Things I Stopped Self-Hosting (And Why Cloud Won in My Home Lab)

VirtualizationHowto · Intermediate ·🔍 RAG & Vector Search ·4mo ago
In this video, I share the real-world services I stopped self-hosting in my home lab and we look at why cloud or managed solutions ultimately made more sense for me for certain services in particular. For years, my default answer was to self-host everything, and while that mindset taught me a ton about networking, DNS, storage, security, and virtualization, I eventually realized that not every service is worth the operational overhead. I walk through why I moved away from self-hosted email, public DNS, remote access gateways, push notifications, and password managers, and how stress, time, and reliability became the deciding factors. Read the written blog on this topic here: https://www.virtualizationhowto.com/2025/12/things-i-stopped-self-hosting-and-why-cloud-or-managed-won/ Check out this mini 10 inch rack for your mini PCs: https://geni.us/pRBmZ Beelink SER9 Max mini PC that is great for Proxmox: https://geni.us/rB5v3 Check out the VHT forums to get your questions answered: https://www.virtualizationhowto.com/community/ ★ Skool Community https://www.skool.com/homelabexplorers/about?ref=25f64c297b724689ae81c7dd30ba2c21 ★ Substack URL: bleevht.substack.com ★ Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrxcWtpd1IGHG9RbD_9380A?sub_confirmation=1 ★ My blog: https://www.virtualizationhowto.com ★ Twitter: https://twitter.com/vspinmaster ★ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-lee-vht/ ★ Github: https://github.com/brandonleegit ★ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/VirtualizationHowto/100092747277326/ ★ Discord: https://discord.gg/Zb46NV6mB3 ★ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/brandonleevht/ Chapters 00:00 Why I Questioned Self-Hosting Everything 01:20 When Self-Hosting Stops Adding Value 03:05 Why I Stopped Self-Hosting Email 07:10 The Reality of Running Public DNS 10:45 Internal DNS vs Public DNS in the Home Lab 13:40 Remote Access Gateways and Security Risks 17:30 Zero Trust Access for Modern Home Labs 20:55 Why I Gave Up Self-H
Watch on YouTube ↗ (saves to browser)
Sign in to unlock AI tutor explanation · ⚡30

Related AI Lessons

⚡
The Future of RAG: Dead, Evolving… or Becoming the Brain of AI?
Learn about the future of RAG, from its current state to emerging trends like Agentic RAG and multimodal AI
Medium · Machine Learning
 ⚡
Smart Routing, Transfer Family Ingestion, and Voice Chat — Permission-Aware RAG v4.2
Learn about the latest features in Permission-Aware RAG v4.2, including Smart Routing, Transfer Family Ingestion, and Voice Chat, and how to apply them in your projects
Dev.to · Yoshiki Fujiwara(藤原 善基)@AWS Community Builder
 ⚡
Most Companies Doing GenAI Are Really Just Doing RAG: RAGOps Explained for analysts
Learn why RAGOps is becoming the preferred approach for GenAI projects and how it differs from agent-based approaches
Medium · RAG
 ⚡
RAG - Sliding Window, Token Based Chunking and PDF Chunking Packages
Learn about RAG chunking mechanisms, including Sliding Window, Token Based, and PDF Chunking, to improve your AI model's text processing capabilities
Dev.to AI

Chapters (8)

Why I Questioned Self-Hosting Everything
1:20 When Self-Hosting Stops Adding Value
3:05 Why I Stopped Self-Hosting Email
7:10 The Reality of Running Public DNS
10:45 Internal DNS vs Public DNS in the Home Lab
13:40 Remote Access Gateways and Security Risks
17:30 Zero Trust Access for Modern Home Labs
20:55 Why I Gave Up Self-H
Up next
Watch this before applying for jobs as a developer.
Tech With Tim
Watch →