Are you hosting on win server? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to shill Linux though I prefer it on the server side, believe me I've been on the receiving end of that for desktop Linux. How do you manage it? Do you have your home LAN set up as an active directory domain? Do you use mostly Powershell or the GUI? What do you have running on it? It just seems like everything on the server side assumes you're using Linux and the only stuff that runs on Win server is stuff made by Microsoft like MS SQL server or IIS.
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2026
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Welcome sure, but few and far between. Check out JimsGarage on YouTube. He does a lot of windows selfhosting content
Well, if masochism is your kink...
Being a former pure windows guy it's more like battered wife syndrome.
Its an abusive relationship but its all you know and hard to leave.
I'm on bazzite now with a Debian homelab on a SFF.
Still really new to Linux but I'm trying.
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Yes, masochists are welcome.
Yup, there's no kinkshaming here
That's kinda the core of self-hosting, isn't it? We are taking back digital sovereignty but giving our time and mental health to the Machine God.
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Sure, but know you're doing things the hard way. I started with Win 10, WSL, and Docker Desktop but moving to Linux made things 10x easier, Windows is... difficult.
I agree with this comment. Switching to Linux, with minimal experience, has been so much easier than trying to arse around with Docker Desktop on Windows.
Sure, if that’s what you want to do. Though, you’ll probably find less references and expertise here. There is a reason that even Microsoft runs Linux on most of its own servers.
I don't think that Linux is in the title or description of this community!
You pick your own poison ....
Mine is Gentoo Linux all the way, yours is Windows. Find two more selfhosters and they will criticize both of us! We are kind of the two extreme of the spectrum....
Welcome!
How does Gentoo work for you? Is it true, that an update takes like a week, because you have to compile everything from scratch?
It's a myth.
Yes it takes longer, but specialy on headless server updates are pretty fast
Big boys like LibreOffice Firefox have also pre built binaries if you so prefer as well ..
I use Gentoo since amd k6-400 MHz times so today build times feel like no wait at all
So true! I met a friend of a friend at a church social last week and he spent the whole time trying to convince me to try FreeBSD instead of selfhosting on Windows. I might try it someday but as polite as he was about it he just couldn't get the hint lol
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My host OS is Windows Server 2022 because I Prefer it, HyperV works, Windows Backup works, and the drivers work. I then run a Linux VM for Docker and a few other VM's for silly things. If I break a VM I can have it restored in a few clicks. I tried to use Proxmox as the host OS but it would kill itself every 6 months. It was a good learning experience but it would take a Lot of convincing to try it again.
I'm gonna sound like everyone I complain about here, so feel free to ignore me. How did Proxmox break? I've been hosting a bunch of Proxmox containers on a 15 year old crappy laptop and it's been smooth sailing for at least a year and a half.
Not trying to shun you for using windows or discount your personal experience with Proxmox or anything, just genuinely curious. If you prefer windows, use it.
I can't remember the actual errors. I was running it on an old DELL PC they I had added an extra drive to, I think it was an SSD I had lying about. Everything would be running fine with no errors, Linux and Windows VM's. Then one day all services were offline. Being a PC I had to plug in a screen+KB/Mouse. The host OS would boot and then flood the screen with errors regarding unable to mount the storage. troubleshooting with Boot USB showed all of the virtual Partitions (the ones that the VM data sits in) had been corrupted. Maybe a Linux guru could have restored them but I was lost.
I started over with a clean install of Proxmox, Maybe I had done something wrong the first time. I cant remember if I managed to restore the VM's from backup. A few months later Bam, exact same thing happened again. I thought maybe my PC or drives had issues but decided to try Windows 2019 HyperV host instead. That ran for 2 years without issues on the same hardware.
Good to know.
Windows hacking is just as fun as anything else, sometimes it's even more rewarding just because you made it work on windows! My favorite is replacing the windows shell... Haven't done that since 7 though :(
100% there is room for Windows self hosters. Welcome. May your self hosting be productive, secure and fun.
I wouldn't recommend it personally
Sure ! But... How !? I don't have even the first idea how you'd host... Almost anything on Windows 😅 and I would be concerned by the power consumption of any non-minimalist OS.
Hyper-v server can get pretty damn lightwieght as it ships without a GUI
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I self host on windows. It just happened to be what I had on the box. Then I got started with docker. So that was great. When I have the time, I hope to switch to unraid, but need the time to be open enough to deal with the problem that will arise in getting the system set up just right.
Are posts about that welcome here?
Absolutely. The gate's open...come on in. It's been quite a while since I've had a Windows based server. I still run Windows 10 in the lab, plus Linux and Mac. I don't really discriminate. All OS's have their place imho.
So far its a blast!
That is one of the prime directives of selfhosting. I have a ton of fun learning about new stuff to do and how to do it. Tell us all about it man. What do you selfhost? Are you running any Docker containers? I'm all ears, which in reality isn't too far from the truth with my Jumbo ears. Share! Share!
Now, let me be polemical here ....
(And this is to be read with a pinch of /s)
Selfhosting on windows and understanding what you do is so much better than selfhost on CasaOS/ZimaOS/FancyWebGui/Synology and just spin up containers randomly without even understand what a container is and how it does work at all ...
Now roast me :)
Didnt find any /s there. That's one of the reasons why I dislike docker, it supports not understanding stuff. But then that's just me, who wants to understand stuff. Enabling less tech savvy ppl is also great I guess.
I feel with you, but at the same time I remember trying to setup Apache Guacamole and failing miserably. Doing it now with docker would remove everything that made me fail 10 years ago.
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Most self-hosted solutions come as containers, containers are Linux only and on Windows they run under the WSL VM, so eventually (if you are not doing full installs) you are still using Linux
Well yeah but... Why would you? It's unnecessarily making things hard on yourself for so many reasons.
My Linux computer is like a giant basket of free Legos and I can build whatever the hell I want easily
For learning. Most enterprises use windows servers. The IT job market is mostly windows server for entry / mid level jobs.
Even if you don't use it day to day. Its great to understand how it works.
Temporary becomes permanent. When I was experiencing severe long-term symptoms of Covid, I bought a refurbished computer to use as a NAS with Jellyfin, Sonarr, and indexers. I kept the installed Windows 10 because I simply did not have the energy to do more. Then, when I felt better, I told myself, "Let me add more services."
Now, it's a Frankenstein computer where Windows 10 acts as the hypervisor, running Caddy as my reverse proxy. Crowdsec protects my services, and my Flint 2's firewall acts as the Crowdsec bouncer. A VirtualBox VM runs in Windows 10 and hosts most of my Docker containers. Stablebits DrivePool manages my drive pool.
I've been running this setup for over a year, and I haven't had any issues. I know I should switch to Linux, but since it's been working great and I'm busy, I've been procrastinating.
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Posts about self hosting are welcome, posts to strangers seeking external validation...? Maybe save for therapy.
I would recommend at most ruining windows as the hypervisor then running Linux virtual machines. Maybe run a windows VM if you have a specific need.
This is mainly because Linux is much better "supported" for the majority of self hosted projects.
But you can of course do whatever you want.
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One step at a time, you will eventually move to GNU/Linux in the future if this new hobby persist. But there is nothing wrong with beginning using software and tools you are already familiar with. However you will probably have to use WSL (Linux inside Windows basically) to make things work and all guides you will find will mostly be based on Docker and/or Linux. So you will definitely use Linux on your Microslop owned machine.
If you don't have the time to learn a new OS it's fine, but it will not necessarly make things easier, especially on the long run. That's my take on it.
My very first self-hosting homelab was a Linux Mint old refurbished desktop PC that I was remotely accessing through AnyDesk (I was a Windows kid user at that time). Now I'm on NixOS through SSH and still learning, I do not completely comfortable but I am able to use it and learn while doing so.
I would highly encourage you to try to run a lightweight beginer friendly Linux distro such as debian, Linux Mint XFCE or Kubuntu if you feel like you need a desktop environement and graphic user interfaces but if you really want to use that Microslop license you bought it's fine, you will probably switch in the following months or years. Okay maybe not, some people are fine using it.
You can also take a look at stuff like runtipi, yunohost, CasaOS, ZimaOS, Umbrel, Cloudron and stuff like that. They aim to be beginner friendly self-hosting "OS" or "WebUI".
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