doc/howtohostyourself.md

How to host yourself ?

You can host yourself at home (on a small computer), or on a remote server. Each solution has their pros and cons :

At home, for instance on an ARM board or an old computer

You can host yourself at home with an ARM board or a re-purposed regular computer, connected to our home router/box.

• Pros : you will have physical control on the machine and only need to buy the hardware ;
• Cons : you will have to manually configure your internet box and might be limited by your ISP.

At home, behind a VPN

A VPN is an encrypted tunnel between two machines. In practice, it allows to make it "as is" you were connected to the Internet from somewhere else. This allows to still host yourself at home while bypassing possible limitations from your ISP. See also the Internet Cube project and the FFDN.

• Pros : you will have physical control on the machine, and the VPN hides your traffic from your ISP and allows to bypass its limitations ;
• Cons : you will have to pay a monthly subscription for the VPN.

On a remote server (VPS or dedicated server)

You can rent a virtual private server or a dedicated machine to associative or commercial "Cloud" providers.

• Pros : your server and its internet connectivity will be fast ;
• Cons : you will have to pay a monthly subscription and won't have physical control on your server.

Summary

	At home (e.g. ARM board, old computer)	At home behind a VPN	On a remote server (VPS or dedicated)
Hardware cost	About 50€ (e.g. a Raspberry Pi)		None
Monthly cost	Neglictible (electricity)	Around 5€ (VPN)	Starting at ~3€ (VPS)
Physical control on the machine	Yes	Yes	No
Manual port routing required	Yes	No	No
Possible ISP limitations	Yes (see [here](/isp))	Bypassed by VPN	Typically no
CPU	Typically ~1 GHz		~2 GHz (Digital Ocean droplet)
RAM	Typically 500 Mo or 1 Go		Related to server cost
Internet connectivity	Depends of home connectivity		Typically pretty good