, Privacy & data ownership
- My MVPs: Outline, Home Assistant, Plex, Audiobookshelf, Caddy
Homelab Veteran ⚡
- Fleet: 4–5 devices · 21–50 TB
- Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Cost savings, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions
- My MVPs: Pi-hole, Plex, Radarr, Linkwarden
Self-Hoster 🏡
- Fleet: 1 device · Less than 1 TB
- Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself
- My MVPs: Nextcloud, Searxng, BentoPDF, PocketID, kutt
Self-Hoster 🏡
- Fleet: 2–3 devices · 11–20 TB
- Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself
- My MVPs: Immich, Navidrome, Dockhand, Proxmox VE, Caddy
AI Pioneer 🤖
- Fleet: More than 10 devices · 21–50 TB
- Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Fun / the hobby itself
Self-Hoster 🏡
- Fleet: 2–3 devices · 5–10 TB
- Motivation: Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Privacy & data ownership, Customization & full control
- My MVPs: Jellyfin, Sonarr, Pi-hole, Navidrome, Home Assistant
This survey is going to become our version of Spotify Wrapped isn’t it?
Top Motivation: CostThe several hundred dollars a year and hours spend is definitely worth saving that $14-30/month in subscriptions right? right?
$14-30/month in subscriptions is $168-360/year.
You likely spend more than that a year on what you host (I know my power alone is going to run higher than that), but the monetary cost doesn’t cover the joys of the hobby, the knowledge aquired, and the fact that your shit still works even after the Internet goes out
Somehow veteran isn’t the right word. Veteran kind of implies you have learned along the way, yet I keep making the same mistakes
Homelab Veteran ⚡
- Fleet: 2–3 devices · 5–10 TB
- Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions, Cost savings
- My MVPs: Immich, Jellyfin, Radarr, Sonarr
Homelab Veteran ⚡
- Fleet: 2–3 devices · 21–50 TB
- Motivation: Privacy & data ownership, Fun / the hobby itself, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions
- My MVPs: Jellyfin, Caddy, Pi-hole, Syncthing, Rsync
AI Pioneer 🤖
- Fleet: 2–3 devices · More than 50 TB
- Motivation: Fun / the hobby itself, Privacy & data ownership, Learning & experimenting
- My MVPs: Netbird, Open WebUI, Forgejo, Traefik, Authentik
Fleet Commander 🚀
- Fleet: More than 10 devices · 21–50 TB
- Motivation: Learning & experimenting, Cost savings, Independence from Big Tech & subscriptions
- My MVPs: Home Assistant, Audiobookshelf, Jellyfin, Pangolin, Portainer
