I’m considering a business plan for people getting in to self-hosting. Essentially I sell you a Mikrotik router and a refurbished tiny x86 server. The idea is that the router plugs in to your home internet and the server into the router. Between the two they get the server able to handle incoming requests so that you can host services on the box and address them from the broader Internet.
The hypothesis is that $150 of equipment to avoid dozens of hours of software configuration is a worthwhile trade for some customers. I realize some people want to learn particular technologies and this is a bad fit for them. I think there are people out there that want the benefit of self-hosting, and may find it worth it to buy “self-hosting in a box”.
What do you think? Would this be a useful product for some people?
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Hi, I’m your customer base.
I’m a complete novice, no network or coding experience, but not afraid of computers either. I’m pretty worried about messing up something serious due to lack of knowledge.
In the end, I didn’t choose Synology or the like due to:
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lack of robust community support. I’ve noodled around with Linux for years and learned that community support is essential.
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price. I’d pay 10% or 50% more for a good pre-configured system, but not 3-4x more (which is just the general feeling I get from Synology)
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lack of configurability. I’m still not sure what I would like to do (and be able). I know I want to replace some storage services, replace some streaming services, control my smart home, maaaaybe access my files remotely, and probably some other stuff. I may want to have email or a website in the future, but that’s not on my radar right now.
If there were some plug-and-play hardware/software solution that was still affordable and open, it would be a good choice for me.
I appreciate your thought process here! Where did you end up as far as self-hosting?
I’m currently about halfway through setting up a home server on an old/refurbished Dell PC. It has enough compute to transcode if needed, but no more. I’ll have to upgrade the storage to set up RAID. For software, I am running xubuntu, which offers the benefits of the great community and documentation of Ubuntu. It is very beginner friendly, but is a bit simpler and lighter than gnome. I’m running everything I can as Docker containers.
Nice. That’s similar to what I’m doing: Ubuntu LTS server running containers, orchestrated by Docker Compose, with a Traefik reverse proxy in front of everything. I’m curious about TrueNAS SCALE though, wondering if that would suit my needs.
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How will you provide long term maintenance of their server for a one time payment of 150$?
Raspberry pi was able to do it with $35.
Raspberry Pi is not a server. That people use it as one does not mean it’s fit for purpose.
While true I feel like your comment misses the point. A raspberry pi is just a computer, not a magic solution box that’s kept maintained and updated by some guy. Their product isn’t a service, it’s just the device.
How will you provide long term maintenance of their server for a one time payment of 150$?
My current thinking is the margin on the hardware would be intentionally low, essentially the cost of the hardware %+10 for configuring it a bit, installing NixOS, etc.
The business would survive on support and hosted services. Something like $20/month which gets you access to support to answer questions, help configure applications, troubleshoot issues, etc. Possibly rolling upgrades of your installed software on your behalf. Alerts on urgent security vulnerabilities. Could also handle tricky things like custom DNS (email servers, certificates) and off-site backups. I’m not totally sure what all would be included, but the goal is to make money while providing value, not build a garden or rent-seek.
$20 per month would be enough to discourage me. It’s another relatively costly computer-related subscription and I already feel like I’m losing a battle to keep those minimal. There would have to be some very clear benefits for that price.
There would have to be some very clear benefits for that price.
Agreed, it would need to be very clear, and additionally we’d need to plan that a certain percentage of customers would grow out of a basic support offering, either by becoming experts or by growing their install size and complexity.
$20 per month would be enough to discourage me. It’s another relatively costly computer-related subscription and I already feel like I’m losing a battle to keep those minimal.
Understandable. Is there a price you think would be reasonable? What would you want for that price?
So the problem with thin margins on the hardware side is what’s stopping a user from just installing their own OS once they figure out they can do the same thing you’re doing on the same hardware?
Nothing stops them, but that’d be fine. If they buy the hardware they should be able to do what they want with it.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters AP WiFi Access Point CGNAT Carrier-Grade NAT DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, automates assignment of IPs when connecting to a network DNS Domain Name Service/System ESXi VMWare virtual machine hypervisor Git Popular version control system, primarily for code HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web HTTPS HTTP over SSL LTS Long Term Support software version LTT Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel NAS Network-Attached Storage NAT Network Address Translation NFS Network File System, a Unix-based file-sharing protocol known for performance and efficiency Plex Brand of media server package RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage SSD Solid State Drive mass storage SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access SSL Secure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption VPN Virtual Private Network VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
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Isn’t that basically just a commercial NAS? Go buy a Synology NAS, or get fancy w/ TrueNAS. You don’t need an entry-level enterprise-grade router at all, you can just plug the NAS in anywhere and you’re golden. You can usually install a few services like Plex/Jellyfin or HomeAssistant alongside the data storage if you like.
If that’s not going to work for you, you probably have a good idea of what will work for you. For me, a tiny x86 server isn’t going to cut it, because I want a beefier CPU to run CI/CD for my programming projects, so a beefier, modern CPU is quite valuable. That’s totally overkill if all you want is a simple streaming setup with 1-2 transcoded streams.
So I think there are two main markets here:
- just give me something that works - these will flock to pre-configured solutions, like Synology or TrueNAS
- I want something specific - they’ll DIY components together to build their own custom solution
The only other group I can think of is the group that can’t afford 1 and doesn’t know enough to do 2, but I really don’t think that’s a particularly big group, and they’d be better off reusing something they already have instead of getting some off-the-shelf solution.
I could absolutely be wrong here, that’s just my $0.02.
For once I’m #1 in something 🥳
What’s the value-add over just buying a SFF PC?
Probably not much for people on a self hosting community, but those that want to get away from subscriptions and steal your data as a service cloud providers that might need some reassurance that they’ll have a working system.
