The 3 Stages of Self-Hosting

The 3 stages of self-hosting Google Drive BACKUPS (for cries) UPTIME 27 days Google Drive Nextcloud Immich Vaultwarden Home Assistant 1. I love Google Drive, Google Photos, Spotify, and Netflix. Everything just works. Why would anyone run a server at home? 2. I host my own Nextcloud, Jellyfin, Immich, Vaultwarden, and Home Assistant. I own my data, save money, and learn Linux along the way. 3. Cloud? What cloud? My ThinkPad under the stairs runs 27 Docker containers, Proxmox, Tailscale, and a UPS. My family has accidentally become my beta testers.

The meme shows three stages of self-hosting: first, someone happily uses convenient cloud services; then they begin running personal alternatives such as Nextcloud, Jellyfin, Immich, Vaultwarden, and Home Assistant; finally, they become an obsessive homelab administrator running dozens of services from a ThinkPad under the stairs. The joke is the escalating commitment from casually using cloud apps to managing an overengineered private infrastructure, with the family unwillingly becoming beta testers. It is commonly sent as a reaction to someone getting deeply invested in self-hosting, Linux, Docker, or homelabs.

• @gentoomemes / 22041 2026-09-18