Since starting my self-hosting journey last year, I've fallen in love with everything I can do on my own server without having to rely on the internet. I've tried a lot of services, and many have remained on my NAS, but there are a select few that I legitimately use every day.

That's not to say that I need to use a service daily for it to be worth it, of course. I love Nextcloud and Immich whenever I do need to back up photos and other files, but it's not something I rely on daily. But there other services that I actively use on a daily basis, and I highly recommend them.

Miniflux

It's how I get my news now

Let's start with something simple. Miniflux is an extremely simple and lightweight RSS feed reader that instantly became a mainstay on my NAS after I initially tested it for this article.

The simple UI may not be for everyone, but it's very effective at presenting me the news articles from the sources I want without cluttering my screen with unnecessary information, I can click a headline to read a longer summary or view the entire article if I'm interested in the topic.

I added Miniflux to the start page dashboard in my Vivaldi browser, so whenever I log onto my PC, I can see the latest news from my sources without having to open a dedicated app or website myself. Plus, Miniflux also supports integration with some smartphone apps so I can get a nicer, touch-focused interface for browsing my articles, or I can just access the web version that still works fairly well on mobile. This one is easy to recommend.

AdGuard Home

Silently watchful

AdGuard Home is a slightly different example, as it's not actually running on my NAS. I used to have Pi-hole to help me with network-wide ad-blocking, but then I bought a router that actually has equivalent functionality built-in through AdGuard Home.

While I didn't have to set anything up myself here, AdGuard Home is a self-hosted service, and you can use your NAS or home lab to run either it or AdGuard Home. Just by adding a couple of well-known clocking lists, AdGuard Home has made my web experience so much better on all my devices without even having to think about it.

I probably don't need to say anything else to sell you on the idea of an adblocker for your entire home network, so I'll just say you can check out AdGuard Home below.

Vaultwarden

My new favorite password manager

I never really cared for having a dedicated password manager aside from the one built into my browser, but after I tried self-hosting Vaultwarden a while back, I never wanted to go back.

For one thing, Bitwarden (paired with Vaultwarden) makes it possible to remember passwords for mobile apps, too, all under the same umbrella, which makes things way easier for me. And I also love that I get to have this data on my own server entirely, without having to rely on any given company to keep it safe for me.

And just recently, it got even better when I realized that, by self-hosting Vaultwarden, I get all the premium features of Bitwarden for free, and there's a big one I love: authenticator integration. See, Bitwarden has a free authenticator app that's available separately, but through Vaultwarden, I can link an authenticator key with an account whose password I have saved in Vaultwarden, and now, whenever I use that login information, I can automatically enter the two-factor authentication code along with it. I love it.

Jellyfin

Making my media more accessible than ever

Modern streaming services have become increasingly expensive and frustrating, and while I love physical media as much as the next guy, using that media on all my devices is difficult, if not impossible.

Jellyfin allows me to store and access that media digitally on just about any device I own, whether it's on my TVs, computers, or phones. Converting physical media to a digital format is arguably the most complicated part of the experience, because Jellyfin itself works flawlessly and it's made it so easy to watch all the content I want.

I'll admit my wife uses Jellyfin a lot more than I do, but it's an absolutely essential part of our home lab either way.

Tailscale/Nginx Proxy Manager

Is this cheating? Probably

Finally, the last service I legitimately use every day is a combination of Tailscale and Nginx Proxy Manager, which I've grouped into one because I essentially use them for the same purpose: accessing my home lab remotely and securely.

All of the services above are great, but I don't want to be limited to using them at home, and Tailscale essentially creates a tunnel between whatever device I'm using and my home lab, so I can access it as if I was home without having to expose it to the entire internet.

Meanwhile, Nginx Proxy Manager allows me to use a domain I own to redirect traffic from a more human-friendly URL to the IP address and port of my other self-hosted services, while also helping validate that the connection is secure, which is essential for things like Vaultwarden as well as some features in Nextcloud.

It's a combination of services I'm really glad I set up, and I'd gladly do it again.

Self-hosting has been a game changer

These tools alone already make self-hosting worth it, but that's still not everything I love about this idea. While all of these services are part of my daily life, Nextcloud and Immich are arguably just as important, if not more so, since that's where I back up all my important files and photos. I don't access them every day, but they're absolutely essential, and adding onto to the ones above, they make my home lab the most important computer in my house.