this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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And I applaud you for that. However, the fact remains, that not everyone selfhosts for the same reasons. I got into selfhosting because I wanted to be as private, as secure, and as anonymous as I could be. However, I do thoroughly enjoy learning how to do things on my server. At my age, it's good to keep what's left of my brain active. I genuinely like to tinker. I do also make concessions.
I looked at the rules, and I can't find anything about closed source. I did find 'without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.' The reason this thread exists is because some people think closed source that integrates with selfhosted, opensource, is 100% out, and I find no evidence of such. It also states 'Be civil: we’re here to support and learn from one another. Insults won’t be tolerated.' Civility: Hey is this open source? Was it vibe coded? Ok no thanks bro.' It sure isn't the dog pile on the rabbit we see most of the time here when something AI, paid for, or closed source that integrates with opensource threads show up.
I agree that 100% asking selfhosters to outright buy something should be out. We've seen a few of these. But, again, the reason this thread was started was because a dev asked a bunch of selfhosters to beta test an app that integrates with what most here run, and in return for your efforts, he will let you keep the app if you so desire. So, you actually do retain control. You can pass. You can beta test. You can uninstall. Your choice.
Self-hosting is a community effort in which the whole community helps each other to self-host their data, including programming the services people use for this purpose. The problem with closed-source software is that we don't know what's happening behind the scenes, or if it's indeed sending telemetry.
Even worse, if that service is ever no longer supported or updated, I'll be left with data on my server that can't be used to its full potential, and a service that won't receive security updates.
Open-source software, on the other hand, is a community effort. If, for example, software is no longer updated or supported, it can easily be forked, and my data can be transferred to the new service.