I’m a farmer that was an IT guy a decade or so ago, which I guess is a background in it, but that’s not why I do it. Self-hosting is a self-reliance thing. I like to fix my own equipment, metal and silicon.

When it comes apart, I want to know the reason, and I like to invent new ways to do things, which means I have to be able to control my infrastructure.

Just getting started but yeah, I have basically no technology background. Mostly I’m too stubborn to know when to quit something so here I am lol.

Former USAF JAG here (lawyer). I was always a tech geek, undergrad major was in MIS actually, but I didn’t enjoy coding. Always ran Plex on the side, built my own computers, etc. Grew up with my Dad using Linux everywhere (I found this annoying as I just wanted to play games on Windows).

I didn’t enjoy law (surprise!). I was disillusioned with the criminal justice system too. Quit the law in 2020. Then suddenly had quality time by global happenstance to rethink my life path.

I work in IT now. Restarted at the bottom of a new career but I’m in deep nerd territory now - Proxmox servers, Home Assistant, networks with VLANs, OPNsense router, 22U server rack, Linux as my daily driver, etc.

Much happier now.

I work in logistics. I’ve always had a fascination with tech, and was leery of all these neato things on offer from big tech, from social media to the cloud.

Found out I could self-host, and got to learning.

I’m just an idiot that tinkers with things. I’ve got a TrueNAS Scale system up and running as network storage and Plex storage. There’s about 44TB of raw capacity in there right now, connected via a server SAS card. I just follow tutorials if I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

I clean construction site toilets. I wanted to run my own game and media severs and ended up with a Dell Poweredge, a synology 1u NAS and some ubiquity gear

No background but I can read and listen. There are plenty of resources around.

I started out of privacy concerns and I wanted to deGoogle It started this year with a RPI and pihole. Then I saw Mealie, bought a domain, and started sharing recipes with my family.

At first I messed around with Casa OS. It’s like a gateway drug. So easy to use and get stuff running.

Last week a 2nd hand i5 arrived and now I moved everything to proxmox. The RPI is still running pihole. At the moment I’m setting up Immich and I’m thinking about buying a NAS.

Since it is a new hobby I keep everything low cost. If it sticks I’ll invest in a proper home server.

Former attorney who now consults for corporate compliance departments/programs. I have zero formal training or professional practical experience, but tech has always been my strongest hobby. I decided to self host as much as possible almost 20 years ago starting with media libraries and email; it stemmed from a deep distrust of the tech industry.

My father in law was a commercial pilot and he had a home server just to keep photos and travel writing while he was flying and away from home a lot. I helped him upgrade some of that to the cloud, since that makes for sense when on the other side of the country, but he still has a bunch of stuff at home.

I believe that most self holsters actually are more hobbyist lifestyle than people with actual tech background.

I read and research a whole lot, which has taken me down this rabbit hole.

Medical device engineer here (mechanical engineering). I host jellyfin, game servers (Minecraft, factorio, valheim, etc), my website, and a bunch of other minor services I find useful.

I got into it originally through a combination of poor internet, and being fed up with Google and others discontinuing products/features. The internet problem is solved now, so my only goal is not being reliant on someone else’s cloud.

Background in biology and insurance - major career transition but yes, I love self-hosting! Have about 37 services running!

I have no tech background, and I am just getting into creating a media server. I started with an old secondhand Synology NAS, which developed a power issue within a month and no chance of returning it or getting it covered by warranty.

My current plan is to get another Synology NAS (new with extended warranty this time), along with a spare HDD enclosure so I can have an extra layer of redundancy, finally set up Jellyfin, and then I want to build a Pihole. At that point I won’t need much more self hosting or networking tricks until further notice.

Still have no idea what I’m doing.

I have no formal IT education. But I grew up on computers when command line was how you got things done.

I don’t work in IT/Tech at all, but I’ve been an enthusiast since I was young, at first piggybacking off of my dad, then developing my own interests as I got into high school and college. I started self-hosting because I found it interesting and as time progressed I saw the benefits of operating things locally. I only host things within my own network though, because I’m not yet comfortable with how to safely set up external access.