Self-Hosted Alternatives
The guide to replacing Big Tech apps with your own self-hosted server — LLM chat, music streaming, automation, Reddit reading, git hosting, and CI/CD, all run and benchmarked on the author's own homelab.
Part 1
Self-Hosted LLM at Home: What Actually Runs
A ChatGPT price hike or a moment of regret pasting something sensitive into a public chatbot raises the obvious question: can your homelab box just run the AI itself? Real tokens-per-second numbers across Raspberry Pi 5, N100 mini PC, and GPU tiers -- plus what a local LLM can and can't replace.
Part 2
Navidrome vs Airsonic vs Jellyfin for Music
A weekend spent importing a ripped CD or FLAC collection raises the same question: which self-hosted server to stream it back with. Real resource footprints for Navidrome, Airsonic, and Jellyfin, plus a mobile-app compatibility matrix and why Airsonic isn't a safe pick for a new build in 2026.
Part 3
Self-Hosting n8n: What the Free Tier Limits
n8n Cloud stops every workflow the moment you hit the monthly execution cap. What self-hosting the free Community edition actually gets you and gives up -- real Docker resource usage, the Enterprise-only feature gaps, and the dollar math against Cloud's Starter plan.
Part 4
Self-Hosted Reddit Reader: Is It Worth It?
Redlib is the actively maintained fork of the archived Libreddit -- a self-hosted, ad-free, tracker-free Reddit frontend. It's easy to run in Docker, but Reddit actively rate-limits and blocks it, so public instances go down often and self-hosting your own copy only shifts who owns that problem.
Part 5
Gitea vs Forgejo vs GitLab CE Compared
Gitea and Forgejo run on well under 1GB of RAM; GitLab CE documents a 4GB minimum. This comparison covers real resource footprint, CI runner maturity (Gitea/Forgejo Actions vs GitLab CI), and GitHub migration friction for homelab hardware.
Part 6
Self-Hosted GitHub Actions Runner at Home
A real config.sh/svc.sh walkthrough for a self-hosted GitHub Actions runner, an honest spec comparison against GitHub-hosted minutes, and why GitHub itself warns against running one on a public repo (fork PRs can execute code on it).
Part 7
Self-Hosted Apps: What's Actually Worth It
Every self-hosted apps roundup is an unvetted list with no honest 'skip this one.' Six categories actually tested on a homelab — AI chatbot, music, automation, Reddit, Git, and CI/CD — with real hardware cost and one category that isn't worth it for most people.