this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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Selfhosted

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I'm asking cause my previous post regarding my server that isn't at home got moderated for violating rule 3. I don't get it 🤔

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[–] aichan@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 20 hours ago

Conclussion first: In any case, I would agree with what some other used said: What we care about in here, for the most part, is the software element of it. Even if I personally don't consider using Cl*udflare to be self-hosting, all of us have similar info sharing interests, so this is just a terminology argument that does not really impact us that much

I wrote this first: Actually, this is a pretty interesting thing to think about. To me, the key factor to distinguish what is hosting and what is not is the use of a server. I would say that internet connection is not a requirement for hosting, otherwise it seems absurd to deny that the servers of big LAN parties like the Euskal Encounter are not hosting anything, they clearly are. Down to the smaller scale, having a LAN only Minecraft server in your home server, I would say it still is hosting, even if only you and your family use it. Now, going to a non dedicated computer that is exposing it on LAN, is it self-hosting? I would say no, just because it also seems absurd that any single player world opening in LAN to enable admin suddenly is self-hosting, I say it is not.

But I guess this shows that there is a point where we need more specific definitions, there is some ambiguity.

A summary of my definition attempt:

  • Internet access: Not required (big LANs and personal Netflix/etc beefy servers seem self hosting to me)
  • Local access: Required (for the "self" part)
  • Dedicated hardware: I don't know. Normally I'd go yes, but someone serving a bunch of things in their computer over the internet could argue it is some low availability sel hosting lol