I was wondering about the pros and cons about self hosting your services via Yunohost. I currently have all my services hosted in docker containers on a Debian homeserver. As I was planning on a fresh install, setting up an Ansible script to simplify backup & restoring and bake in a centralized user management system (currently I annoyingly have separate passwords for each service for my 5 users).
Now I was wondering if I could get some experience reports from Yunohost users. What are the problems you faced? Are you satisfied? Are there so many services you couldn’t find that you rather went the selfhosted way and integrate Authelia or a similar service? Any ideas and feedback is welcome that can help make up my mind.
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I tried Yunohost once, and everything worked as long as I stuck to the officially supported apps. The community forum was supportive within reason, and would respond with advice fairly quickly. When I reported an error with an unofficial app, however, I was instantly told off that I shouldn’t expect any help.
Now, having used and admined my Linux desktop systems for a decade (without claiming to be an actual sysadmin), I nosed around the system a bit and to my eyes it seemed a right mess of app and user folders, permissions and containers. Surely, a combination of my limited understanding of server apps and a system that is made primarily for GUI use to make administration easier for beginners.
What I mean to say is, if you already run a set of working docker containers, you’re probably more advanced than the intended Yunohost user. I was that half ounce more literate that I became frustrated with the GUI-centric setup, and imperial pounds too illiterate to actually muck around in the command line.
Look at it this way, Yunohost offers a fraction of the apps available on Docker, and not all of them are maintained. They do offer a graphic admin interface and out-of-the-box working setups (or did five years ago when I tried it).
I tried it, but not knowing what was going on under the hood made me worried about how I would fix anything when it broke, and how timely updates to software would be. I also don’t think it had any kind of central user management for the installed apps.
If you’re already familiar with docker I would stick with that.
If you stick to the apps that are indicated as being well supported it’s good. The main reason I use it is because I’m part of a team that includes people not comfortable with the command line so having a web interface to manage a server means not everything falls on my shoulders.
I am a relatively new Yunohost user, and I’m a big fan. I’ve dabbled with Docker, but I’ve never been quite able to figure out how to make it work. Yunohost took the hard part away and made it pretty easy to set up.
That said, I don’t view it as a long term solution for me. I don’t like not really knowing entirely how it works, and I’ve had issues trying to configure the reverse proxy to connect it with a domain name. (I purchased one from Porkbun, which is apparently not supported.) Until I learn a little more, though, I like it.
- Unable to host apps without exposing them to the web
- Despite a simplified GUI, a lot of the system is still dependent on CLI
- they make you use subdomains and / as well. Like blog.website.com/blog
- Outdated apps (some much more than others)
- Poor/no support when something goes wrong
- An entire Debian generation behind (not sure if that one matters but it is weird)
- Can’t run multiple of the same service
I’ve tried them all and it’s overall the best but still has a whole lot of room for improvement
Some of these points are inaccurate. Numbers 3 and 7 are definitely dependent on the app in question. I also rarely have to do anything in CLI, a recent update moved an issue I had with LE certs from the CLI to the web admin. As far as support, the forum can be inconsistent and the XMPP chat is more responsive. Dev team is in France though, so timezone can cause delays.
Some of these points are inaccurate.
…any specific ones?
the XMPP chat is more responsive
I didn’t even know there was an XMPP chat, but any chat seems like an awful way to get support…
timezone can cause delays
We’re not talking about hours here, we’re talking about days/weeks or months.
I specified the ones in my comment. I like chat support, but I understand it’s not everyone’s preference. I don’t doubt your experience, just providing mine.
Nothing in your comment would make mine “inaccurate”.
Ok.
I love Yunohost and have used it for like 10 years. That said, if I was comfortable using Docker, I probably would just use that.
One of the primary requirements for my latest project moving a bunch of stuff to self hosted is that if it has a GUI that is going to be internet facing, it either has to support OIDC or it has to be something low risk enough that I feel comfortable setting it up without much security and just setting up a single basic auth login with traefik. A few apps I had trouble finding, but worked most of it out.
