A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| PSU | Power Supply Unit |
| VPN | Virtual Private Network |
| VPS | Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting) |
[Thread #183 for this comm, first seen 22nd Mar 2026, 20:10] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
don't have an old pc lying around? I literally built my first server while I was jobless, (I did purchase HDDs when I was employed, though). That same server has a cpu, mobo, ram and case that are well over 15 years old now, only the PSU and storage are new.
I'm hosting a discord alternative called sharkord. Initially I just hosted it on my home server, but I couldn't open ports for voice chat so I did move to a VPS with akami (linode). At most it's costing me $5 CAD a month.
It's wayyy lighter to run compared to lemmy, because servers aren't federated. I know, different application, but just wanted to provide a point of reference.
oh yeah, and I don't know, but I only run linux, and almost never shutdown my main PC anyways, only reboot for updates or shutdown for maintenance. I could 100% just host things on my main PC, but it's only connected to the internet via wi-fi, which is why I went the separate pc route. If you need parts, see what people are willing to give away.
I just wanna say that Lemmy isn't exactly light on resources. 4GB of RAM are barely enough, even on a single user instance. I don't think free tiers will offer more
Oracle does it.
Strato has one Euro per month Linux VPS plan (1GB RAM, 10 GB disk) which you pay per quarter, so that's three Euros each time, four times per year. You can use a swapfile in case the lack of RAM would be a problem.
This is on their Spanish language site but also available in German language and more (see at the bottom of their pages).
https://www.strato.es/servidores/vps-linux
Ask a friend to do the first payment ? Then you're off to run Lemmy for at least three months.
Start with experimenting on your own computer. You can install Docker and setup Lemmy fx. Any reason you can't keep your computer running?
There's also IONOS with their £1 and £2 server: https://www.ionos.co.uk/servers/vps
Oracle Cloud isn't available in my location by the way, and I tried Google Cloud, it keeps crashing when I do an instance and it wants me to pay all of a sudden.
I wouldn't start with anything involving user-generated content... Otherwise, it could easily be misused, and the police might end up at YOUR door.
I wouldn't let that be a deterrent to starting an instance. Just make sure you understand the obligations you have as site owner when it comes to misuse. Maintain good logging and follow legal requirements (which in the US is locking down and preserving evidence and reporting to law enforcement hotlines - depending on the nature of the misuse).
Laws are changing rapidly right now, and it’s practically impossible to keep up with everything. If, for example, files are shared or links to them are posted, things get very tricky. For instance, would you know what to do with *.stl files? Something unpleasant is coming soon regarding 3D printing in Europe https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/02/26/brussels-seeks-eu-wide-jail-sentences-for-firearms-offences-including-3d-printed-weapons You’d have to automatically check such files or see if anything links to them. You shouldn’t host such things on your own network. At least that’s my opinion.
No, that's not how the new EU legislation works. The new laws build off existing Digital Services Act (DSA) and legacy E-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC) requirements. The DSA states again that you would have to lock down access to the material (once you become aware) and then inform authorities.
All site operators maintain safe harbor with EU authorities unless those two points are broken. In both US and EU pending legislation, no requirement to scan all STLs is required, so you do not have to automatically check all files like you mentioned.
Thanks
I might
Get new equipment and always run my old computer
Get a Raspberry Pi
Keep running my new computer forever
Pi is a good option because of it's low power draw.
However I find used mini pc's and Small Form Factor desktops to be a better value and their idle power is similar to the latest Pi (while costing about the same as a new Pi).
That's not the point. For example, I use Raspberries as an ad blocker, file server, Nextcloud, private (!!!) web server, and VPN.
I wouldn't run ANYTHING on them that's publicly accessible....
Imagine if two users used it to share child pornography, for example... Then your life is completely screwed as the middleman..
Or malware gets distributed through it... Or your entire network gets hacked...
Quickly dismiss the idea of setting up something like Lemmy or whatever on your own network. The world is a shitty place... which means it’s not a question of if something will happen, but WHEN
Ahhhhh, I get it now. Thanks :) In the meantime, I will just run communities on other instances, like my Scandinavian Left-Wing politics community on the PieFed instance I use!
I know of a few VPS that are 'free', and I use that word quite loosely. Long time back I explored a few, and I can tell you that they are not worth the time of day. Very cheap VPS can be had. I had one that ran me $25 USD per year. It wasn't the most thread rippin' VPS you could have, but it certainly was cheap, and at one time I had about 25 different containers running on it with out much trouble. A good place to look for cheap VPS is at lowendbox.com.
Oracle offers a free tier, but you really have to watch your consumption of resources, and I believe they require a credit card to open an account. There are horror stories of people who went over the limit and ended up with a good size bill
I realize $25 USD is not free and does not fit within your request, and I empathize. As far as using your own computer with something like Docker, and shutting it down each evening....I shut my server down every evening via a cron job. I am the only user, and I just couldn't justify letting it run while I slept. So I guess you'd say it's an intermittent service.
Just to add to your comment:
As much as I hate oracle, I run their free-tier vps in a Canadian datacenter and it never required my cc. I think it's geographic location-dependent.
and it never required
That's cool. I was thinking one of the free tiers like Amazon, Google required a CC to open one. Side question: What do you run on Oracle, and how fastidious do you have to be about controlling resource consumption? I've read about people on one of the free tiers getting socked a big bill, in fact it's a meme now.
spoiler
I tried freevps.edu.pl but that won't work either, it leaves my VPS on pending no matter what I do