I recently became interessted in learning about static site generators. So I decided to start a little 11ty blog, in which I teach people, who are new to self-hosting, how to securely set up their own server with Ubuntu and Docker.
For now, I’ve got my Beginners Guide series as well as a more detailed introduction to SSH and its features. I plan to eventually write down all I’ve learned about self-hosting in the past 20 years.
Hope it ends up being helpful for some of you.
EDIT (2025-10-28): Finally got around to get a proper domain and switched my blog to Hugo. Much easier to deal with and more capable imho than 11ty (and actually useful documentation as well). Oh and got rid of Netlify. Their 300 credit limit for a free deploy project is far too limiting if any deploy costs 15 credits…
This shouldn’t exist in the same article lol. You will just end up paying in subscriptions anyways while at the same time maintaining all the stacks — that too on Ubuntu where some articles will become useless after a few updates. Even 10$ a month will result in $120 every year — which can buy you a half decent second hand PC or a new Mini PC. You won’t even own your data when you rent a VPS.
You will end up saving a lot more by self hosting on your own hardware with vanilla Debian and be more independent at the same time. You will only need a VPS if you want to self-host your own reverse tunnel like Pangolin or FRP.
The amount of baseless Ubuntu Server hate in this sub is pretty sad. I’ve used Ubuntu Server, without any problems, for more than a decade. And at no point where there any significant changes to the way things are done. So I really think your comment about articles becoming useless has no basis in reality.
As for using your own hardware. Nothing in this guide necessarily requires a VPS. And you seem to completely ignore the upkeep and electricity costs of having your own hardware at home.
Not to mention the convenience of a public IP, which is something not every ISP around the world offers. And yes, you can use a dynamic DNS provider to get around that, but then you publish your private IP onto the entire internet.
The guide was focused on being as simple and convenient as possible, with the target audience being absolute beginners to self-hosting. If it doesn’t speak to you, feel free to write your own.