11 posts tagged with "selfhosting"

Short answer first: use Supabase if you want Postgres plus auth, realtime, storage, and a dashboard as one managed bundle. Self-host Postgres – or use a managed Postgres – if you mostly need a database and your app already handles its own auth and logic. The choice is not really "Postgres vs Supabase". It's whether you need the extra layers Supabase puts on top of Postgres.

This post gives you a clear way to decide, a side-by-side table, and the cases where each option is the right one.

Most small teams hit the same question at some point: should we move to Kubernetes? The honest answer for the majority of them is no, but that answer alone is not very helpful. So here is the longer version, with real prices and a clear line where the answer flips to yes.

When you're deploying your own app, the database choice matters more than most people think. It affects performance, ops complexity, backups, and how much memory your server needs.

There are four options you'll run into most often: SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis. They're not all the same kind of database – and that's the point. Here's when each one makes sense.

Umami is great. Lightweight, privacy-friendly, no cookies, no tracking drama. We use it ourselves on Hostim.dev, and we ship a one-click Umami template for anyone who wants simple, privacy-focused analytics.

But once you start relying on analytics to make actual decisions, you hit the limits pretty quickly.

n8n is a popular open-source automation tool – like Zapier, but self-hosted. Here's how to run it on your own VPS using Docker Compose, and expose it securely over HTTPS using Caddy as the ingress proxy.

If you want a broader primer, check out How to Self-Host a Docker Compose App. But you don't need to read it first – this guide is self-contained.

🗓️ Last updated: May 2026. Tested with the latest n8nio/n8n image on Ubuntu 24.04.

Reverse proxies are the unsung heroes of modern infrastructure. They terminate TLS, route traffic, balance loads, and keep your apps reachable. But which one should you choose? There are four popular options worth comparing head-to-head: Nginx, HAProxy, Caddy, and Traefik. Each comes with its own strengths, trade-offs, and ideal use cases.

📌 Last week, I wrote about Cloud Rent in Action – how layers of middlemen drive up the cost of running a simple SaaS stack. Netlify's new pricing update feels like the same story, playing out live.

When you pay for cloud hosting, you're not just paying for compute. You're paying rent. And it adds up fast.

Building a PaaS as a solo founder means making choices. Some deliberate, some accidental, all of them tradeoffs.

Every tool comes with pros and cons, and the deciding factor is usually the most expensive resource of all: time.

If I can get the job done with something I already know, I'll take that path. I'll learn new tools when the project pays for it. Until then, it's all about moving forward with what works.

Here's how Hostim.dev is put together today – the stack that runs every app, database, and service behind the scenes.

Most side projects start the same way. You grab a VPS from Hetzner or DigitalOcean, install Docker, run docker compose up, and boom – you're live.

It feels cheap. It feels simple. Until it isn't.