Teacher here. No professional affiliation with PCs, Linux or self-hosting. Started out with a Synology NAS and got my first experiences with Linux, CLI, Docker, etc. Switched to Unraid last fall and I self-host quite a lot of services now. 100% self-taught.

I'm a college professor in the humanities (religious studies, history). Got into linux about 5 years back, partly because it comports better with my lefty politics than the alternatives, but also just because I've long been a closet computer nerd. I currently run a couple of proxmox servers on old optiplexes I grabbed off ebay. Full *arr stack with jellyfin on docker, a Tails VM for TOR stuff, NAS (omv on a vm), some other dockerized stuff: linkding, radicale, alexandrite (a self-hosted lemmy client, which I'm currently writing this on), various backup utilities.

It's basically just a hobby for me, though the switch to linux has also totally changed my academic workflow, e.g. I do all my writing in nvim + latex now, use syncthing to sync my home desktop, laptops, and office computer, etc. I dig divesting myself from corporate computing to the greatest extent possible, appreciate the privacy benefits, and generally just enjoy the community-driven spirit of the whole thing.

Former USAF JAG here (lawyer). I was always a tech geek, undergrad major was in MIS actually, but I didn't enjoy coding. Always ran Plex on the side, built my own computers, etc. Grew up with my Dad using Linux everywhere (I found this annoying as I just wanted to play games on Windows).

I didn't enjoy law (surprise!). I was disillusioned with the criminal justice system too. Quit the law in 2020. Then suddenly had quality time by global happenstance to rethink my life path.

I work in IT now. Restarted at the bottom of a new career but I'm in deep nerd territory now - Proxmox servers, Home Assistant, networks with VLANs, OPNsense router, 22U server rack, Linux as my daily driver, etc.

Much happier now.

Just getting started but yeah, I have basically no technology background. Mostly I'm too stubborn to know when to quit something so here I am lol.

I'm a farmer that was an IT guy a decade or so ago, which I guess is a background in it, but that's not why I do it. Self-hosting is a self-reliance thing. I like to fix my own equipment, metal and silicon.

When it comes apart, I want to know the reason, and I like to invent new ways to do things, which means I have to be able to control my infrastructure.

No background but I can read and listen. There are plenty of resources around.

I started out of privacy concerns and I wanted to deGoogle It started this year with a RPI and pihole. Then I saw Mealie, bought a domain, and started sharing recipes with my family.

At first I messed around with Casa OS. It's like a gateway drug. So easy to use and get stuff running.

Last week a 2nd hand i5 arrived and now I moved everything to proxmox. The RPI is still running pihole. At the moment I'm setting up Immich and I'm thinking about buying a NAS.

Since it is a new hobby I keep everything low cost. If it sticks I'll invest in a proper home server.

I'm just an idiot that tinkers with things. I've got a TrueNAS Scale system up and running as network storage and Plex storage. There's about 44TB of raw capacity in there right now, connected via a server SAS card. I just follow tutorials if I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

When they were installing the alarm at my house I noticed that the main guy had nextcloud on his phone and it sparked a nice conversation about privacy. He has no technical background but managed to self-host it on his old laptop with one of those distros that have an easy UI for self-hosting (don't remember which one exactly). He's a pretty cool guy.

Former attorney who now consults for corporate compliance departments/programs. I have zero formal training or professional practical experience, but tech has always been my strongest hobby. I decided to self host as much as possible almost 20 years ago starting with media libraries and email; it stemmed from a deep distrust of the tech industry.

My father in law was a commercial pilot and he had a home server just to keep photos and travel writing while he was flying and away from home a lot. I helped him upgrade some of that to the cloud, since that makes for sense when on the other side of the country, but he still has a bunch of stuff at home.

I don't have a tech background. Currently hosting 25 different things in docker. I wonder if there are actually more non-tech people who do it, because tech industry people might want to take a break in their off time.

Medical device engineer here (mechanical engineering). I host jellyfin, game servers (Minecraft, factorio, valheim, etc), my website, and a bunch of other minor services I find useful.

I got into it originally through a combination of poor internet, and being fed up with Google and others discontinuing products/features. The internet problem is solved now, so my only goal is not being reliant on someone else's cloud.

Self hosting is your pathway to a tech background.

University for comp sci, in my experience around the space, is a complete waste of time. Just a piece of paper that may or may not equip the recipient with some skills that may or may not be relevant.

yes! structural engineer here, computers has been my passion for a long time and self hosting is a joy! i have learnt a ton in the past year about networking, security and so many things!

I work in logistics. I've always had a fascination with tech, and was leery of all these neato things on offer from big tech, from social media to the cloud.

Found out I could self-host, and got to learning.

Mechanical engineer here self-hosting my own Lemmy and Pixelfed instances in a Yunohost VM on an old Ubuntu box. It just feels better being my own admin.

I've never been in tech professionally, I'm a truck driver (now working in the office of company but still drive sometimes) but I have always been into tech. I selfhost as much as possible. Bitwarden, jellyfin, seafile, etc. and also run a Lemmy instance. I like tech projects and control.

Hi, I'm a chef. I'm just playing around with raspberry pis and stuff. I just like learning and seeing what I can do.

I clean construction site toilets. I wanted to run my own game and media severs and ended up with a Dell Poweredge, a synology 1u NAS and some ubiquity gear

I have no tech background, and I am just getting into creating a media server. I started with an old secondhand Synology NAS, which developed a power issue within a month and no chance of returning it or getting it covered by warranty.

My current plan is to get another Synology NAS (new with extended warranty this time), along with a spare HDD enclosure so I can have an extra layer of redundancy, finally set up Jellyfin, and then I want to build a Pihole. At that point I won't need much more self hosting or networking tricks until further notice.

Still have no idea what I'm doing.

I work in emergency management but I've always been interested in tech as a hobby. That led me to start self-hosting Plex on my desktop about 6-7 years ago. Now I've got a dedicated machine running unraid with about 20 to 30 different docker services.

I really enjoy being able to figure out how to setup a service and then being able to be fully in control of how it works. Beyond just enjoying tinkering with the system to learn, I enjoy being able to troubleshoot and fix problems without relying on large companies.

My one and only reason is that I'm a turbo-nerd. No professional or even educational tech background at all.

Programming and self hosting the results when I was ~14 is what led me to a tech background. No university, but I've been working professionally in both IT and software for over a decade and self hosting even longer.

I believe that most self holsters actually are more hobbyist lifestyle than people with actual tech background.

I read and research a whole lot, which has taken me down this rabbit hole.

Non-tech. I decided to self host first to send media to my TV. I wanted an always-on solid state hard drive computer that didn’t have to do any transcoding. Tried DLNA but Emby just worked better. Jellyfin didn’t have an LG App at the time so I’m still using Emby. Eventually I also asked my poor ARM server with 2 GB of RAM to also run my wireless access points, but the Omada software is a resource hog. So I have a little Intel machine that can do Omada better and also transcoding for Emby on the go. And then I learned about HomeBridge and that’s been great too. I think together the two computers run about 15W of energy I could decommission the ARM one but it does a couple things I haven’t migrated yet. I’ve tried hosting other stuff but those are the main ones used every day.

Kinda? My bare bones initial self hosted media streaming setup was put together by my partner. It's no longer bare bones, because I've since upgraded it, added new functionality and I keep it going.

I work in retail, but my homelab isn't super extensive just a nas, a Plex server, and a couple proxmox boxes.

Closet I've ever come to being in IT was back when I was still in college and took some a networking class and some web development classes but that was many moons ago.

Background in biology and insurance - major career transition but yes, I love self-hosting! Have about 37 services running!

Started with running a minecraft realm then it grew to the point greifers became a problem so we needed plug-ins for protection. So that led to having a managed hosted server then a VPS and then finally self hosting

I don't work in IT/Tech at all, but I've been an enthusiast since I was young, at first piggybacking off of my dad, then developing my own interests as I got into high school and college. I started self-hosting because I found it interesting and as time progressed I saw the benefits of operating things locally. I only host things within my own network though, because I'm not yet comfortable with how to safely set up external access.

I'm a syaadmin now, but self hosting nextcloud is what got me my first IT job. I now host a bunch of stuff (even email!), lemmy included.

how did you decide that you would like to self-host? I wanted my friends to play a cs1.6 map I had created.

Hosting videogames on a dedicated box for me and the boys when I was 16 got me more interested in networking and when I had finished my mostly unrelated education, I pivoted hard to IT. I don't currently work in IT and I don't know if I ever will again because my handicap and location make it hard to find jobs but essentially:

Self-hosting came first, then came the tech 'background'.

It was self-fulfilling for me. I started self-hosting and messing with networking before I went into IT. I thought I’d be in a very different field until ~10 years ago.

Psychologist by training, production planner by trade. I started using Linux around 15 years ago on my laptop. My self hosted journey started with a Chromecast plugged in a TV and I would cast file from my laptop. Fed up on how laggy and buggy the set up was I installed Kodi on my laptop. Then, I bought a SBC and a few years later a refurbished NUC for few bucks.

I now selfhost around 10 services but nothing too complex (jellyfin, grocy, paperless, etc). I know how to set up a docker image and thinker a bit with config files but I rely heavily on guides for tasks more complex than that. There are a few services that I would like to setup but as I get older I get less joy from setting up a system than using it and the hours I can invest on this are unfortunately limited.