Self-hosting has exploded in popularity over the past few years. With projects like Nextcloud for storage, Jellyfin for multimedia, and Matrix as a Discord alternative, it’s easier than ever to run your own replacements for the big-name apps. I admire the control and privacy that comes with self-hosting, and while I self-host a few things here and there, there are still a few cloud services I’d rather not give up. They’re polished, they’re reliable, and for my daily workflow, they simply make more sense.

Notion

Too many creature comforts

I'll admit it, hosting a Notion alternative like Obsidian or Outline isn't terribly difficult, and probably wouldn't take long to set up, but I'm still not willing to give up on Notion. The small details of polish in the block-based editor, real-time updating that isn't reliant on my hardware, and the absolutely massive template community make it so difficult to drop for a self-hosted alternative. Not to mention the fluid integration with the mobile app. It's just one of those things I can't bring myself to do, as Notion works so well for what I use it for daily. Maybe one day I'll shake that boat, but for now, I'm rocking with Notion.

Discord

I can't convince everyone I know to move

As someone who gamed competitively for many years, I became pretty familiar with applications like TeamSpeak, Mumble and Ventrilo. These are hardly replacements for Discord, but you could host your own server for these quite easily, provided you had a decent internet connection and were in a central location to your friends. They are still used as a replacement for Discord today in competitive scenes due to their barebones, performance-oriented nature.

It's fairly easy to get a group of players on board with joining a server on a service like that to save some frames and have uber-fast communications, but for hanging out, sharing memes, and shooting the breeze, Discord is incredibly hard to beat. It's possible to self-host similar services like Mattermost and Matrix Synapse, but that'd require convincing your friends to ditch Discord entirely, which is no easy feat. Maybe eventually they'll value privacy and see the value in joining a self-hosted alternative, but for now, I'm stuck using Discord.

Google Drive

Cloud storage is just too easy

Out of all the services on this list, Google Drive is one service that I'm this close to replacing, but just haven't managed to escape from yet, and it's largely due to the upfront investment required for setting up redundant storage infrastructure. I've only heard great things about services like Nextcloud and ownCloud, but the guaranteed uptime of Drive and other related features like Google Docs is just so hard to escape from. For now, I'm just not ready to splash the upfront cost for the amount of storage I need, along with the time required to set up and maintain such a setup. I certainly will in the future, but I'm sticking with Drive for the foreseeable.

GitHub

A large community and ecosystem is hard to get away from

While I can't deny Gitea and self-hosting repos have their benefits for personal projects, there's a reason why GitHub is so ubiquitous. Countless numbers of integrations, third-party apps, and an overall dependable platform for Git, just make it hard to beat. Even for version control within personal, private projects, having them hosted somewhere else just gives me total peace of mind that if my whole home lab blows up, at least I can revert my personal projects to right where I left off.

Apple Music

I'm not willing to buy all the music I want to listen to

Music streaming services have completely transformed the way we consume music, both on our mobile devices and our computers. It's hard to imagine going without it, and while there is a small subset of people that download their music for hosting on Jellyfin or Navidrome, I'm just not willing to join them. Even if, hypothetically, I didn't have to pay for the music, tracking it all down and downloading it is just far too much of a hassle. Services like Apple Music and Spotify will get a few bucks from me every month for the rest of my life, and I'm fine with that.

Self-hosting is awesome, but it's not great for everything

Self-hosted platforms are improving every year, and for many people they’re a fantastic option. But for my workflow, these specific cloud services remain entrenched in my daily life. They save me time, help me collaborate more effectively, and just work without constant tinkering. Sometimes, that trade-off is worth it.