I use self-hosted tools regularly, and you've probably heard of many of them. But here's the thing: there are loads of hidden gems among the self-hosting community that you probably haven't heard of, but that you should try out for yourself. These tools offer niche functions that you might not even realize you need — but once you find them, you won't want to live without them.

Wallos

A self-hosted subscription manager

We live in an age of subscriptions. They're basically a fact of life now. Between Netflix, Hulu, and dozens of others that cover everything from entertainment to meal delivery, it can be hard to keep track. If you're trying to get a better overview of your spending, Wallos is a fantastic self-hosted subscription manager that keeps you up to date on upcoming charges. Entering the information takes a little bit of time, but Wallos has several quality-of-life features that make it easy to use.

For example, if you want to add a logo to your subscription, you don't have to download the image yourself; Wallos has a built-in search tool that can find graphics for most subscriptions. It was even able to pull up Roll20 and Inkarnate. You can even set up payment notifications through services like Discord or Telegram, so you aren't caught off guard by a charge.

WithoutBG

A self-hosted alternative to the real reason we all use Canva Pro

Removing the background from an image is a surprisingly intensive task. Canva Pro has an effective background-remover tool that draws many users to it, but what if you could do that for yourself? WithoutBG is a small, self-hosted GitHub project that makes it easy to remove an image's background, and all processing happens on your device. There is a paid version that grants an API key for "pro" level removal, but I found the free version to work great on everything I tested it with.

Bar Assistant

Take your home bartending to the next level

Fancy yourself a mixologist? Then, Bar Assistant is one tool you don't want to leave out of your repertoire. This self-hosted tool includes more than 300 different cocktail recipes, over 150 base ingredients, and even has an RSS feed built in that keeps you up to date on the latest cocktail news (if you care about that sort of thing). The most impressive features are the shopping list; not only does it show how much the ingredients might cost online, but you can put in your location to see what they would cost at your local store.

If you want to go above and beyond, you can generate a QR code that links to your own custom bar menu. If you have guests, they can scan the code to see exactly what you can make with the ingredients you have on hand. Bar Assistant is a lot like a recipe tracker, but catered towards drinks.

Baby Buddy

A new parent's best friend

When you have a new baby, you have to track everything. The hospital might suggest an app, and there are tons available on the market, but here's a secret: they all cost money to access the most-needed features. Baby Buddy is a self-hosted alternative that lets you track every data point you could possibly need, and it's accessible from mobile devices. That means you can easily log every single diaper change, the consistency of what was in the diaper (yup, you have to do that, too), and more.

Baby Buddy also lets you add entries for growth markers, like weight, BMI, head circumference, and more. It gives you a solid overview of how your baby is growing and developing over time. And since the information is hosted entirely on your own device, you never have to worry about privacy.

Shiori

The last bookmark manager you'll ever need

If you use multiple browsers, then you probably have bookmarks scattered across several different places. Shiori is the solution to that. This bookmark manager makes it easy to import all your bookmarks from all your devices and keep them in a single place. It also has an easy-to-use tagging system that eliminates folders entirely, letting you gather all your bookmarks in a single space and separate them into easily searchable categories. Once set up, Shiori is accessible from any device (including mobile), and that means you can pull up that cool website you found, no matter what device you're on.

Self-hosting offers an inexpensive solution to pricey paid apps

Self-hosting is useful for a variety of reasons, but in my case, I find it tremendously useful for cutting costs. Why pay for an expensive baby-tracking app when I can self-host Baby Buddy? Why pay for something like RocketMoney when Wallos does the same thing? If you haven't taken the dive into self-hosting yet, now is a great time to start.