Sure, but know you're doing things the hard way. I started with Win 10, WSL, and Docker Desktop but moving to Linux made things 10x easier, Windows is... difficult.
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2026
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I don't see why not.
Most self-hosted solutions come as containers, containers are Linux only and on Windows they run under the WSL VM, so eventually (if you are not doing full installs) you are still using Linux
Well, if masochism is your kink...
I would recommend at most ruining windows as the hypervisor then running Linux virtual machines. Maybe run a windows VM if you have a specific need.
This is mainly because Linux is much better "supported" for the majority of self hosted projects.
But you can of course do whatever you want.
Sure, if that’s what you want to do. Though, you’ll probably find less references and expertise here. There is a reason that even Microsoft runs Linux on most of its own servers.
I wouldn't recommend it personally
Tell us what you are hosting! Tell us now! Lol
Tell us what you are hosting! Tell us now! Lol
IKR! You can't just tease us OP.
Yes, masochists are welcome.
That's kinda the core of self-hosting, isn't it? We are taking back digital sovereignty but giving our time and mental health to the Machine God.
Yup, there's no kinkshaming here
So I've got this Solaris Sparc cluster...
Ooh, that would go well next to my DEC Multias!
I wish I kept my pizza box tbh.
Straight to jail
Now, let me be polemical here ....
(And this is to be read with a pinch of /s)
Selfhosting on windows and understanding what you do is so much better than selfhost on CasaOS/ZimaOS/FancyWebGui/Synology and just spin up containers randomly without even understand what a container is and how it does work at all ...
Now roast me :)
Didnt find any /s there. That's one of the reasons why I dislike docker, it supports not understanding stuff. But then that's just me, who wants to understand stuff. Enabling less tech savvy ppl is also great I guess.
Lowering the entry barrier is a good thing... Self hosting need critical mass to support and use all the nice things we like to selfhost
More so, from the point of view of big tech independence, for those who care, again lowering the barrier is very important
So welcome to docker and stuff, I use docker for half my stuff or more, it's just so much more convenient.
But never stop trying to understand and don't be a passive docker-puller whenever possible :)
than selfhost on CasaOS/ZimaOS/FancyWebGui/Synology and just spin up containers randomly without even understand what a container is and how it does work at all
- I'm in this picture and I don't like it
Are posts about that welcome here?
Absolutely. The gate's open...come on in. It's been quite a while since I've had a Windows based server. I still run Windows 10 in the lab, plus Linux and Mac. I don't really discriminate. All OS's have their place imho.
So far its a blast!
That is one of the prime directives of selfhosting. I have a ton of fun learning about new stuff to do and how to do it. Tell us all about it man. What do you selfhost? Are you running any Docker containers? I'm all ears, which in reality isn't too far from the truth with my Jumbo ears. Share! Share!
I don't think that Linux is in the title or description of this community!
You pick your own poison ....
Mine is Gentoo Linux all the way, yours is Windows. Find two more selfhosters and they will criticize both of us! We are kind of the two extreme of the spectrum....
Welcome!
Gentoo taught me a lot. I ran hardened gentoo with grsec, pax, and selinux ~20 years ago. That was really a nag. I'm glad for the experience though, I'm never afraid to compile my own kernel now. I just prefer the convenience of debian or fedora based distros now.
When I do a hardware refresh on my self hosted machines(typically over 5 years) I usually wait for a bleeding edge brand new socket, and have to compile the latest kernel for reasonable performance and stability until maintainers backport or the distro moves forward.
So true! I met a friend of a friend at a church social last week and he spent the whole time trying to convince me to try FreeBSD instead of selfhosting on Windows. I might try it someday but as polite as he was about it he just couldn't get the hint lol
Yeah, but you'll probably figure it out eventually.
Find two more selfhosters and they will criticize both of us!
Absolutely. However I'd argue that some BSD variant is at the other end, not Gentoo, so there's at least some critics to you ;).
I'm running proxmox and (mostly) Debian on top of that, and I'm sure that there's someone thinking I'm doing things the wrong way.
With Windows Servers I think the bigger problem is that there's way less people running things on top of it, so there's less knowledge about problems and solving them. However, many of us are on corporate IT jobs too and thus have to work with Windows, so that might somewhat cancel out the difference in popularity.
Sure ! But... How !? I don't have even the first idea how you'd host... Almost anything on Windows 😅 and I would be concerned by the power consumption of any non-minimalist OS.
Windows Server exists.
It really shouldn't, but it does.
.... I'm stealing that 😀
Hyper-v server can get pretty damn lightwieght as it ships without a GUI
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Docker for desktop will also let you run a lot of services
Isn't docker on windows just Linux in a trenchcoat?
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Posts about self hosting are welcome, posts to strangers seeking external validation...? Maybe save for therapy.
Temporary becomes permanent. When I was experiencing severe long-term symptoms of Covid, I bought a refurbished computer to use as a NAS with Jellyfin, Sonarr, and indexers. I kept the installed Windows 10 because I simply did not have the energy to do more. Then, when I felt better, I told myself, "Let me add more services."
Now, it's a Frankenstein computer where Windows 10 acts as the hypervisor, running Caddy as my reverse proxy. Crowdsec protects my services, and my Flint 2's firewall acts as the Crowdsec bouncer. A VirtualBox VM runs in Windows 10 and hosts most of my Docker containers. Stablebits DrivePool manages my drive pool.
I've been running this setup for over a year, and I haven't had any issues. I know I should switch to Linux, but since it's been working great and I'm busy, I've been procrastinating.
I have seen the temporary->permanent happen so many times even in enterprise IT.
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/s
I love that movie lol its a family fave!
Hey! I started running a home server on Windows 10. It was a great easy way to get started. The only problem for me that I found with time was that Windows updates would take everything that I was running offline, which was a nuisance to log back in and open everything up.
You may find you gradually move towards Linux :P
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Always. Started on windows hypervisors and windows as they were relevant to my work and I was trying to skill up at the time. Since moved to a Linux stack as the lab grew in scope and my distaste for MS grew as well.
I self hosted windows for many years, mostly because that is what I used at work. I liked it because it hid some of the low level details and worked most of the time.
The thing that finally made me switch was the exorbitant cost of licenses and the need to run services on older hardware.
DM me if you want some keys. I have a few copies of win10 and winIOT laying around that I'm not going to use.
Sure are. I started self hosting with a VM on Hyper-V.
Oh, I'm sorry. Lol.
Hyper-V is just so bad. Decided to run it for a while as a test, I couldn't get back to ESXi fast enough, haha. And I come from the Enterprise world where Hyper-V is common.
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Linux is favored because the ecosystem is more open but you can also run it on low power devices which isn't really the case with Windows (and getting worse over time) and it's free with Windows, to be legal, you need to license the cores/VM. Now does anyone actually do that?! I wouldn't think so.
They better be! I've got a mix of proxmox running Windows and Linux machines, as well as a bare metal Windows machine for streaming gaming, as wells as Linux laptops to access all this.
... My only shame is using Windows server to host my DHCP server.
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