Self-host is just waiting for its iPhone moment • Hacker News Board

Re: Self-host is just waiting for its iPhone moment

#11

Post by oulipo » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 6:46 AM UTC

I really liked Dokploy: https://github.com/Dokploy/dokploy

Re: Self-host is just waiting for its iPhone moment

#12

Post by huksley » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 6:48 AM UTC

shameless DollarDeploy plug: this is that we want to achieve. So you can self-host pretty much any open source software (self-sovereignity) and also your own apps.

and with AI, we just make it simple to do, no need to install docker, anything, it will automatically configure host.

and btw, for your own apps, we don't need docker - Linux is advanced as it is, you can just run apps locally.

next step is portability, so you can move your apps from server to server as needed.

Re: Self-host is just waiting for its iPhone moment

#13

Post by swiftcoder » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 6:49 AM UTC

I honestly don't think AI is the thing that is going to give self-hosting its "iPhone moment". The iPhone moment is all about UX, and putting a chatbot in front of your apache config files is still a terrible fucking experience for the average user.

If we truly want an iPhone moment for self-hosting, it's going to need an Apple-worthy investment in self-hosting UX. At minimum that's a double-clickable hosting app, with a sensible default configuration right out of the box, where you can configure everything relevant through the UI...

Re: Self-host is just waiting for its iPhone moment

#14

Post by exiguus » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 6:56 AM UTC

I partly agree. My take is: AI will lead to decentralized software (e.g., everyone can build their own to-do app or CRM). Decentralized software must be hosted. One way is to self-host the software. But as long as AI is centralized, the software will be as well.

Re: Self-host is just waiting for its iPhone moment

#15

Post by impure » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 7:08 AM UTC

PocketBase, Appwrite, Supabase... It already had its iPhone moment. I don't think it will ever be as popular as the iPhone though just because AWS has a better marketing team and self-hosted solutions tend not to be very profitable.

Re: Self-host is just waiting for its iPhone moment

#16

Post by dvfjsdhgfv » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 7:20 AM UTC

impure wrote: post #15

PocketBase, Appwrite, Supabase... It already had its iPhone moment. I don't think it will ever be as popular as the iPhone though just because AWS has a better marketing team and self-hosted solutions tend not to be very profitable.

> self-hosted solutions tend not to be very profitable.

Well, they tend to be money-saving.

Re: Self-host is just waiting for its iPhone moment

#17

Post by robmao » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 7:23 AM UTC

wickedsight wrote: post #6

The page won't load for me. And now I'm stuck thinking that this site can't handle the peak load from HN because it's self hosted. I'm not sure whether that's the case, because I can't read it, but it's and interesting coincidence at least.

Yes, my site was down... and it's self-hosted.

Re: Self-host is just waiting for its iPhone moment

#18

Post by rvschuilenburg » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 8:08 AM UTC

I don't see it happening. What's in it for the average user to self-host? Why would they put in the effort (even if it's a very small effort) if their cloud option just works for them?

Re: Self-host is just waiting for its iPhone moment

#19

Post by amarkdown » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 12:36 PM UTC

Cloud platforms cost 2 to 10 times more than self-hosting. If the user scale is manageable and you can handle the complexity, self-hosting can be a valuable option.