We Surveyed 2,158 Self-Hosters: Here's What Keeps Us Hosting
Hey everyone,
We're excited to finally share the results summary of the survey we posted in this community a few months ago! A massive thank you to the n=2158 active self-hosters from communities like r/selfhosted on Reddit and c/selfhosted on Lemmy.World who participated. Your input has led to a comprehensive academic paper that investigates the core reasons why we stick with self-hosting over the long haul.
Our study examined which factors most influence the Continuance Intention (the desire to keep using) and Actual Usage of self-hosted solutions. We confirmed that self-hosting is a principle-driven and hobby-driven practice, challenging traditional models of technology adoption.
The Top 3 most important Positive Drivers for Continued Self-Hosting
The most significant positive predictors of your intention to continue self-hosting were all rooted in intrinsic satisfaction and personal gain, rather than just basic utility:
- Perceived Enjoyment (The 'Fun Factor'): The sheer joy, pleasure, and personal satisfaction of configuring, maintaining, and experimenting with your own systems is a powerful, primary motivator for long-term engagement.
- Perceived Autonomy (Control/Digital Sovereignty): The desire for explicit control over your data and services, and the rejection of vendor lock-in inherent in third-party cloud services, is a fundamental driver.
- Perceived Usefulness: The belief that your self-hosted solution efficiently delivers specific personal outcomes (e.g., operational efficiency, powerful features, and privacy) is important, but its influence was less pronounced than Enjoyment or Autonomy.
The Critical Role of Technical Skill
We found that your self-assessed technical ability, or Perceived Competence, acts as a crucial link between wanting to self-host and actually doing it. Having a high intention to keep self-hosting is only half the battle. Your confidence in your technical skill is what gives you the self-assurance to handle the necessary, demanding tasks like maintenance, security, and updates. Importantly, a certain critical threshold of knowledge is required before competence starts driving that actual, continuous usage.
Other Key Insights
- Privacy Matters: Concerns about privacy in cloud services positively influence the decision to stick with self-hosting.
- The 'Push' Factor: If a user reports high Trust or high Autonomy when using commercial cloud services, they are significantly less motivated to continue self-hosting. This confirms that dissatisfaction with the commercial cloud effectively "pushes" people toward decentralized alternatives.
- Maintenance Isn't a Dealbreaker: The high effort and time required for upkeep, or Perceived Maintenance Cost, was not a statistically significant factor for giving up on self-hosting. Our intrinsic motivation is powerful enough to absorb the necessary effort.
Implications for the Self-Hosting Ecosystem
For developers and the community, these findings suggest that sustained usage depends not only on functionality but also on fostering empowerment and a great user experience. By making self-hosting more enjoyable and reinforcing the user's sense of digital sovereignty, we strengthen the intrinsic motivation that fuels this movement.
Thank you again for helping us publish this research on the future of decentralized digital solutions! This work would not have been possible without your participation.
The full open-access article "A Model of Factors Influencing Continuance Intention and Actual Usage of Self-Hosted Software Solutions": mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/22/10009
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Now this is how you detect whether an election was stolen. Humans choose rounder numbers.
by @TheEconomist
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they suggest that someone rounded up or down at the least.
But this is focusing the issue on the easiest to detect version of vote manipulation.
This is not how you "detect if an election was stolen" because it is not suggestive of any particular outcome. The way you find this out is over whistleblowers and using many sources.
Election manipulation happens all the time, especially in the west. Propaganda and oppression of opposition has been done since more than 100 yrs.
There is also a talk from @why2025camp this year:
media.ccc.de/v/why2025-218-how…
How to rig elections
Enter the fascinating world of corruption, chicanery, low-tech fraud, and forensic tools that uncover it. The story is told through the e...media.ccc.de
LIFTOFF! Europe's newest guardian of Earth is now in orbit. 🫡
Europe has successfully launched Sentinel-1D, the latest satellite in the Copernicus fleet, aboard an Ariane 6 rocket from French Guiana.
It'll scan land and sea every 12 days with radar sharp enough to detect floods, ice melting, ship movements, oil spills and even the quiet shifting of the ground.
Free data will propel climate science, disaster response and maritime safety.
Europe’s answer to our planet's key challenges.
📷© ESA
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My Dream of a Home Router / Server
What if you could buy off the shelf a box based on #opensource software and hardware that you could plug into your internet connection. You could connect to via Wifi and it would allow an average person to fairly easily configure, via a guided setup, a self hosted Cloud Drive, Social Media server, home automation service, VPN end point, email server and other commonly useful software?
What if that box allowed that person's friends to authenticate and to that box and link a box they own, either close by or remotely. It could extend connectivity and estabilish a chain of trus, provide a level of encrypted backup of content from that box and make assertions about the users on that box such as - This user account is owned by this person, this user account is over 18?
This is a dream. I know I'm rambling. #openwrt, #yunohost, #seflhost, #chainoftrust, #fediverse !Selfhosted
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FreedomBox - Personal Server at Home
FreedomBox is a personal server running a free software operating system, with free applications designed to create and preserve personal privacy.FreedomBox
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💚 🔜 🆕 💼 🎉 💚
Want to work in the open source software area (and support your favorite Android app 
) and still earn money? Guess what … Now you can! 😃
DAVx⁵ is enlarging it's (small) team and we're offering a new part-time job (100% remote work) to support our team in the field of
💼 Support and Community management 💼
⬇️ Learn more and apply 🔽
Community: please RT and share with people you might think are interested!
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Da fange ich lieber nochmal eine Ausbildung an. Macht 12.000 € netto. Ohne Rechnungen schreiben, Selbstverwaltung und Ärger mit dem Finanzamt.
A photo of a starling murmuration as if smoke from a chimney has been called a "fluke" by its Yorkshire based, UK photographer, Anna Tosney #WomensArt #Photography
bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-n…
Skipton starling murmuration chimney photo 'a fluke'
Skipton in North Yorkshire has seen regular murmurations since the start of the year.BBC News
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I think that the "Mastodon is hard" vibe comes largely from folks who expect to be able to "find everyone on one app". I think when we tell folks leaving Twitter/Bluesky/Facebook/whatever about the Fediverse, it's important to address this disconnect with honesty and patience.
No, it is not "just like email". Because for 90% of folks email is "just another app".
It's more like webrings.
I don't think that the solution to getting folks to adopt the Fediverse is to change the Fediverse.
I think the solution is to show folks how great it is to have to curate your life. How wonderful it is to have to *work* for discovering new information. How challenging your mindset and stretching your grey matter is a positive.
To start with, when I talk about the Fediverse, I always say "the jank is a feature".
On Fedi, it is **absolutely** a feature that my posts aren't seen by everyone.
On Fedi, it is **absolutely** a feature that I have to ask questions because search is less-than perfect.
On Fedi, it is **absolutely** a feature that in order to host on your own domain you have to spin up infrastructure or work with someone who can.
On Fedi, it is **absolutely** a feature that there are entirely closed-off networks inaccessible from the outside.
These are features. Jank is a feature. Embrace it.
“How much for the antidepressants?”
“They're cream eclairs, sir!”
“...How much?”
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Not as much as she would appreciate some eclairs...
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How to Save the Internet by Nick Clegg review – spinning Silicon Valley
Instead of recognising that social media harms mental health and democracy, the former deputy PM and Meta executive repeats company talking pointsNick Clegg chooses difficult jobs. He was the UK’s deputy prime minister from 2010 to 2015, a position from…
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Midcounties Co-op celebrates 20th anniversary with raft of member offers
Midcounties Co-op celebrates 20th anniversary with raft of member offers - Co-operative News
Midcounties Co-op celebrates its 20th anniversary this month, announcing a series of exclusive member offersMiles Hadfield (Co-operative News)
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Axolotl
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reluctant_squidd
in reply to SelfhostedResearch • • •My self hosting journey is limited mostly by time. When I have it, I try out new setups or tweak my current one. Otherwise it’s just lower end maintenance and updates.
The last time I had ample time I managed to get a double WireGuard (both in and out) working, so that’s something I suppose.
I can’t see anything disagreeable in this summary from my own experience so far though. Great stuff!
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dream_weasel
in reply to ☂️- • • •Big if. That's a trial and error journey unless some of the tools are part of your job description.
Edit: downvoted by Linus Torvalds I guess. Can't even follow a video and hope it's right unless you just duplicate a setup
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decended_being
in reply to abeorch • • •I like this! Similar to run groups, but parallel task zoom meet ups or the like.
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decended_being
in reply to abeorch • • •I'm in the US...
Happy to help plan something though, or add a Zoom / virtual equivalent.
irmadlad
in reply to SelfhostedResearch • • •I'd say my interest in selfhosting is multi-pronged. Selfhosting allows me to control my data which fits into my privacy, anonymity, and security posture. It's also a great educational tool for me. I'm always down to learn something, and even tho I've been immersed in computer tech since the mid 70s, I still have sooooo much to learn. I'd almost say that the educational benefits are somewhat more enjoyable than the actual finished product. It also ties in with my desire to be able to help others be as anonymous, private, and secure as one can possibly be, not only in their daily lives, but in their digital lives. The more I know, the more I can help others.
I'm sitting here pouring over a box of about 18 Wyse 3040 & 5010 thin clients that a bud of mine dropped off the other day, wondering what can I get into today. Muhahahahaha! It's gonna be a good day 'tater.
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1984
in reply to SelfhostedResearch • • •I think people who self host are the only ones who knows they services wont just disappear, their accounts wont get locked and their data wont be shared with big tech.
Others can wake up one day and not have access to their stuff anymore, and have nothing they can do about it.
How mad is it to just rent access to your movies, or documents, and it can go away at any moment?
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