Own The Software You Currently Rent
Nextcloud instead of Google Drive, Jitsi instead of Zoom, Rocket.Chat instead of Slack, Bitwarden instead of a password subscription, Collabora instead of Office. Almost everything a small company pays monthly for has an open source version, and we deploy it on your own server with certificates, backups and monitoring in place from the first day.
Getting a project running from its repository is rarely the hard part, since most publish a compose file that works. What sinks self hosting six months later is nobody owning the updates, backups that were never once restored, and mail from the server landing in everybody's spam folder. Those are the parts this is actually about.
What People Usually Move First
These six cover most of what a small company pays for every month. Nobody moves all of them at once, and the sensible order is whichever subscription is currently costing the most or annoying you the most. Anything else with a repository and a maintained container image is fair game too.
Nextcloud
Files, sharing links, calendars, contacts and desktop sync, on storage you decide the size of. The saving grows with the team, because you are paying for a server rather than for every person who needs an account.
Jitsi Meet
Meetings in a browser with a link, no accounts for the people joining and no forty minute limit hanging over a call. It also means client conversations run through your own server rather than somebody else's platform.
Rocket.Chat
Channels, direct messages, files and search that does not stop at ninety days. The message history problem is usually what pushes people to look, since the free tier hiding your own conversations is a strange thing to pay to fix.
Bitwarden Or Vaultwarden
The whole team's passwords on your own server, with the same browser extensions and phone apps everyone already knows. The lighter version runs happily on a machine that costs a few dollars a month.
Collabora Or OnlyOffice
Documents, spreadsheets and slides edited in the browser, usually bolted onto Nextcloud so the files and the editing live in one place. Handles the common formats well enough that most people stop noticing the difference.
Whatever You Found On GitHub
Analytics, ticketing, a wiki, a project board, a git host, monitoring, an automation tool. If it has a repository and people maintaining it, we can deploy it, and the surrounding work is the same whichever one it turns out to be.
Where the money actually goes
A single server between fifteen and forty dollars a month runs most of this comfortably for a team of ten, which usually undercuts what one of those subscriptions was costing on its own. The catch is that the saving is real and the effort moves rather than disappearing, because somebody now owns the updates and the backups.
That is the honest trade, and it is why the maintenance side of this is priced as part of the work rather than sold separately later. If nobody in the company wants that job, we can hold it, and if you would rather do it yourselves you get the instructions instead.
What The Deployment Actually Includes
Nine things, and the first three are the ones every rushed install skips. They are also the reason a self hosted app is still running a year later instead of quietly falling over the week somebody needed it.
Backups that have been restored once
Anybody can switch a backup on. We take a copy, restore it somewhere separate and check the data is actually there, because a backup nobody has ever restored is a hope rather than a plan. Kept off the same machine, so losing the server does not lose both.
Mail that reaches an inbox
Password resets, share notifications and invitations all depend on the server sending mail, and a fresh server sending it directly goes to spam almost every time. Sorted properly with the records set, then tested with a real send rather than assumed.
Updates with a plan attached
Security patches applied automatically, application updates handled deliberately, since these are the projects where a major version can want manual steps. You get told which is which, so nobody upgrades on a Friday afternoon and finds out the hard way.
Sized around what you will run
Nextcloud with twenty people on it and a small wiki need very different machines, and paying for the wrong one either wastes money or produces something everybody complains about. We work it out from your team rather than from a template.
Certificates that renew themselves
A proper certificate on your own domain with renewal automated and then tested by forcing one early. An expired certificate takes an application down as effectively as any outage and it is entirely avoidable.
The machine locked down around it
Firewall closed except what the application needs, key based login, root login off and automatic blocking for the login attempts every public server collects. The application being open source does not make the box it sits on safe.
Something that tells you it is up
Uptime and disk space watched, with an alert reaching somebody before the disk fills rather than after. Most self hosted outages are a full disk or an expired certificate, and both announce themselves days in advance if anything is looking.
Applications that talk to each other
Collabora inside Nextcloud, single sign on across the tools so people have one password, chat notifications from your ticketing system. This is where self hosting stops feeling like a collection of separate websites.
Your data moved across
Files out of Drive or Dropbox, users created, folders and permissions matched to how the team already works. The migration is usually the part that decides whether people actually switch or quietly keep using the old thing.
What we will tell you not to move
Some things are worth keeping on a subscription, and email is the usual one. Running your own mail server is a genuine commitment, deliverability is a constant fight, and the fifty dollars a year you save is not worth a week of messages silently failing to arrive.
Same with anything your business would stop for if it were down for a day and nobody was around to fix it. We would rather move four things properly than nine badly, and if hardening the server underneath matters to you as much as the application on top, that is covered on the server hardening page.
Packages And What They Cost
Priced per deployment, paid once, with the maintenance offered separately rather than assumed into everything. Pick by how many applications you are moving and whether anybody in the company wants to own the server afterwards.
Single Deployment
One application on one server, running properly. The right pick for trying self hosting on something low risk before moving anything important.
- Any open source project with a maintained image
- Server sized around what you will actually run
- Your own domain with a certificate that renews itself
- Backups configured and restored once to prove they work
- Outbound mail set up so resets reach an inbox
- Firewall closed, key based login, root login off
- Security patching automated
- Written notes covering updates and restores
Replace The Subscriptions
Two to four applications working together on one server, with your existing files and accounts moved across so people actually switch.
- Everything in Single Deployment, per application
- Applications integrated rather than sitting separately
- One login across the tools where that is possible
- Files and users migrated from what you use now
- Folder structure and permissions matched to your team
- Uptime and disk space monitored with alerts
- A short session showing the team how to use it
- Thirty days of questions answered after handover
Build Or Rescue
More applications than that, several servers, a large migration, or an existing self hosted setup nobody has looked after for a while.
- Any number of applications across one or more servers
- Existing deployments audited and repaired
- Large migrations planned so nothing is lost in transit
- Staging alongside production where updates matter
- Custom projects without a container image sorted out
- Access split by team or department
- Documentation your own people can work from
Added To Any Package
- Each additional application on the same server $10
- Migrating a large file library across $100
- Single sign on across the applications $50
- A walkthrough session for the team $50
- Ongoing maintenance and updates, monthly $100 / mo
The software is free and nothing here carries a licence. Hosting is billed to you directly by whichever provider you choose, and a single server running several of these for a small team usually lands somewhere between fifteen and forty dollars a month.
Tell Us What You Are Paying For Now
The subscriptions you would rather stop renewing, roughly how many people use them, and whether you already rent a server. That is enough for a price and a timeline. If one of them is better left where it is, you will be told that too, because moving four things properly beats moving nine badly.
Talk about your setup